This week's anniversaries are only from December 19 and December 20. December 19th was the 5-year anniversary of the NBC premiere of "Deal or No Deal" with host Howie Mandel and narrator Joe Cipriano. The twentieth was the 45-year anniversary of the ABC premieres of "The Dating Game" with host Jim Lange and "Supermarket Sweep" with host Bill Malone and announcer Wally King. An adaptation of the British show "Million Pound Drop" entitled "Million Dollar Money Drop" premiered on December 20th on FOX with host Kevin Pollak. In the show, a couple is awarded $1,000,000 at the start of the game. They have to answer 7 progressively difficult multiple choice questions to see if they can keep the money. For the first 3 questions, they are given 4 drops, representing 4 choices. The couple is given 60 seconds to decide on their answer and put their money on the drop. They can separate the money onto multiple drops, but they need to keep 1 drop clear. For questions 4 & 5, they are given 75 seconds and only 3 choices/drops. They still have to keep 1 drop clear. Question 6 has the same rules except it has 90 seconds. Question 7 has only two drops, meaning the couple has to put all of their money on one drop. There is no time limit until they move their money. The host supplies them with a usually useless fact pertaining to the choices that gives them 60 seconds to change their mind if they want. If they are right on the final question, they win their money. If they are wrong on any question, they leave with nothing. Here are two previews of the show supplied by FOX on YouTube:
Elaine Joyce was born on December 19th, 1945, making today her 65th birthday. She was the host of "The All New Dating Game" in syndication for the 1986-1987 season.
Here are two clips of her as a celebrity guest on "Pyramid":
Here is the first post on my blog about the anniversaries of the premieres of game shows. Last Sunday (December 5th) was the 5-year anniversary of Discovery Channel's "Cash Cab" with Ben Bailey. Tomorrow (December 15th) is the 35-year anniversary of the syndicated premiere of "The Cross-Wits" with host Jack Clark and announcers Jerry Bishop, John Harlan, and Jay Stewart. December 16th is the 25-year anniversary of the syndicated premiere of "Break the Bank" with host Joe Farago and announcer Michael Hanks.
Yesterday was host Jim Caldwell's 60th birthday. He was host of the syndicated "Tic-Tac-Dough" from September 23rd, 1985 to May 23rd, 1986. Here is the episode from September 23rd, 1985:
Today is announcer Richard Wayne "Rich" Fields' 50th Birthday. He was born on November 30th, 1960. He is most famous for announcing the CBS show "The Price is Right" from 2004 to 2010. He also announced the CBS "Game Show Marathon" from May 31st, 2006 to June 29th, 2006. He currently is rotating with Johnny Gilbert as the announcer of "Wheel of Fortune".
Today is game show host Howard Michael "Howie" Mandel's 55th birthday. Howie Mandel is most famous for hosting the NBC primetime hour-long show "Deal or No Deal" from December 2005 to May 2009 and the syndicated half-hour version of "Deal or No Deal" from September 2008 to May 2010. He also hosted "The 2009 Game Show Awards" on GSN on June 6th, 2009. Here is a clip from "The 2009 Game Show Awards" and two clips of the $1,000,000 winners on "Deal or No Deal":
Today is game show host/narrator Jack Clark's 85th birthday. He lived from November 25th, 1925 to July 21st, 1988. He is more famous for his narrating, but he did host some shows. He hosted the game shows "100 Grand" in 1963, "Dealer's Choice" from 1974-1975, and "The Cross-Wits" from 1975-1980. His many announcing jobs include: "Password" from 1961-1966, "The Face is Familiar" in 1966, "Eye Guess" from 1967-1969, "Split Second" from 1972-1975, "Tattletales" in 1974, "Three for the Money" in 1975, "Second Chance" in 1977, "The Love Experts" from 1978-1979, "Wheel of Fortune" from 1980-1988, and "The (New) $25,000 Pyramid from 1982-1985. Here is part of an episode of "Dealer's Choice" & "Password" hosted by Jack Clark and when Jack Clark's death was announced on "Wheel of Fortune":
The new GSN game show revival "1 vs. 100" premiered at 7:00PM today with host Carrie Ann Inaba and narrator Bob Guiney. New episodes of 1 vs. 100 are broadcast on GSN for half an hour every weeknight (Monday-Friday) at 7:00PM and are rerun at 10:00PM. The game show "1 vs. 100" premiered on NBC in 2006 with host Bob Saget. In the game show, a contestant faces a "mob" of 100 people for the chance of $1,000,000. They had to answer multiple choice questions along with the 100 people. The contestant has 3 "helps": Poll the Mob - The contestant gets to find out how many people chose one of the three answers. Ask the Mob - The contestant got to ask two mob members, one with the right answer and one with a wrong answer, and find out why they chose it. It was shown on broadcasting that the mob members had to tell the truth about what their answer was, but could lie about why they chose it. In the GSN revival, this help is not available. Trust the Mob - the contestant has to lock in the most popular mob answer
In the first season (2006-2007), the contestant earned a certain amount of money based on how many mob members were eliminated on the question and which question it was. In the second season (2007-2008), the money tree was reworked so the amount of money earned solely depended on how many mob members were eliminated. In the third season, which began at 7 o'clock earlier, the money tree was very similar to the one from the second season, except the money values are different, with $50,000 being the top prize. Here are the money trees:
