In memory of Game Show Follies

I was a daily reader of a quirky game show blog called Game Show Follies. 

In the early years of the internet, I was a regular reader of a game show blog run by a guy named Steve Beverly. Steve has a diverse resume in broadcasting, and he is a big fan of game shows. As I recall, he launched his website to gather and disseminate all sorts of game show news in the late 1990s. I visited it frequently. 

Steve discontinued that website after several years, and despite my unwavering love of game shows, I didn't replace Steve's website with another. There were alternatives to get my game show fix online, but nothing seemed to capture my attention in the same way that Steve's website did. 

Until years later, when I stumbled onto Game Show Follies. 

I discovered it by chance one day during a Google search for some game show topic. A link to an entry at Game Show Follies was amongst the search results, so I took a look at the blog and soon became a regular reader. 

The blog had been around for years at that point, and yet I hadn't stumbled upon it until that day six or seven years ago. Whenever I found it, it took a while before it became habitual reading. But it became a daily destination within a few weeks or months. 

Game Show Follies featured one man's daily musings about the world of game shows, allegedly. The listed author's name was Casey Abell, and almost every day the author would post an article. Once in a great while he would miss a day. And once in a while he would post twice in one day. 

I never took notes, as I never considered I would reflect upon my years of reading, and commenting, on the author's daily postings. But I certainly wish I had saved screen shots of some of the most memorable, and ridiculous, posts in the long, glorious history of Game Show Follies. They were both brilliant and brutal. 

I wish I had screen shots because the blog's author dumped years of writing. After announcing, quickly and unceremoniously, that the author was retiring from the blog immediately, the author zapped thousands of blog posts spanning more than a decade, about a week after retirement. Erased from existence with a click of a button. Sure, I can probably find random memories from the blog at archive.org if I search for them, but that would require effort. No thanks.

I'm going to guess that most readers who perused the author's ramblings have wacky memories akin to mine. At times Game Show Follies was like a car accident. You couldn't look away. 

Early on I had a sense that the author of the blog had a penchant for talking down to her/his audience. It wasn't every week, but it occurred often enough.

I don't remember the comment, but the author's tone in making the comment certainly suggested the author was smarter than the readership, and that you were foolish for holding your opinion. 

So I came up with a stock response that I started using. I would comment on a blog post with some sort of response about how I don't know what to think about the subject, but perhaps I would be told what I should think... or something close to that. It didn't take long for the author to take offense to a redundant comment that suggested the author was arrogant in her/his thinking. I was quickly warned that my malfeasance would not be tolerated. 

What fun is it to be king or queen of your kingdom if you don't berate the peasants once in a while? 

The author liked to make assumptions and generalizations about readers, as well. (Don't we all?) If you didn't like Steve Harvey's shtick, if you didn't think sexual innuendo was hilarious, you had to be an "older is better" viewer. If you didn't like today's overproduced, overly dramatic games with hosts who think they're as important to the show as the game, you were a dinosaur who only lived for the past. 

It was an idiotic conclusion, but I was labeled as one of the "older is better" crowd in response to some comment I made, probably about Family Feud. The game is relatively dull, and has been for decades. With or without sexual innuendo, it's just not very entertaining until you get to the bonus game. 

There's no debating that a show I've found to be dull through multiple hosts is doing well more than four decades later with Harvey at the helm. I watched it plenty in my youth, but as an adult, it fails to entertain me. But I can't find a show to be slow and boring for decades unless I'm an "older is better" guy. 

Yeah, that's the kind of flawed logic that permeated throughout the blog for years. 

Conversely, I agreed with the author about its GSN knockoff, America Says. It took years for me to watch America Says, as I haven't had a cable television package for about 15 years now. But America Says is a lot of fun. It's a fast-paced version of Feud, the host isn't trying to do improv comedy during the show and the questions aren't filled with lame sexual innuendo. If I was 17, I'd find Harvey's Feud to be hilarious. I'm not. Irony, newer is better when it comes to the Feud format.

So how else was his blog both memorable and ridiculous? 

Comment moderation

I have accused the author of kayfabe, a wrestling term that means to present a staged performance as authentic. Pro wrestlers usually don't hate each other outside of the arena. They're working together and are often friends. But they want you to believe they really hate the other guy when they don't. That's kayfabe. 

The author had weird polices and procedures over the years when it came to moderating her/his comments. S/he contradicted her/his fluid policies periodically. I accused her/him of hypocrisy. S/he was outright fraudulent at times in what s/he said and did when it came to her/his blog comments. Sometimes the only explanation was kayfabe.

When I started, there was no comment moderation, as I recall. If you submitted a comment, it showed up on the blog post. 

This allowed for a lot of idiocy, and readers long before me were already jerking the author's chain. I don't recall if s/he was deleting comments or not, but s/he did have a policy regarding profanity on her/his blog. I appreciated that, as it's really unnecessary in the world we live in, and it adds nothing to a game show discussion. It just doesn't. 

At some point, the author was getting hit with a lot of nonsense. I don't recall if it was insulting, offensive, profane or simply pointless. The author issued some sort of warning, which only stirred the hornet's nest. As more ridiculousness spewed forth, the author would respond with some silly comment like, "I'm really getting upset!" Seriously, that was the tone of the response. And I'm supposed to believe that the author's actions weren't kayfabe?

Well, that soon ushered in an era of moderated comments. No instant gratification any more, and the author was now the ultimate gatekeeper. 

Yet the absurdity continued. 

