Thursday’s 6-pack:
— Texas A&M 80, Oklahoma 78- Sooners lose despite shooting 14-24 on arc.
— Villanova 68, UConn 66- Down 67-66, UConn missed 2 FT’s with 0:03.1 left.
— NC State 66, Notre Dame 65- Wolfpack trailed 63-56 with 3:29 left.
— Furman 67, Citadel 63 OT- Paladins narrowly avoid a big upset.
— Seton Hall 85, DePaul 80 OT- DePaul led by 19 early in second half.
— Providence 84, Butler 65- Bulldogs have lost eight games in a row.
Quote of the Day
“The hungry dog gets the bone. We got guys that think they’re way better than they are. They’re nice kids. They’re completely delusional about who they are. And the team that’s mind is on the the right stuff and hungry to get a win in conference play is the team that’s probably going to win.”
UCLA coach Mick Cronin, after Tuesday’s loss to Michigan
Thursday’s quiz
In the movie
Forget Paris, what was Billy Crystal’s job?
Wednesday’s quiz
Rick Pitino has coached the Celtics and Knicks in the NBA.
Tuesday’s quiz
Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley was Indiana’s point guard in the movie
Blue Chips.
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I love game shows; grew up watching them when I was a kid and think more of them should be on TV now, instead of the mindless talk shows with obnoxious people yelling at each other.
Thursday night, CBS is bringing back
Hollywood Squares, a great game show that was always on at 11:30 in the morning when I was a kid, just before Jeopardy!
Here are my favorite game shows of all-time……….
First of all,
The Gong Show wasn’t really a game show; it was
American Idol long before that show was on TV, but it was great fun to watch.
People came on to sing/play music; very few of them were any good. Three celebrity judges were on the stage; any of them could hit the big gong and send the performer packing. The ones who survived thru their song got scores and at the end of the show, someone won a prize.
Chuck Barris was the host; he invented The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, and as a host, he was…….different, possibly stoned half the time.
Anyway, if
The Gong Show classified as a game show, it would be #1 on this list, but it doesn’t.
13) Newlywed Game- Hosted by the sarcastic Bob Eubanks, who was very good. Married couples competed with each other to see how much they really know about each other.
All the wives would go off-stage and Eubanks would ask the husbands questions,, then the wives came back and were supposed to provide the same answer as their spouse. Then the husbands left and the same thing happened; whoever won usually got a stove or some other household appliance, “picked specially for you……”
There was a lot of unintentional comedy on this show.
12) Family Feud- Think this one is still on with Steve Harvey as host, but when Richard Dawson was the host back in the day, it was at its peak.
Two families compete by trying to outguess the other about survey results; someone would give a terrible answer, and they’d get dirty looks from their teammates.
11) Let’s Make a Deal- This show is still on with Wayne Brady as host; when I was a kid, Monte Hall was host. His daughter is the actress Joanna Gleason (Kevin Kline’s wife in
Last Vegas)
Audience contestants picked at random, often dressed in ridiculous costumes, try to win cash or prizes by choosing curtain number #1, 2 or 3. When they picked the curtain, before they saw what was behind the curtain, the host would offer them $$$ or prizes to trade for what was a behind the curtain.
“You can take this $200, or take whatever is behind curtain #2, where Carol Merrill is standing”
Sometimes the contestant cleaned up; sometimes, they traded a car for a case of canned squid.
Seriously.
10) The Price Is Right- This show has been on TV for over 50 years; contestants compete for prizes and cash, including cars and vacations, in games that test their knowledge of consumer pricing. Bob Barker was the host for over 40 years; Drew Carey is the host now.
The showcase is at the end; contestants guess the price of their prizes; their guess can’t go over the actual price, or they lose. Your guess could miss by only $1, but if it was over, you lost.
9) Joker’s Wild- Jack Barry and later Bill Cullen hosted this show for 20 years; contestants answered questions on a wide variety of topics, with the prize money determined by a slot machine-style device.
When they hit the button the slot machine started; if the host said…..”Joker, joker….and a triple!!!” that was going to be a really big prize.
8) Jeopardy!- First Art Fleming, then Alex Trebek hosted the smartest of all game shows, with actual difficult questions and smart people competing for $$$. If a person won five days in a row, they went into the Tournament of Champions at the end of the year.
When I was a kid this show wasn’t my favorite; I didn’t know the right questions.
In the movie
Airplane 2, the plane is in trouble and one of the passengers says out loud “We’re in real jeopardy now!!!!”
They show Art Fleming at the front of the plane with the Jeopardy! board and he says “Airplane Disasters for $100” and they say the name of the airplane. Very funny scene.
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Famous birthdays, January 10th:
JK Simmons, 69
Stan Javier, 61
Muggsy Bogues, 60
Joely Richardson, 60
David Costabile, 58
Chad Johnson, 47
Marcus Peters, 32
Kerris Dorsey, 27
Alek Manoah, 27
7) $100,000 Pyramid- Dick Clark was the original host; two contestants, each with a celebrity partner, must guess words from their partners’ clues; then the roles are reversed. Winners face the pyramid, where they to cash in the big prize.
This is an excellent game; Michael Strahan is the host now. People giving the clues would get flustered when their partner couldn’t get the right word. They’d try to use voice inflections as a hint.
6) Gambit- Two married couples played blackjack against each other; host Wink Martindale asked a series of toss-up questions, usually multiple-choice or true-false.
The first couple who buzzed-in and correctly answered the question won control of the top card from a deck of playing cards. An incorrect answer awarded control of the card to the other couple.
The first card of the game was revealed before the question was asked. Every other card was presented face-down and was turned up once the couple in control decided who should get it.
If a couple went over 21 and lost, Martindale would say something like: “Too much!!! and the game goes to the Ostranders!!!”
5) Match Game- When I was in high school, Match Game came on every afternoon, just after The Price Is Right. Match Game was a simpler game, a lot more laughter involved.
Six celebrities were on the panel, with Gene Rayburn as host; he would say a sentence with one word left out- the contestant would fill in the blank, and so would the celebrities. Then the other contestant got a different sentence; whoever got the most points won.
Regulars were Richard Dawson, Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly; the other three people usually didn’t give very good answers. I’m not sure I ever saw Joyce Bulifant match an answer.
Very good game.
4) Wheel of Fortune- The longest-running syndicated game show in America, with over 8,000 episodes taped.
Wheel of Fortune is based on hangman; in each round, three players compete to be the first to guess the answer to a word puzzle- they spin the wheel to determine how much $$$ they’d get for each letter they could could uncover.
You didn’t want to spin the wheel and have it land on “bankrupt” Not good.
Pat Sajak hosted this show for over 40 years, taking over for Chuck Woolery; Vanna White is still the letter-turned on the show, with Ryan Seacrest the new host.
There was a time when Sajak left to host a talk-show; former Chargers kicker Rolf Benirschke was the host during that time.
3) Password- Two teams, each composed of a celebrity and contestant, attempt to convey mystery words to each other using only single-word clues, in order to win cash prizes.
There is a great episode of
The Odd Couple, where Oscar/Felix are a team on Password, playing against Betty White— her husband was Allen Ludden, the host of Password.
Felix winds up screwing it up because…..well, he was Felix, but it was a very funny episode.
2) Concentration- Contestants matched prizes hidden behind squares on a 30-square game board, which would then reveal portions of a puzzle underneath for the contestants to solve.
If a contestant matched which prize was under two squares, they would get the prize and those parts of the puzzle would be exposed. Whoever solved the puzzle won the game.
This was an unusual gameshow; the contestants had to really think and remember stuff.
Hugh Downs was the host, before he moved on to the Today Show.
1) Hollywood Squares- Contestants played tic-tac-toe with a celebrity in each other nine squares; the celebrities would be asked questions, and the contestant had to agree/disagree with the answer given. If they were right, they get ether their letter; if not, the opponent got a letter.
Best part of the show were the snappy responses celebrities would give before they gave their real answers. Paul Lynde in the center square was especially good at this.
Peter Marshall was the host, maybe the best game show host ever; he just died last summer, at age 98.
Am looking forward to the new edition of Hollywood Squares tonight.
Also, in addition to Chuck Barris, the team of Mark Goodson/Bill Todman created a lot of these shows; would be remiss not to mention their names, to thank them for their work.
