Tic Tac Dough: Unintentionally hilarious

 The Game Show Network continues to churn out original programming and turned to a fondly remembered name in search of a modern game show audience. 

GSN's Tic Tac Dough rolled out in mid-April. I like it. It's not appointment television, it airs 30 minutes before Wheel of Fortune in my market and it's nearly summer in Minnesota, a short window of the year when it is both light outdoors and pleasant in the evening. Sometimes you have to mow the lawn. 

I have sampled TTD several times, and I find it enjoyable. And it is hilarious, albeit not obviously so.

Why I like it: The show differs from what I remember fondly during the Wink Martindale era. But it's not bad. 

Points are earned for correct answers and making a tic-tac-toe, and after two head-to-head rounds each player gets a minute to bank as many points as possible during a solo game known as the "60-second challenge round." 

There are no returning champions, so that necessitates game play moving at a quick pace. There's no time for a drawn out, epic battle between two contestants. If a game ends in a draw, no big deal. No bonus points are awarded to either player. Onto the next round. 

If the contestants are struggling to answer questions correctly and the game has gone on too long, then a time limit kicks in. The contestants get whatever points they have earned to that point and it's onto the next round. No outcome is necessary. 

The board has categories assigned to all but the center square, which is a mystery category and requires two correct answers to earn. Unlike traditional categories such as "maps of states" or "U.S. history," the categories are often less obvious, such as "home sweet home," "all the feels" or "the loan arranger."

The questions in the first two rounds seem to lean heavier toward pop culture, but not entirely. And they have multiple choice answers. In the challenge rounds, questions seem more difficult, leaning less on pop culture, and are not multiple choice. 

The first two games move quickly for a couple of reasons. In this version of TTD, the dragon is hiding behind one of the squares, and picking him equals losing your turn. Given most of the questions in the first two rounds are not difficult, finding the dragon increases the chance you'll lose the game. Likewise, an incorrect answer also makes it far easier for your opponent to win the game. And that's what GSN TTD wants, complete games, not a marathon battle of wits. 

There are special squares that pop up infrequently. If you choose a category that is hiding a special square, you will find that the question has an added element which often allows either player to earn the square. Such questions don't always speed up game play, but they will when contestant X chooses the category for a block, but contestant O ends up earning the square and winning the game. 

It's not the best quiz show, but given GSN doesn't like returning champions on its shows, they can't make the questions too difficult in the opening rounds if they want to play two games before the "challenge round." The challenge round is a trademark of the GSN formula, as it aims to ensure both players have a chance of winning the game at the start of the final round of play. For the challenge round, finding the dragon on the board takes five seconds off your clock.

Take all the points for each player over three rounds and crown your winner! Award them $1,000, regardless of their point total. 

Then there's the rather uninspired bonus round. It's basically the 60-second challenge round. But in this case the dragon is visible and moves around the board with each turn, typically delaying a player's ability to complete a tic-tac-toe. And like the challenge round, an incorrect answer takes a box out of play for the duration of the round. 

But all you have to do is answer three questions correctly in a line, sometimes with a delay in doing so because of the dragon, and you win $10,000. It's edge-of-the-seat television. 

GSN has done a good job of packing a lot into the show, and it's probably what today's short-attention span viewers want in a quiz show. It's not exactly what I'm looking for in a quiz show, but nothing is. 

I don't love the show, but it's not the worst way to pass 30 minutes. They cram a lot of game play into 20 minutes of actual show. It blew me away when I realized that its 30-minute time slot contains 10 minutes of advertising. 

Brooke Burns, who GSN loves, does just fine as host. She's good at the banter with the contestants, which is another one of those things I'm not looking for in a game show, but it's mandatory for today's viewing audiences, evidently. 

Why I don't like it: I don't hate the bonus round, and there's no rule on what a bonus round should or shouldn't consist of, but it seems like GSN bonus games are all continuations of the main game's play. I'm sure there's some GSN original that doesn't follow that format and I just can't think of it. But I'd be happy with watching a TTD bonus game where the winner's fate is determined by luck rather than trivia knowledge, like I remember from the 1980s. 

That's probably my biggest gripe. I don't mind the bonus round quiz, it's just not my preference. 

Why I find the show hilarious: The hilarity comes not from the show, but from the game show snobs who commented about it. 

I saw a couple of Facebook posts about the show when it debuted in April, and of course there were plenty of people who found the show unacceptable for all sorts of silly reasons. Some of the complaints were that the show wasn't exactly the same as the old timers fondly remember.