The author liked to cite terms and conditions of the blog, golden rules s/he proclaimed s/he would live by when it came to comments on the blog. These were nothing more than rules posted on the blog that could be applied arbitrarily when the author was in a cranky mood, and proved that the author was really just a hypocrite.

One of the rules was "no spam," or something akin to that. That's great, except there's no definition of what is or isn't a spam comment. I would submit silly comments sometimes just to see what kind of mood the author was in. Some of which I knew would be rejected. I'd type all sorts of nonsense, including claims of drinking and intoxication. 

I'd also pass along feedback, a news tip or send other info that wasn't important to have displayed in a blog comment. When I'd submit such info or feedback, I'd start the comment with profanity, and sometimes note the comment wasn't for posting. The author didn't edit comments before publishing them, so they wouldn't be posted. Worked out well for both of us. 

There were comments that weren't published, however, that were sans profanity. They'd be simple, vague comments. For a while I was submitting comments simply praising the great work. Nothing about the daily blog post, just a compliment. Eventually those stopped being posted, because the author deemed them to be spam. What a clown. Generic praise on a daily basis was spam? Kayfabe or hypocrisy. Take your pick.

When I deemed the author mentally unstable at one point, I stopped commenting for a while. Eventually I started making occasional comments. I posted some of the same ridiculousness that had been deemed spam months earlier, in part because the author had started approving ridiculousness from others that should have been rejected under her/his fluid, goofy terms and conditions.  

And to my surprise, my silly comments started to get approved. Why? Who knows, other than the fact the author was a hypocrite whose terms and conditions were fluid. I even commented that it was good to see hypocrisy was back in play, and the author approved such a comment. It had no relation to the blog post I was commenting on, but s/he approved it. Maybe dementia was starting to set in and s/he forgot the edict s/he had made long ago. 

I included a reference to hypocrisy in my daily comments for a short period months or years prior, as the hypocrisy in the author's actions showed up occasionally on her/his blog, and I had seen it multiple times at that point. One day I got the stern warning that if I dared to reference hypocrisy in the future, my comments wouldn't be approved. There's an old saying about the truth hurting. 

I wasn't the only person who was subjected to the author's fluid terms and conditions, for the record. 

And I get it. If you have a blog that is generating daily traffic, you're going to have to hassle with a bunch of crap, just as anyone with email has to sift through and delete spam on a recurring basis. It's hard to police every blog comment and apply your general rules and regulations exactly the same. That's human nature. But the author was bad at it. It was as if kayfabe was in play.

It was as if the author was trying to be a puppet master, using hypocrisy to evoke a response when s/he needed entertainment, logic or past precedent be damned.

As for why I stopped commenting for a while: As I said, the author seemed mentally unstable. And at one point s/he was outright fraudulent in her/his representation of me in the blog comments. So I decided it was time to stop commenting for a while. When somebody exhibits signs of mental instability, you give them space. (I'm sure s/he would say the same thing about me.)

I don't remember what irritated me about her/his actions, but I had been responding to the blogs on a recurring basis for a while, with no ulterior motives. Nothing about my responses was intended to get the author going. Whatever set her/him off, s/he reverted to her/his ridiculous ways. I didn't ignore that in my comments. 

S/he must have been rather angry, depressed or bored, because in response s/he printed portions of my previous comments that hadn't been approved for the blog, stuff I wrote just to see what level the hypocrisy meter was at on a certain day. It was definitely nonsense, which s/he would classify as spam. It would be out-on-context stream of consciousness based upon something unrelated I had just looked at or read, perhaps with alcohol and intoxication references peppered in.

Printing unpublished comments and trying to use them to mock me was her/his way of trying to make me look bad, ridiculous or otherwise. This wasn't the first time the author tried to misrepresent me in a blog comment. And I'm convinced that's what s/he was trying to do again. Hypocrisy and kayfabe aside, s/he wasn't an idiot. S/he may have acted like one occasionally, but s/he knew what I was doing when I submitted nonsense that was certain to remain unpublished. 

Instead of an intelligent counter argument to my criticism, the author opted for fraudulence. At that point I decided I wasn't going to comment for a while. 

If you see a person on the sidewalk as you're walking down your street, and that person is acting mentally ill, do you engage with the person, or do you try to give that person space and avoid contact if at all possible? I'm not a social worker, so I chose the latter. 

I kept reading the blog, I just didn't bother to comment. After several weeks, I disagreed strongly with a position s/he took on something. So I finally commented, ending my sabbatical. And how did the author respond? S/he tried to portray my comment as my typical response. Noting I had been absent, s/he bemoaned my contrasting opinion as if that's what I always did, as if I always disagreed with her/him.

I didn't resume commenting regularly at that point, but for fun one afternoon not long after her/his misrepresentation of me, I looked back at about a month's worth of her/his blog posts before I took my sabbatical. I commented on almost every blog post leading up to the sabbatical. My comments shared my memories of a topic or my opinion on the news topic of the day, but comments suggesting the author's opinion was flawed, wrong or pure idiocy were nowhere to be found. But yeah, I was always taking up a contradictory opinion to her/his opinions. 

Lying to the readers or lying to herself/himself: Only the author knows for sure.

I guess it wasn't kayfabe, as I'd have to have been in on it for it to be kayfabe. The author was simply a fraud on a recurring basis. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. 

Funny stuff

Let's not forget that the author liked to act all high and mighty on a periodic basis. 

People would take cheap shots at her/him from generic Google accounts. Some readers had names attached to their account, but plenty did not. The author liked to ridicule those who didn't declare their full name on their Google account. If your name is Donald John Trump, you had better not set up your account to display your name as Dictator Donny, not if you wanted to contradict or criticize the author in any way. If you didn't spell out your name, you were chastised for criticizing the author. 

The irony in this is twofold. One, I had emailed the author a couple of years prior, passing along legitimate news fodder for the blog. My display name on the blog was generic, but I included my full name and made it relatively clear who I was in my email.

Despite the love/hate back-and-forth we had going, I never had contempt for the author. But I never got an acknowledgment of my email. The author would eventually claim s/he had never received it. 

But yeah, I was among the anonymous. 

The greater irony is that the author used a pen name, and admitted to it, if you can believe her/him. 

 "Casey Abell," we would be told, was a pen name for Ralph Abell. The author also provided links to a rather generic Linked In page under Ralph's name, and a link to a Twitter account that had no meaningful info, and had sat unused for some time. Ralph, as the author would frequently be called, may have still been lying about her/his identity, using somebody else's accounts and claiming that as her/his identity. That's far-fetched, of course, but not out of the realm of possibility. 

And Ralph had a couple of photos on the blog over the years, allegedly portraying Casey. A head shot and then a family photo. Again, doesn't prove anything legit, but it could have very well been the author. I barely ever Googled Casey's name along with the Texas town s/he claimed to live in to see if there was evidence s/he was being honest about who s/he was, but little turned up when you did. 

At the end of the day I would have bet my $5 that the author was being honest in portraying herself/himself, but s/he was overly upset about anonymity on a blog, and for much of the time had portrayed Ralph as somebody named Casey. That's what you call a hypocrite, and that's why I refuse rule out the idea that Ralph isn't a pen name, as well. 

There were a few other funny things when it came to the author. S/he was ripped by another blogger for her/his "laugh it off" response to women who are subjected to internet harassment. I never knew this at the time, but it was pointed out on her/his blog at some point by another reader. I don't need to weigh in with an opinion, but the fact that the author would get upset about stupid comments made toward her/him on her/his blog, yet once told women to laugh off such comments, is hilarious. And sad. 

Perhaps the funniest moment was when s/he referenced a celebrity from a long-ago appearance on The Dating Game. I think it was Farrah Fawcett. And somehow the author made it clear that s/he didn't realize Farrah had died years ago. That can happen, of course, but the way it read in her/his blog, and the flack s/he got for the comment months later was damn funny. 

Big fans

There were plenty of people who didn't think the author was particularly brilliant, or worth the time of day. 

Here's a comment I found from 2018 on a forum called Golden Road: 

"I've read some of his posts and his tone is mocking of pretty much the entire fandom. And not in a funny way- it's mean and rather stupid. He seems to actually despise game shows with terms like "moldy oldies" (any old game show), makes fun of buzzr on a regular basis for not being a "real network" and looking for the first sign of failure, takes constant shots at buzzerblog, the game show forum, golden road and game show garbage.

It could be he is jealous, because those forums he trashes actually have views and comments. Abell only has about two or three people actually reading his blog. Going back, the only entries with many comments are trolls and those insulting him.

Oh, and Casey, since you're apparently reading this, telling the whole world that you Googled me because I had a reaction to you that you didn't like is more than a little creepy."

The author did like to pick apart discussions on other forums and explain why those discussions were flawed and predictably biased. It was a strange obsession. 

I think the author had plenty of blog traffic. Was that 100 visitors per day or 500? Don't know. But it was far more than 2-3.

Whatever the readership was, I'd wager $10 that the majority of the readers wouldn't call themselves fans of the blog. 

The end

As ridiculous as so many of the author's posts and responses were over the years, I'm sorry to see her/him go. It was a daily commitment by presumably one author for many years. That's amazing. It's game shows, it's not that important. But the author found something to write about and presented simple nuggets of info and opinion consistently. That's impressive. Sure, some of those nuggets were picking nits over opinions in another forum. But s/he did other, more creative stuff to fill the void, as well. If there was nothing current to write about, s/he would pull up a wiki entry about an old and/or forgotten game show and share a tidbit or two about what was written. 

Whoever the author was, whatever her/his motivation, I'll never know. S/he shared writing on a consistent basis, and I admire that. S/he was either a puppet master or mentally unstable. I certainly know which one I'd wager my $20 on. Despite that, I'll applaud the effort to put her/his writing out there, no matter how foolish or idiotic some game show experts will claim it was. 

I didn't expect the end to be so sudden, unless the author died. And maybe s/he has in the months since the blog ended. We'll never know. But it's a shame that years worth of effort were pulled from the blog a week after her/his retirement. Not every piece of prose needs to be preserved in perpetuity, but after all those years of writing and making it available, why pull it down now? (I can think of one possible, reasonable answer.) 

Whatever the reason, I had to spend a couple of hours memorializing the wacky, weird world of Game Show Follies. I started this weeks ago, put in a couple of hours of writing and still wasn't done. It took me months to finally sit down and finish it off. It is done. You might think that the author's blog wasn't worth five minutes of memorialization, and you might be right. But I'll never forget the weird, wacky world of Game Show Follies, and I will not be the only one. Now we can all look back and laugh, together, assuming anyone ever finds this blog post. 

Rest in peace, Casey Abell. 

The fallacy of continuity

I previously wrote about my disbelief that local Jeopardy! affiliates were begging for one host of the daily syndicated game for the sake of precious viewer continuity. 

Having two hosts of any show is going to be divisive, I suppose. Jeopardy's executive director, Michael Davies, confirmed that Ken Jennings was a better host than Mayim Bialik, but he couldn't just say that. Saying the man was better at the job than the woman, you can't do that. He had to soften the truth by suggesting the affiliates, and other unspecified interested parties, were dialing up the Sony hotline, begging for one host or the other, all in the name of  "consistency."

Consistency and continuity are not the same thing, but they're close enough for my purpose. 

There's some fallacy that we need consistency and continuity in our game shows. I don't buy it. I'm calling BS.

I've already outlined why I don't believe the crowning of Jennings as king of the syndicated, daily Jeopardy! program was about consistency. 

Irony, Sony's other syndicated workhorse, Wheel of Fortune, is spawning similar claims. 

I dispute several claims, some preposterous, regarding Wheel and its pending transition from Pat Sajak to Ryan Seacrest. I won't cover all those today, but one of them is the fallacy that Vanna White needs to stick around for continuity. 

Really, without her at the puzzle board next fall, the wheels are coming off the wagon? TV's Randy West claims having White on set is really important to the future of the show. West has forgotten more about TV than I'll ever know, so if he says it's important, you best believe it. 

But I don't. 

It's really that important to have White on set come this fall? For who, the viewers?

I don't think so. At one point, we thought Sajak and White were going to walk off into the sunset together, despite the fact White is a decade younger than Sajak. 

What if they did? Are viewers going to stop watching next fall because the familiar faces aren't hosting the show? I doubt it. Highly.

Funny, when The Tonight Show went from Carson to Leno,  did they hold onto the band, announcer or cue card guy for continuity? Not that I remember. When Leno departed and O'Brien took over, what did they retain for continuity? How about when Leno left for his second time, and Fallon took over? They didn't even keep the show in the same state. 

And now I'm supposed to believe that continuity in television is so important? 

A game show is a different animal, some might argue. Yeah, it is. And what do I tune into Wheel to watch? The game, not the host. Mess with the game play significantly, change everything about the game, from the theme song to the set layout, and maybe I'll have problems watching the show. Make modest changes in the show, as has happened historically, and it won't matter if White is turning the letters or not next fall. 

Did having Rich Fields announce Drew Carey's first season of The Price is Right help me sleep better at night as Carey bumbled through his first year on the job? Not a bit. If anything, I was annoyed, and still am, that he was cut lose after one year of the Carey regime.

Some people will stop watching Wheel because they think Seacrest is a horrible human being who should burn in hell for his career success to this point. Others might start watching Wheel because they had no tolerance for Sajak's lame quips. Do we really believe that having White at the puzzle board is going to move the needle for a significant number of viewers in the positive direction? 

I don't. Wheel hasn't survived 40+ syndicated seasons because the witty banter between Sajak and White at the end of the show is some sort of comfort food for game show viewers. 

It's time to quite pretending we're all such fragile creatures.

The Jeopardy! lie?

 About two months ago I was endorsing the end of Mayim Bialik's tenure as a part-time host of the daily Jeopardy! games. 

TV's Blossom broke the news that she was no longer hosting the daily game in any capacity, and Sony quickly confirmed the news, suggesting they hoped to continue to employ her in some capacity for a future prime time stunt. Unless Jeopardy ends up in prime time 12 months of the year, I'd bet against seeing Bialik on the Jeopardy set again, but stranger things have happened. 

What puzzles me is that Jeopardy's executive producer, Michael Davies, recently spoke about this old news. I'm not sure why he was compelled to speak. Perhaps Sony likes seeing its off-camera drama covered by the media, and having Davies finally open up about old news was the best the show could muster after going several weeks without generating click bait on Yahoo. 

Davies parroted what Sony said: We like TV's Blossom, we would like to work with her again, we have no plans that call for her services, but we'd really like to work with her again. Ken Jennings is the better host, but our ratings were comparable for the daily show with both hosts. 

I've read that more than once, that neither host moved the needle when it came to day-to-day viewership. Some people really, really, really despise one host or the other -- according to comments on social media -- and some are indifferent to the host at the end of the day. I prefer Jennings, but I didn't have to boycott the show when Bialik hosted it. 

So why was it so critical to exile either Jennings or Bialik from the daily game if both were bringing in comparable ratings? Davies addressed that, and I don't believe it. 

I have read some form of this claim several times. "Over the past two and a half seasons, what we’ve heard from a lot of from television stations and other interested parties is that they wanted more consistency. They wanted a single host," according to Davies. (Yes, that quote is grammatically flawed.)

A lot of television stations? I'm skeptical. 

I don't work in TV. I have no connections to the important people at my local television stations. 

Plenty of people are not smart. I've met plenty of those people. 

It would not shock me to learn from an executive at my local NBC affiliate, the station that carries Jeopardy in the Minneapolis market, that people have called the station, posted on the station's Facebook page or sent an email to the station, lobbying for one host or the other. My NBC affiliate has nothing to do with the production of the show, of course, but never overestimate the intelligence of the local viewer. I'm sure my NBC station has had several comments about the host of a game show it broadcasts twice each weekday.

But how many people are we talking. Let's say a whopping 25% of viewers think complaining about Jennings or Bialik to the NBC affiliate would have any influence whatsoever. I suspect far fewer than 25% of viewers thought once about registering a complaint with anyone about the dual hosts. And of those who did consider it, how many actually took the time to follow through? And of the small percentage that actually registers a complaint, where will that complaint end up? At the easiest place to leave a complaint,  the station's Facebook page. (That's my guess, I have no idea how anyone actually followed through with registering their complaint.)

I have a hard time imagining that Jeopardy affiliates across the country were calling up Sony executives and the top brass at Jeopardy, bemoaning the dozens of viewer complaints they were receiving about two hosts. Sounds made up. 

Davies never said that Sony or Jeopardy received hundreds of calls and complaints from the affiliates, or "other interested parties." He claims to have heard from a lot of stations. How many is a lot? Are we talking 100 stations, or five. And what exactly is an interested party? I'm an interested party. I didn't call Davies to cast a vote, but I'm interested. 

His explanation is just vague enough to suggest there was a groundswell of support for removing TV's Blossom from the daily show. But I'll never believe it. 

It doesn't matter whether I do, or not. Davies doesn't know me or care what I think. But his need to clarify that Jennings was the better host, etc., and justify the decision by claiming affiliates were clamoring for one of the hosts to be fired from the daily show, seems quite unnecessary at this point. And again, it sounds made up. 

And if there was no fabrication regarding the groundswell of momentum for axing Bialik, then I've lost another ounce of hope for humanity. 

There's no harm in having an opinion and bandying it about on a Facebook post regarding Jeopardy. But perhaps that's not good enough any more. Perhaps Karen really did speak to the manager. 

I remain skeptical.

What is good news?

What a long, strange trip it has been. 

Casual viewers of TV's Jeopardy! wouldn't have a clue, but the online world of game show fanatics -- which can include me -- has been at war for a long, long time. 

Some of us thought Ken Jennings, a guy with no professional broadcasting experience that I know of, has been a host on Jeopardy. Others are adamant that Mayim Bialik, an actress with an extensive on-camera resume, was far superior as the host of Jeopardy. 

If you don't know how we ended up with two hosts of Jeopardy after the death of Alex Trebek, you're reading the wrong blog. 

Word circulated the other night that TV's Blossom would no longer share the job of hosting the daily Jeopardy game. She had been hosting a celebrity competition created for ABC's prime time schedule, and a big college tournament that also aired in prime time on ABC.

Bialik made the announcement via social media, evidently. Sony, Jeopardy's parent company, suggested in a statement that while she's no longer working on the daily game, the company looks forward to working with her on future prime time specials. 

Maybe the will, maybe the won't. 

In August 2021 Sony announced that Mike Richards, the show's executive producer, would replace Trebek. Bialik would be hired to host prime time specials. It was a surprise, as there was no indication that Jeopardy was going to have a consistent prime time presence. Bialik, who people seem to agree is beyond intelligent, was a guest host after Trebek's death, and somehow dazzled somebody at Sony. I didn't see whatever Sony execs saw, but I don't have to. 

There were theories as to why Bialik was so beloved by Sony rather unexpectedly. Only the execs know for sure. 

When Richards was bounced from the hosting gig after taping five episodes in late summer 2021, Sony opted to go with a temporary solution, they brought in both Bialik and Jennings as temporary hosts, splitting the duties for what ended up being just about an entire year of shows. In the meantime, Bialik began hosting prime time offerings for ABC. 

Fans, including me, thought that after a year, Sony would choose one as the full-time host of the daily game. The online fanatics made it clear on any article shared via Facebook about the hosting carousel that Jennings was far superior to Bialik, or vice versa. Some vowed not to watch the host they disliked, although I've questioned the wisdom. A bad hosts takes away from a show, but how bad does a host have to rub you in order to boycott a game show. I have noted this before: I'm weird, I watch a game show because it's an entertaining game, not because of who is hosting it. 

After a year, Sony decided to have Bialik and Jennings split the duties on an ongoing basis. That lasted almost one season. The Writers Guild of America strike earlier in 2023 resulted in Bialik bailing out on her Jeopardy duties in support of the writers. Some suggested she was part of the guild, as she might have been a contributing writer to shows she has worked on. I don't know, all I know is that some folks couldn't applaud loudly enough for her standing up for the writers. And because the writers were on strike, and Jeopardy employs guild writers for its questions, Jennings was deemed a scab for continuing to host. 

Never mind he's not an actor, or a writer, to the best of my knowledge. Maybe he is  a member of a Hollywood union. I don't know. Was he a scab? I thought a scab was a person who defied their union's strike to continue working, or took a striking worker's job. Some say it's anyone who goes to work at a job where others are striking, even if their job/union is not striking. 

I wasn't surprised by the lavish praise for Bialik from her apologists. She was doing what she believed in, or what was right. Jennings was a bad guy. 

But funny, nobody seemed bothered by all the other scabs. I never heard anyone call out the production crew of the show. I'm talking about camera operators, sound and light technicians, editors who packaged the production into 30 minutes, contestant coordinators who helped facilitate the daily competition or public relations personnel who send out press releases and handle other media duties of the show. Wouldn't they all be scabs, too, if Jennings is a scab? But nobody seemed bothered by the fact dozens of people continued to produce Jeopardy and continue drawing a paycheck. Bialik apologists were quick to vilify Jennings, but nobody seemed upset that the entire show's crew was working while writers were on strike. 

Bialik wasn't fired by Sony, but she seemed to be a bit forgotten as promotion for the new season of Jeopardy rolled out at the end of this past summer. The strike had been going on for a few months, and Jennings was the only host around. He continued hosting the daily game, but was also given the prime time gig as host of the celebrity edition this past fall. At that point the actors, represented by two merged unions, SAG-AFTRA, were on strike. To this point, no new prime time tournaments have been announced, as far as I know. 

