Game shows are having a banner year. The genre has had its ups and downs throughout American television history. Game shows have survived the Quiz Show Scandals and Michael Larson’s questionable game playing strategy on the original Press Your Luck. In recent years, game shows have been around, but, aside from a few failed experiments, the only games shows on network television were the daytime stalwarts – The Price is Right, Let’s Make a Deal, Family Feud, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? – and perennial hour before primetime favorites Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. With the exception of a brief period in the early-2000s where every game show wanted to mimic Millionaire’s distinct style, this once celebrated genre has largely been relegated to cable.
All that changed thanks to ABC. In 2016, the Disney-owned network decided to bring back old favorites, steadily adding more each year. In 2020, 16 game shows aired on broadcast networks. Aside from the previously mentioned daytime – including their prime time specials – and syndicated shows, we were able to watch revivals of The Weakest Link, Card Sharks, Press Your Luck, Pyramid, To Tell the Truth, Match Game, and Supermarket Sweep.
NBC is the only network currently airing shows that are not revivals with The Wall, Hollywood Game Night, and Ellen’s Game of Games. Considering game shows work best when the networks don’t mess with what’s not broken and rely on familiar formats, this is the one genre where you shouldn’t criticize networks for unoriginality. After all, the genre pre-dates TV. Most concepts have been tried in one form or another, so nothing about new game shows can be truly novel. Even the added technology isn’t an innovation, it’s simply the networks modernizing old shows. The mechanical elements to The Price is Right may add a certain charm, but they only work because those props have been used for over 35 years. It would be weird for the modern Match Game to have a guy named Earl physically remove cardboard to reveal answers unless it was done intentionally on a themed throwback episode.
Before we get into the history of the highest rated game shows currently airing in primetime. Let’s take a look at the list we have to choose from.
Primetime Syndication – Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune
NBC – Weakest Link, The Wall, Hollywood Game Night, and Ellen’s Game of Games
ABC – Supermarket Sweep, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Card Sharks, Press Your Luck, To Tell the Truth, Match Game, The $100,000 Pyramid, and Celebrity Family Feud
CBS – The Price is Right and Let’s Make a Deal Prime Time Specials
To narrow the list and avoid this article becoming a book, we have picked the 4 game shows with the highest ratings. In order they are;
- The $100,000 Pyramid (Current version debuted 2016)
Despite having six main hosts over nearly 50 year legacy, Pyramid will always be Dick Clark’s show. Clark hosted the show in various editions from its debut to 1988. Although, Bill Cullen hosted the nighttime version for 5 years while Clark worked in daytime. Over the years, Pyramid has been called The $10,000 Pyramid, The $25,000 Pyramid, The $50,000 Pyramid, The $100,000 Pyramid, simply Pyramid, The Pyramid, and back to The $100,000 Pyramid. The last three versions were hosted by Donny Osmond, Mike Richards, and Michael Strahan. The show has called ABC, CBS, syndication, and GSN home. Minor changes have been made over the years, such as whether contests need to correctly guess 7 (most versions) or 8 (very early in The $10,000 Pyramid’s run) words in 20 (Donny Osmond version) or 30 (most versions) seconds.
- The Weakest Link (Current Version debuted 2020)
NBC imported The Weakest Link, along with British presenter and former journalist Anne Robinson, from the United Kingdom in 2001. At the time, American television executives decided that all shows should want to be a Millionaire clone and come from Britain if possible. The Weakest Link is better remembered than Greed and the Maury Povich Twenty-One because it managed to hold on to a prime time slot for two years (three seasons) and another 2 years in syndication with present The Price is Right announcer George Gray dismissing contests as the weakest link. Today, you can watch The Weakest Link on NBC with Jane Lynch channelling her inner Sue Sylvester and chastising contests on the revival for answering questions incorrectly.
- Celebrity Family Feud (Current Version debut 2015)
It’s Family Feud with famous people and their families. While creating a Family Feud series for celebrities originated at NBC in 2005 and has been kept alive by ABC, Family Feud All-Star primetime specials have been around as almost as long as the regular show.
Originally conceived as a Match Game spin-off based on the end game Super Match, the Feud and its kissing host, Richard Dawson, became more popular than the show it’s derived from. Since 1976, that popularity has carried it through 45 years of revivals in two stages. Dawson’s Feud ended its run in 1985. The format was revived three years later with Ray Combs. Over the years, this version got away from the format that made it successful and added the Bullseye round at the beginning of the show. This unpopular round determined the amount each team would be playing for should they make it to Fast Money. Comb’s edition lost popularity over 7 years on air, so the producers replaced him with an aging Dawson, who didn’t have the same on camera charisma he once had. Dawon’s return lasted one season.
Five years later, Family Feud returned with Louie Anderson asking “We surveyed 100 people and the top X answers are on the board…” He would be followed by three hosts- Louie Anderson, Al Borland Richard Karn, John O’Hurley – none of whom lasted more than 4 years.
Finally in 2010, Family Feud found the right host in Steve Harvey. While Harvey’s Feud would make Combs, a man who got embarrassed kissing contestants, blush, it seems to work for a modern audience that doesn’t use “making love” as a euphemism.
- Press Your Luck (Current version debuted 2019)
For a game show about pressing your luck, Press Your Luck never seems to have much luck. Since its original incarnation as Second Chance, the format has never lasted more than 3 consecutive seasons as a first run show. Despite the relatively low number of episodes – less than 1,000 across 4 versions – compared to the Pyramids and Family Feuds of the game show world, the Whammy captured our hearts in endless reruns on USA and Game Show Network.
While the Peter Tomarken version is emblematic of the 80s and is the best known, Press Your Luck can trace its origins to Second Chance’s 95 episodes, aired on ABC in 1977 and hosted by Jim Peck. Unlike Press Your Luck’s randomized board, Second Chance’s prize cards were stationery and the game felt more like a prototype than a fully developed game. Six years later, Second Chance would get a second chance when it was reborn as CBS’s Press Your Luck. The Tomarken helmed Press Your Luck was the most successful version with 761 episodes. It’s also remembered for the biggest scandal since the quiz show scandals.
In 1984, ice cream truck driver Michael Larson cracked the Press Your Luck board’s code. The randomized board wasn’t truly random. In fact, it only cycled through three different board patterns. With the help of a VCR, Larson memorized the boards, became a contestant on the show, and took home $110,237 in cash and prizes. Fearing that Larson cheated, the Press Your Luck producers and CBS investigated. While Larson’s strategy definitely violated the game’s spirit, it did not constitute cheating. The Press Your Luck board was updated with more board options for the rest of the run until the show was cancelled in 1986.
By the time Whammy!: The All-New Press Your Luck debuted on GSN in 2002, technology had advanced enough that it became impossible to pull off Larson’s feat. This version, which had a Tomarken-hosted pilot, featured Tod Newton as host. Except for many more spaces and the board and the addition of Double Whammies, which dropped items like coffee beans onto the contestants, GSN’s updated interpretation of the show was basically the same as the Tomarken version.
Currently, Press Your Luck airs on ABC with Elizabeth Banks hosting. Aside from the prime time slot, more valuable prizes, and an expansion to 42 minutes, the Bank’s version stays true to the format fans fell in love with in the 1980s.
Will the large number of game shows in primetime survive? Only time will tell. Since most of the recent game shows survive solely because they are cheap to produce and give the networks an excuse to air something new, at least a few of them will stick around for a few years. Will they become as iconic as the original? Definitely not, although Game Show Network is probably eagerly waiting for a chance to buy rerun rights, so it has new material.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Hcg0jxr6w