Hey, I liked Wink's version from the '80s, and I enjoy drawn out showdowns between good contestants, as well as returning champions. But I'm smart enough to know that nearly 40 years after Wink's version of the show went dark, the 2025 version isn't going to play the same. 

Hell, Wink's version (which he left after several years, to be replaced by Jim Caldwell for the final season) wasn't played the same throughout its run. As the years went on, the show added more of those special categories that allowed contestants to win a box when it wasn't their turn. That made it a lot harder for champions to retain their crown, of course, and effectively prohibited champions from running off 43 victories in a row, which Thom McKee did circa 1980. 

So it was OK for the show to evolve during Wink's era, but the show cannot evolve for a GSN run in 2025? 

Sure thing, old man.

Other complaints that made me laugh, in no particular order: 

The dragon factors into the regular game play. That offended somebody. (Under Wink, the dragon was merely the enemy during the bonus game.)

The game awards points rather than cash for each correct answer. No matter how many points you amass during the main game, you win $1,000 for a victory. (Under Wink, correct answers translated into cash, with the winner of the game taking the pot, which could total thousands of dollars after a multi-game showdown.)

The show needs a real set, not a "fake" one. (The game board is a big fancy video screen rather than a 1980s behemoth featuring nine video monitors.)

All of those complaints aren't deal breakers for me, but I sense they are for some longtime fans of the show. 

While not a complaint, I am amused by the lack of basic tic-tac-toe strategy demonstrated by some of the contestants. I've seen more than a few poor choices thus far. This ain't chess, the basic strategy of tic-tac-toe ain't that hard! 

I didn't see many of these, but a few comments topped all others when it came to hilarity. Those were the comments that referenced Wink. They fell into two categories.

There were two or three people who insisted Wink should be hosting the 2025 version of the show.

The guy was 91 years old when the show debuted in April, (and died during the debut week of GSN's show.) Wink seemed rather spry for his age. I don't know if he was as active as he was in radio at the time of his death, but he remained rather active in recent years, and he was one of the old timers that the media could call upon when one of his contemporaries died. 

Wink might have been able to hold his own for 30 minutes. He may have been mentally and physically younger than an average 91-year-old man, but nobody is hiring Wink, or any other 90-year-old broadcaster, to emcee an ongoing game show. That's silly talk. But there are rubes out there who think Wink should have been the host because he once held a similar job 40 years earlier. 

But the most hilarious comment was the suggestion that the first episode of GSN TTD should have had Wink present to anoint Brooke Burns as the host of the show. Yeah, some clown really thought that was necessary. 

There's a weird obsession some folks have when an emcee or host takes over an existing show. They think there has to be some sort of ceremonial passing of the microphone, or something like that. Perhaps that was done somewhere in television history, but it's not really a thing. Bob Barker didn't hand off a microphone to Drew Carey on The Price is Right. 

I think Pat Sajak and Ryan Seacrest appeared on screen together prior to Pat's retirement on Wheel of Fortune, but I doubt that made Seacrest haters suddenly decide Seacrest would be a great host of Wheel. Pat didn't give a blessing to Ryan. The decision was made regardless of what Pat and Ryan did or didn't do on stage at the end of a show. 

Yes, some old man really thought Wink's presence on the set of GSN's Tic Tac Dough was somehow important to the launching of a new show that has the same name as a show he watched in 1981. 

Game show people are weird. But you already knew that. X gets the square. (Yes, I'm mixing my game show lexicons.)

 

X gets the square, and that's not a good thing

Given my disappointment with the 2025 version of Hollywood Squares, I looked back at what I wrote last May, when I learned of the forthcoming show. What did I say then, knowing very little about what I'd see, or how disappointed I'd be with the end product? That text appears in black. My 2025 comments, responding to what I wrote seven months ago, appear in red. Additional thoughts appear at the end in purple. 

The best news, perhaps, is that CBS is planning a prime time version of Hollywood Squares next winter. So far we know Drew Barrymore is going to be the center square, and that's about all we know. We don't know who will host or how it will be staged. Forget returning champions, I suspect, but expect bigger money than we've seen in the past, most likely. I was right and wrong. Given CBS is running the show in prime time, presumably once a week, it's not hard to guess that they'd not have returning champions. I didn't expect the show to be Million Dollar Squares, but I thought that the winner of a 30-minute episode would have a chance to walk home with more than $25,000. I would have thought $25K would be a second-tier prize in the bonus game, with a top prize of $50,000, or better. But CBS must have spent too much money to coerce Tyra Banks and Drew Carey to make an appearance.

I should be excited about such a development. A classic quiz show being reincarnated for the third time, or more, depending upon how you count versions such as Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour and Hip Hop Squares. 

I should be excited, but these days I'm expecting to be disappointed. And I was, but this wasn't exactly a bold prediction. Networks don't seem to want game show fans tuning into their game shows unless they're legacy game shows like Wheel of Fortune and The Price is Right. 

I have said, time and time again, that I miss the days of the basic quiz show served with a dash of lady luck. Take shows like Hollywood Squares, Tic Tac Dough, Joker's Wild, Sale of the Century and High Rollers. They were all quiz shows in some way. Hollywood Squares was played for laughs far more than Tic Tac Dough. High Rollers and Sale of the Century had plenty of trivia mixed in with general knowledge questions. But the outcome of each game depended, to some extent, on an element of luck.

I enjoy simple shows like that. I like Jeopardy, and there's a degree of luck involved, but less so than the others. And that's the only one out there five days a week, not counting anything GSN is producing, which I don't have access to. 

We have some fun games in syndication at the moment, but nothing that's a classic quiz show, interjecting a tic-tac-toe board or dice into the outcome. I miss those. 

So I should be excited about Hollywood Squares. I hope I'm pleasantly surprised. I hope they pick a good host, one that doesn't irritate me. I'm a broken record at this point. I don't want to watch a long-in-the-tooth comedian pretend to orchestrate a game. I just want a skilled emcee, a broadcaster who isn't trying to play to the crowd every chance s/he gets, or an actor who hasn't had a big hit movie in a while but would like a steady paycheck. So this surprised me. They didn't go with a Steve Harvey or an Elizabeth Banks. They went with a broadcaster, of sorts. CBS chose its knock off of Mike Strahan to host the show. Nate Burleson if a former NFL wide receiver who works as a talking head for CBS's NFL coverage and as a co-host for the CBS morning show. I can't say I see much of his work. I don't watch much NFL studio pre-game programming or weekday morning news programs. He might be really good, but I have no clue. But his career seems to be mimicking Strahan's career, as now Burleson is an emcee, too. But instead of being a traditional emcee, Burleson acts like he's hosting game night at his mansion, where his celebrity friends and his civilian friends all gather together to mix and mingle while Burleson makes small talk with all of them. So I got a broadcaster, but not exactly what I hoped for. Jimmy Fallon hosts the over-the-top Password farce on NBC. Jimmy Kimmel hosts Millionaire for ABC. The tone of Squares is a little too nauseating for my liking, so perhaps Stephen Colbert wouldn't have been the right fit for this show. But I can't imagine staging Squares with Colbert as host would have produced a worse end product. 

But I expect the worst. The few comments I've read about the new version of Hollywood Squares didn't exactly lavish praise on its choice of a center square. I don't think anyone considers Drew Barrymore to be quick-witted or naturally funny. She's had roles in comedy films, but she's not exactly telling knock-knock jokes in Vegas during her off weeks from her current talk show. She seems to have time for a second job, and somehow a prime time game show is the best way to showcase her talent. I'm skeptical. She didn't try to take over the show as its center square. She also didn't add the quick wit and sharp humor I hope for from the center square. That's not mandatory, of course, and Drew's performance didn't do much for me, but she wasn't the most painful aspect of the show, by a long shot. 

I hope to be pleasantly surprised, and I'm not rooting against it. I'm just prepared to be disappointed, because I'm a traditionalist who doesn't need gimmicks and over production to enjoy a quiz show where knowledge is king and lady luck is queen. But I get it, I'm in the minority. Wow, I'm brilliant. The show feels overly produced, as if they coached a certain tone out of the host, celebrities and contestants. It doesn't feel organic, and, shockingly, I don't enjoy it. 

As annoyed as I am by the end product, I'm not surprised. And it's not a crime. 

I'm not a game show historian, but I know enough to know that the original Match Game was a rather straight forward game of matching words/phrases during the 1960s. The famous, beloved edition of the show debuted in 1973, and was less about wacky comedy questions and celebrity banter. But it wasn't winning over enough of an audience, and the humorous efforts of the show seemed to be connecting with the audience, so they dropped any pretense of formality in the game play and went wholly for laughs, and the show enjoyed a long run into the early 1980s. 

And lest we forget Family Feud. Richard Dawson interjected his humor as host back in the 1970s as a guy whose background wasn't in traditional radio and television broadcasting, as best I know. (I know him pretty much as a game show panelist and actor on Hogan's Heroes.) Five decades later the show is a success because of the sexual suggestiveness of some of the questions and the comedy stylings of Steve Harvey. The show doesn't appeal to me, but it's doing just fine without me. 

All of that is to say that as much as I dislike what CBS is selling in 2025, it's not a surprise. There's no reason a new version of a game show shouldn't be tweaked for a different market than past versions of the game. And CBS chose that route. I may have hoped for an end result that was akin to what some of us enjoyed from 1998 to 2004 in syndication, but no such luck. 

This is not your father's Hollywood Squares. Or mine.

Buzzr's strategies, or lack thereof, baffle me

There are all sorts of reasons why things happen, and sometimes they make sense. 

Then I watch Buzzr and scratch my head. 

Buzzr has some sort of data that guides its decisions after nearly a decade, but I'm left scratching my head periodically. 

Here are a few of the decisions, past and present, that leave me baffled. I'm sure there are many decisions that confused other Buzzr viewers. And there may be reasons, known reasons, for some of those decisions. In the world of game show fandom, plenty of people will claim they know, and state their opinion as fact. Much like the rest of the world, I suppose. 

Let's start with a big one: Buzzr is now broadcasting The Price is Right for two hours every afternoon. 

Yes, this puzzles me. I'm not puzzled by its inclusion on Buzzr. I'm not puzzled by the time slot. What confuses me is why it took so long. 

 

When I first gained access to Buzzr, I was tickled. It had its many flaws and drawbacks, but it was geat news for me. But I was puzzled. Why wasn't TPIR included in its schedule, given the streaming service is owned by the same company that owns and produces TPIR?

I had theories as to why it wasn't part of the equation. Given the show was still in production, perhaps the agreement with CBS to broadcast new episodes year after year included a provision that no other outlet could stream old episodes, from any decade. That seemed far fetched, but I couldn't think of a better reason for Buzzr to resist broadcasting the most powerful game show in its catalog on its lackluster, fledgling game show outpost. (The Game Show Network licensed TPIR during a brief period early in its history, of course, although that doesn't mean anything 15+ years later.)

I figured there had to be a way to bring TPIR in some form to Buzzr. Wouldn't it be advantageous to have reruns of past Drew Carey seasons on Buzzr in prime time? You'd draw hardcore game show fans and TPIR fans to Buzzr in a way no rerun of Match Game or Card Sharks could. Sure, you might draw 10 viewers away from the latest season of Survivor on CBS, but I refuse to believe there was a serious downside to showing Carey reruns in prime time.

And if anyone thought that Carey reruns would somehow hurt CBS, then run old Barker episodes on Buzzr. 

I just couldn't understand why TPIR had no place in the Buzzr schedule. Then, much to the surprise of many, I believe, Pluto TV lands a 24-hour TPIR channel featuring Bob Barker's early '80s episodes. 

And yet, no TPIR on Buzzr. So weird. 

We all know how this ends. Pluto eventually adds a separate TPIR channel for Carey, which only seems to air Carey's first season episodes. I rarely watch, but I have yet to see an episode with George Gray as the announcer. 

And Barker episodes not only continue non-stop to this day on Pluto, just about every quirky Pluto clone seems to carry Barker's episodes. And they're not all carrying the same episodes simultaneously. Roku's version of a free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) service, as they are known, so says Wikipedia, has the best Barker channel, as it skips some of the commercial breaks, while other FAST services seem to drop ads at every break in the show. 

And finally, after all that, Buzzr decides the time has come to add two hours of Barker TPIR to its schedule every afternoon. (Yes, there have been moments when Buzzr would show a black-and-white episode of the game from the 1950s...which bears little resemblance to the show America has known for the past 50 years.)

There are business reasons behind why Buzzr didn't drop episodes from its Barker/Carey catalog immediately, I suspect, but the fact it took about eight years and thousands of hours of non-stop streaming of TPIR on Pluto and other FAST services before Buzzr finally deemed it worthy of inclusion on its own network, I don't know. But I'd love to hear the answer. 

There are other odd Buzzr decisions that leave me puzzled, and I won't go in depth on any of those, but I'll list a handful of them in a future post. 

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.

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. By successful I mean that she got a big fat settlement at the last minute, and wasn't bought off early, with a non-disclosure clause. She took the settlement, but not a gag order, and was willing to go to trial to resolve the matter. She won, despite a settlement.

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.