Sony didn't say that Jennings was the permanent host of the celebrity show, which I don't expect will have a long prime time life, but it confirmed Bialik is done on the daily show. The lame excuse Jeopardy used: "To maintain continuity for our viewers."

It's not as if the duo was swapping the podium daily. They'd host the show for weeks at a time, typically. I get that folks who like one host and dislike the other are going to have trouble sleeping without hosting continuity. But it's not as if the show was turning the world upside down by having two hosts. From what I've read, neither host was clearly outdrawing the other in terms of viewership. It that's to be believed, then perhaps I'm not the only person who watches Jeopardy for the game, not the host. 

So why did Bialik get dismissed from the daily game? I've read theories. 

TV's Randy West pointed out that while she was supporting the union(s), her absence and continued favorable ratings with Jennings at the helm only helped entrench him as the host in the eyes and minds of viewers and/or Sony executives. 

Some people think her dismissal was retribution for her support of the union(s). Maybe, I don't know. But it's not as if she backstabbed Sony, it's not as if she left the production high and dry. I have no doubt Jennings was happy to take on the additional workload. Unlike other game shows, Jeopardy had two hosts. It was easy to leave Bialik on the sidelines during the strike and continue business as usual with Jennings at the helm. 

It's not as if Jeopardy had to replace its host on short notice, like Wheel of Fortune did a few years ago when Pat Sajak was ill and unable to host. Vanna White was far from smooth as host for two weeks.

I'll throw out my own theory regarding why Sony handed Bialik an early holiday bonus of more free time in her professional life: Jennings is better at hosting the show and they could no longer deny it, regardless of whatever it was that had Sony execs so enamored with Bialik once upon a time. 

I don't think having two hosts during the season was such a crime, but the fanatics have scorned Sony for the awful decision. (Most of the credit goes to Michael Davies, the current executive producer.) I don't think it helped the show. Viewers were likely to have a favorite host, and be disappointed when their favorite wasn't hosting. The ratings didn't seem to bounce when the host changed, so there's no reason to think the show was going to fluctuate wildly with the return of Bialik. 

But we like consistency and reliability in our world, typically. While I think it's a bit of a farce to claim that it was important for viewer continuity to have the same host, we value familiarity, and Sony deemed it was important, too. Simple as that. 

The $64,000 question: Will we see Bialik return as the host of some future prime time tournament on ABC?

All I can do is guess, and my guess is we've seen the last of Bialik behind the podium. And if so, I have no complaints. 

Happy birthday Bob Barker

Bob Barker was trending on Twitter yesterday. 

And that wasn't a surprise. Although it has been more than three months since he died, Dec. 12 would have been his 100th birthday. 

There has been a modest tribute to Bob's life happening in recent days of faux-cable channel Buzzr. They trotted out episodes of game shows not called The Price is Right to honor Bob. Bob appeared on a few game shows that weren't his own during his lifetime, most notably Match Game and Tattletales. Buzzr got a lot of play out of them.

Although Buzzr does not air The Price is Right, it did air TPIR's very recent tribute to Bob that Drew Carey hosted. 

Barker has been a constant, however, on his own 24/7 streaming channel, launched in December 2020. That streaming channel, originally available only on faux-cable system Pluto, is also available on every Pluto clone I'm familiar with. "The Barker Era" channel has been airing an hour of first season TPIR episodes during prime time in recent days. I didn't watch a lot of those, and wouldn't watch them daily, but it was nice to see a few 1972-73 episodes, then 30 minutes in length, mixed in with the giant loop of early 1980s episodes that the channel has been churning through, and slowly adding to, since its inception. 

All of this was planned in anticipation of celebrating Bob's 100th birthday. His death at 99 turned these into birthday/memorial celebrations. 

I'll always appreciate Bob's natural skills as an emcee and general personality as a host. He was a lot of fun to watch growing up, and I was lucky enough to see him host six episodes of TPIR in my lifetime. I'm bitter I was never called as a contestant, but that's another story. 

As most tributes go, Bob is remembered fondly and praised for his work. And that's deserved. 

I don't despise the man, I don't refuse to watch him in perpetual rerun. But I don't sing his praises, either. 

I remember being slightly stunned when I first started watching early '80s TPIR episodes three years ago. It was a different time, we had different sensibilities, I am well aware. But I was a bit surprised to hear Bob's sexist remarks on the show. Were they criminal? No, but they wouldn't fly today. 

Bob would occasionally remark and lavish praise, so to speak, on young women who might find their way on stage alongside him, particularly if they were wearing short skirts. He'd make simple remarks, such as how a woman was much more interesting once she could be seen fully on stage next to him, or how the camera operators were so interested in a contestant. Far from criminal, but a bit creepy. 

One other comment that Bob made in the early '80s that stands out: A contestant on stage noted that she worked as an aerobics instructor. Bob remarked that TPIR could use her, as they had a lot of fat women at the show. He specified women. The audience leered a bit, I think. 

I don't care if it was a more tolerant era, there's no pretending that wasn't tacky and insulting in the 1980s. 

Bob got older, times changed and by the time he retired in 2007 he wasn't openly leering at young women, not that I recall. I'm sure he wasn't unique in his views and comments back in the early '80s, and watching him four decades ago will make me cringe occasionally, but I can accept some of his lesser moments in broadcasting. I am not without fault in my life, and I have to live with myself. I can live with Bob's faults, too. 

But the reason why I don't celebrate his career and endorse him as my favorite game show host of all time is because, like too many successful, powerful men in television, Bob took advantage of his position. 

