The Generation Gap (TV)

(1969)
Executive Produder David Melnick*
Hosted by Dennis Wholey, Jack Barry
Wikipedia Entry
In 1969, there was much talk about the generation gap, so I suppose it isn’t surprising that it was the bases for a game show.
The concept was simple. You had two teams of three adults and three under-30s. The host would ask one team questions that would be well known to the people of the other team and see if they could answer. The other team would guess if the answering team would guest correctly.
So the younger generation would be asked questions about such things as big band music, while the older generation would be asked about such things as current fashion.  It wasn’t just asking questions: most of the them were demonstrated on stage, often, in the case of musical acts and personalities, by the people involved.*
I watched it regularly when it first came out. It turned out I was better at answering the question about the older generation than my own, but I always was a student of history.
One of the more memorable moments was when one of the younger people were given an old-fashioned “knife” can opener and asked to open a can.  In the time allowed, she could only figure out which end she was supposed to use.
The show was unusual in that it switched hosts in the middle of the run. Dennis Wholey was replaced with no explanation by Jack Barry. At the time, Barry had been off the air for a decade due to the quiz show scandals; his shows were in the middle of it all.  Barry worked hard at cleaning up his reputation, and his stint in Generation Gap was his first work as a host since the scandal.  He then moved on to host several other shows.
Generation Gap ran for 16 episodes before being killed by terrible ratings. I wish it could have gone on longer.
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*I remember Pinky Lee was on it. He should have been way before my time, a big children’s entertainer whose career ended 1955 after he collapsed on stage.  But a local TV station syndicated a new show of his in the 60s, so I was familiar with him.

GE College Bowl (TV)

(1959-1970 (Original TV Run))
Created by Don Reid
Hosts Alan Ludden (1959-1962), Robert Earle (1962-1970
IMDB Entry

Game shows can be pretty dumb. I usually prefer the “hard quiz” variety where people are asked difficult questions and have to come up with the answer.* And one of the hardest of the hard quizzes was the GE College Bowl.

The show originated in radio, where two teams of college students answered questions. When it moved to TV in 1959, the format was set.  In the first round, there would be a “toss-up” question.  If you got that question right, you would be asked a multipart bonus question on the subject that was the basis of the toss-up. You got ten points for the toss-up and different points for the bonus questions. The teams could collaborate on the bonus question. If you were wrong on the toss-up, the other team got a chance to answer. If you buzzed in before the host finished the question, that was fine if you got it right, but a five point penalty if you got it wrong.

After two halves, the team with the most points was declared the winner and the school would get money for scholarships.** If you win five weeks in a row, you were declared an undefeated champion and got extra scholarship money.

The interest in the show was the due to the quality of the questions. They were all fairly difficult and the audience had to see the teams come up with the answers.

Alan Ludden was the original host, but left to become host of Password.***  He was replaced by Robert Earle, who remained with it, staying after a switch from CBS to NBC in 1963 until it went off the air in 1970. It was a Sunday afternoon fixture until sports squeezed it out.

When I was a kid, I was able to be part of the studio audience.****  I don’t recall much of the show except the end. Earle was giving a wrap-up to the camera, but, just out of camera range, he kept clenching and unclenching his hands. It was enlightening to see someone who had done this many times before could still be nervous.

After it left the air, it was revived in various form, on radio with Jeopardy’s Art Fleming and in syndication.Eventually, though costs put an end to one of the most challenging of all game shows.

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*Or come up with a question, as the most successful of the genre, Jeopardy, does.

**$1500, which sounds pretty chintzy when you look at college tuitions today

***He’s probably best known these days as the husband of Betty White.

****My father sold GE appliances, so he had an in.

People Will Talk/The Celebrity Game (TV)

(1963,1964, 1965)

Created by Merrill Heatter & Bob Quigley
Hosted by Dennis James, Carl Reiner
IMDB Entry

From back the the radio days, there was a specific style of game show, where the game really wasn’t the point. The best-known early example of that was Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life, where the game took a back seat to the action. More modern examples include things like The Match Game. In the middle, one nice example of the form was People Will Talk.

The show, hosted by Dennis James, involved asking a group of nine celebrities simple yes-and-no opinion question. Then the contestants would pick a star and say what they thought the answer would be. If they were right, they won money.* It was not intended to be a serious discussion of the question, but the fun was having the celebrity talk about their answers.

Typical questions were “Should there be a different speed limit for women drivers?” or “Are performers really more self-centered and temperamental than other people?”

The show only lasted six months in its original run in 1963. But the next year, it was back again under the name The Celebrity Game. Carl Reiner had taken over as host, but otherwise it was the same as before.

The most memorable part of the show for me was on episode where the question was “Should a man wear a toupee?”  It was the second question of the show, and during the commercial break Reiner, who had always worn a toupee, appeared without it.**

The second run wasn’t much more successful than the first, and was cancelled after five months.

But things weren’t done yet.  It was revived once more a (with Reiner again) in the spring of 1965, probably because it was a relatively cheap filler for a terrible timeslot.***  And it also showed up in reruns in the daytime of late 1967-68.

It clear that creators Heatter and Quigley loved the concept, and finally were able to make it work, when, the next year, they hit the jackpot with nine-celebrity model in The Hollywood Squares.

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*A $100-dollar top prize!

**This was before the classic Dick Van Dyke Show episode where, as Alan Brady, he appeared sans rug.

***Opposite Hazel and Peyton Place.