Nobody has ever accused him of actions comparable to those of Bill Cosby, not that I recall, but during the 1990s his name was bandied about by former models and/or employees of the show who claimed Bob was less than honorable in his dealings with them. Bob may have been the host of the show, but I seem to recall he was given some executive power as time went on, which is not unheard of. With that power, a near 70-year-old Barker ended up having some sort of relationship with model Dian Parkinson. 

I haven't read a lot of extensive reporting on Bob's legal issues from the 1990s, but Dian was eventually terminated. She filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Barker as a result. Allegedly the legal wrangling would affect the other models on the show, as the women were asked to protect the show through their testimony, and their failure to adequately do so resulted in their dismissals, as well. 

It was a tangled web that spanned several years. How much was Barker guilty of? I don't know, but I'm a big believer in the smoke/fire analogy. Model Holly Hallstrom's successful lawsuit in 2005, 10 years after she was dismissed from the show, certainly makes me think Bob was less than an honorable guy when it came to the models who worked alongside him. 

Bob was a great emcee and an engaging personality. He had incredible success hosting two long-running game shows during his career, with the first being Truth or Consequences, which he hosted for nearly 20 years, the last few concurrently with this Price is Right tenure. He'll always be listed among the greatest game show hosts of all time. And deservedly so. 

But I can't celebrate his longevity and forget how he tarnished his legacy during the 1990s. If nothing else, his would-be 100th birthday reminds me, again, that even beloved, successful people are not without their flaws, too. 

What is "Exhausted?"

I swear this will be the last thing I write, good or bad, about the future of Jeopardy.

I'm not exactly blogging on a daily basis about game shows, but I'm bored with the ongoing saga that is the Jeopardy host search. 

I wrote about names being floated as a potential new host more than two years ago. I was satisfied with the choice of a game show executive and occasional emcee, Mike Richards, being chosen as the new host. Disappointed, I was, but satisfied. 

And then 36 hours after I recorded a podcast, during which I endorsed the choice of Richards, despite some scrutiny of his past, it all went drastically wrong for Richards. And here we are. 

Nobody cares what I think when it comes to who's next, but here I am, nonetheless. 

I no longer care. I'll watch it, or I won't. Either way, it just doesn't matter to me any more. 

I didn't care for the parade of guest hosts on Jeopardy, and I wasn't offended by it. I read way too many articles the past several months about which host was the best, who might be in the running or why a few fans of the show were dying to see LeVar Burton host the game. It was amusing. 

I'm officially bored with the stories, speculation and questionable reporting about what will happen next. 

I grew up watching game shows, in an era where they may have been a dozen being produced on a consistent basis for daytime and syndicated television viewing. I watch game shows for a good game, or a fun game. I don't watch because of who the emcee is. I liked some emcees more than others, but I can't recall ever ignoring a game show because I had no appreciation or respect for the host. 

Today's weird world of televised entertainment has changed all that. So be it. I'm one viewer, nobody needs me. 

Jeopardy is an established game show. It has ascended to some sort of god-like status that I never imagined in 1984. The host is no longer just an emcee. Somehow the host is now a deity. I guess I've been in denial of that. 

All I want is an emcee for the game. Somebody competent and personable. Viewers today must look at the hosts of game shows as entertainers. Too often we see comedians hosting shows, not emcees. You can be both. You can be one, and learn to be the other. But all I want is an emcee. I'm weird. 

I won't boycott Jeopardy if Mayim Bialik is the new, full-time host. And I'm sure she'd love the job if it is offered. 

Allegedly she had been the first choice of the Sony honchos in charge of Jeopardy, but it wasn't going to work with her latest sitcom obligations. I'd wager $2,000 she'd dump that sitcom as fast as possible if it meant she could land the Jeopardy gig outright, rather than the prime time specials and future projects she has been offered thus far. Jeopardy has the potential to be a long-term gig, and it's unlikely any sitcom role she has or will be offered will ever offer the potential of job security the Jeopardy gig promises. 

The renewed search for a new host suggested early on that it was Ken Jennings' job to lose. I think he would have been the first choice previously if it weren't for the fact he's periodically both unfunny and offensive on Twitter. Articles of the past week suggest that's the case.

I've read plenty of handicapping of what Jeopardy might do next, after it airs one week of shows that Richards hosted, and three fill-in weeks featuring Bialik. Some opinions, not surprisingly, lobby for Bialik. Some say Burton should now get the gig. 

Both were OK during their run. I barely sampled Burton's efforts during the week he was a guest host. In both cases, I was reminded I was watching an actor hosting a game show. I don't want to watch an actor host a game show. I want to watch an emcee.

Hire an emcee for the gig. Jennings doesn't fit the mold, but he's not an actor. He's still a better choice than Bialik or Burton. 

When the decision is finally made, and we move on as a country, I'll watch, or I won't. Either way, I am done caring about who the next host is, because I'm not the viewer Jeopardy is worried about. I'm a guy who wants to watch a good game show, and that's not the audience the honchos at Sony are catering to. 

I'll let people know I like, or don't like, the next host, and leave it at that. 

What is "Disappointed?"

Count me among those are disappointed that Ken Jennings isn't going to be the new host of Jeopardy.

He seemed to be the choice of many game show enthusiasts, based upon the wacky online world I navigate. 

Perhaps the most famous champion in Jeopardy history, Jennings seemed poised to make the improbable leap from contestant to host. He catapulted to a level of celebrity we seldom see by game show contestants. Plenty of people get their 15 minutes thanks to a game show, I can't recall any contestant who has become more of a household name than Jennings, thanks to a game show, in my adult life. 

But today we learned that, indeed, Mike Richards is the new host. (Who?)

Did Jennings lose out on the job because he has been less than perfect on Twitter? How much those insensitive/offensive quips/jokes years ago played into the decision, we'll never know. Or did Sony, the parent company of Jeopardy, choose another Alex Trebek simply because that's the right thing to do? 

Richards, our new host, doesn't have the name recognition of a Bob Barker. But he's not a bad choice, and not entirely surprising. 

The guy has a healthy resume, and it's primarily in game shows. He has at least one "reality" show on his resume, as well, and most of his career has been behind the camera. He has hosted a couple of traditional game shows on the Game Show Network, but he brings no familiarity to most casual game show enthusiasts. I wouldn't be surprised if most Jeopardy viewers had no idea who he was until he took a two-week turn as a guest host, immediately following six weeks of hosting by Jennings. 

While there was speculation that Sony might choose a celebrity to take over the show, I doubted it. Several news anchors/broadcasters took a turn at the podium in the past several months. Once upon a time, game shows looked to such folks as possible hosts for a show. Jeopardy certainly could have offered the gig to a broadcaster, but I didn't think any of the guest hosts they trotted out were likely to leave the gigs they have for the Jeopardy job. 

I didn't expect NFL malcontent Erin Rodgers would get the job, either. He did fine, and he would have loved the gig. He might have even been willing to retire if the job was offered to him on that condition. The guy loves swimming in the celebrity pool when he's not playing football, and having a potential long-term gig as the host of Jeopardy would have ensured his place among the Hollywood glitterati, potentially for decades. 

Rodgers would have brought a few new eyeballs to the show, I suppose, but he might have rubbed a few of the hardcore Jeopardy fans the wrong way. He did just fine as a guest host, and would have been fine as a long-term host, I suspect. But at the end of the day, it seems appropriate that Jeopardy is helmed by somebody who brings an air of authority to the proceedings. 

And Jennings would have done just that. 

Yet they went with Trebek 2.0.

Everybody raves about how effortless, precise and flawless Trebek did the job for nearly four decades. I concur. And he was pretty good at it back in the 1980s, as well. But I doubt many people looked at Trebek as an intellectual elite in 1984. The guy was a Canadian refugee, and a somewhat successful game show host when Jeopardy returned to television with him at the podium. 

I was familiar with Trebek when Jeopardy launched its current run. I was watching game shows, and I had seen him host a couple. He had about 10 years of television experience in the United States, and gigs prior to that in Canada. And his greatest success in the United States was High Rollers, a show that ran for a few years under two separate runs. It was a dice game with general knowledge and trivia questions, far from the mental exercise that Jeopardy runs its contestants through. 

Trebek had hosted a couple of cerebral games prior to Jeopardy, but he didn't bring any great intellectual cachet to the proceedings. He was a solid, well-traveled emcee who turned out to be the right host at the right time. 

Richards has a long resume in the industry, too, and he is a lot like the guy he is replacing. He's a polished, experienced emcee. History has repeated itself. 

Some of the game show experts have chimed in online today. And by experts I'm talking about people like me, who don't work in the industry. The experts think Jeopardy's announcement that Richards will host the daily game, and that actress Mayim Bialik will host previously unannounced prime time specials and a potential spinoff series, is Sony hedging its bets, as if it's concerned that Richards may tank, and the show will suffer. So perhaps Sony is prepping Bialik as a backup plan by having her host prime time specials.

Maybe there's an ounce of concern in Sony's plan, but most of us who watch Jeopardy didn't tune in to see if Trebek was going to make a funny quip during the contestant interviews. We tuned in to watch a competitive game, with substantial money on the line. We'll keep tuning in, and Richards will do just fine.

If anything, Bialik is the lesser of the two talents. She brings a well-established air of authority to the proceedings, and is a successful actress. As a host, I found her style to be slightly distracting during her guest stint. Was it enough that I couldn't watch the show? No, of course not. But she isn't an emcee by nature, and that's what I want when I watch a game show, especially Jeopardy.

And it's atypical these days, but it's not unheard of to have two separate versions of a show airing with separate hosts. Everyone associates The Price is Right with Barker. And for more than three decades he was the host of the daytime show on CBS. But there was a separate nighttime version of the game that ran in three different incarnations. And each one had a separate host. The most successful was the first one, which ran for about eight years during the 1970s. Barker did take over as host of that, but for its first five years or so, a guy named Dennis James was the host at night. 

The long running Pyramid game show had a similar set up in the 1970s. Dick Clark hosted the daytime show, a nighttime version was helmed by Bill Cullen. 

Steve Harvey is hosting both the regular and the celebrity versions of Family Feud, but prior to Harvey, NBC's Al Roker hosted a celebrity edition rather than the daytime host, John O'Hurley, in 2008. 

O'Hurley wasn't exactly an institution during his tenure as the Feud host, and neither is Mike Richards. If Sony is looking to differentiate special prime time Jeopardy episodes, a separate host makes sense to me. (Nobody seemed upset that sportscaster Dan Patrick hosted a few years of Sports Jeopardy, which Trebek probably would have enjoyed and had fun with, given its casual atmosphere.)

Jennings will do just fine without the gig, and I have no reason to believe Jeopardy will go in the tank with Trebek 2.0 at the helm.

I would have made different choices had it been my call. And so would everyone else who watches the show, based on the fan feedback I read during the first 12 hours of the announcement. But it's 1984 all over again, and Jeopardy will be just fine.