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.)

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Bob Barker reminds us 2020 hasn't been all bad

Here it comes, nonstop Bob Barker!

Much to the surprise of seemingly everyone who adores game shows of the past, Bob Barker is back on TV. 

Well, sort of, but nobody is complaining. 

On Nov. 30 it was announced that Barker episodes of The Price is Right would be available, 24 hours a day, through Pluto TV, the streaming television app that amazes me. 

Pluto TV is like its own cable system, and its channels are available through an app for your phone and your fancy TV. When I found it a few years ago, when streaming video apps were a hot new commodity, I thought it was an interesting concept, albeit a bit clunky. Pluto seemed like a depository for streaming channels that weren't worthy of their own app on your smart TV. The commercial breaks were usually poorly inserted into the programming, and some of the channels featured content akin to watching amateur YouTube videos. 

I've watched Pluto evolve over the years, and am a bit amazed at how it has expanded. Every month Pluto seems to add multiple channels. In some cases the channels are simply duplication of existing outlets available elsewhere, such as home shopping channels and Buzzr, a classic game show channel that is available as a diginet in many cities, including Minneapolis. (Buzzr also streams its channel through its own website.)

Other Pluto channels are dedicated to classic television shows. You can currently watch episodes of Love Boat, Three's Company, One Day at a Time, classic Doctor Who, Wings and The Addams Family, among others, any time day or night. There are also channels that feature a rotation of classic TV shows, and there's an on-demand arm of Pluto for some television shows and movies. 

And I didn't mention then news, sports, cinema or streaming music channels Pluto offers, as this isn't about Pluto. 

With little notice, it was announced Nov. 30 that Pluto was adding 24/7 Bob Barker as of Dec. 1. And for fans of yesteryear and Barker's hosting, it is glorious. 

The show is under the ownership of Fremantle, a television heavyweight that owns the catalogs and intellectual property of multiple production companies of the past. It owns a ton of game shows, including the catalog of Goodson-Todman, the prolific company that was churning out plenty of heavy hitters in the game show biz during the 1970s and '80s, including Match Game and Family Feud. 

In 1994 game show fans were gifted with a cable channel, Game Show Network, that licensed the rights to rerun game shows of the past. I will forgo recounting the roller coaster that is GSN's history, but I will note that in its early years GSN aired classic Barker episodes. But those haven't been on GSN for many years. 

More than five years ago we were blessed with Buzzr, a fake cable channel launched by Fremantle. Using its catalog of classic game shows, the free digital television channel has been running a modest selection of episodes from Fremantle's vast archive. But it has never included The Price is Right, either the Barker era or shows from the past 12 seasons featuring Drew Carey as the host. (Black-and-white ere shows from the 1950s, hosted by Bill Cullen, have shown up on Buzzr occasionally, but it's a very different show than Barker's version.)

I've never read why Buzzr doesn't carry the most valuable game show in Fremantle's catalog, but I have to assume that it has something to do with its existing contract with CBS, which has aired the show since 1972. I'm only guessing. 

So it quite the surprise to learn that Fremantle was making Barker episodes available exclusively through Pluto, 24 hours a day. 

Bob in all his glory

Bob loved chatting with the contestants.

I sampled a few hours of the show on Dec. 1, and it's as entertaining as I remember. (This is not a shock, I have occasionally watched bits and pieces of Barker's catalog through videos posted on YouTube. There's no shortage of partial and full episodes of varying quality available any time you want.)

Pluto launched with season 11 episodes, meaning the 1982-83 season. It is believed that season 11 was chosen because it is the first year the show no longer offered fur coats, something Barker wanted nothing to do with, according to many reports. 

Those early '80s episodes look as dated as you would expect, and they're still a ton of fun. From the sound of Johnny Olson's voice beckoning contestants to "come on down" to the fashions and hairstyles of the models and audience, it's all glorious. 

In the early '80s, people dressed up, at least somewhat, to attend a taping. Shorts, baseball caps and T-shirts proclaiming love for all things TPIR are hard to spot in the audience. I've seen a few people wearing jeans, and I've seen men wearing suits. Anyone wearing a suit to TPIR today would look highly out of place. 

Today's TPIR is rather streamlined, allowing for more commercials within its 60 minutes. Once upon a time, Bob bantered with contestants as they arrived in contestant's row or joined him on stage. If he was getting a good response from the audience, his banter with a contestant may last for a minute. You'd never see that today. 

Watching nearly 40-year-old episodes of the show highlighted details of its evolution that I had forgotten. Some of it is rather trivial. When the models were showing off a new car, they typically held a small sign with the manufacturer's name on it initially. I'm not sure why that was important. 

If it's not on a handheld sign, how is the viewer supposed to understand it's a Chrysler?

Today's TPIR still relies upon groceries and small household products for its pricing games. In the past, those products were plugged by name. Every last one, presumably because they paid a fee to be plugged in a pricing game. Nowadays you'll see a recognizable grocery item, but it often won't be referenced by name. This was not lost upon me, but you don't appreciate how many products were plugged until you watch a vintage episode. 

The pricing games are a bit simpler in design, and a little less flashy, than their modern counterparts, but they're still fun. Occasionally the '80s technology comes up short during an episode, and you will see some of those technical glitches in the show. I think those sorts of things still happen, but with less frequency in 2020. 

Barker played to, and off, the crowd frequently. He'd turn to the audience for a response at some point most every day, it seemed. And he'd be quick to point out when the consensus from the audience was wrong. 

He also ribbed contestants occasionally. During one episode he joked about how he had told them during a commercial break he would kick them in the ankles if they failed to spin the wheel one full revolution during the Showcase Showdown. He continued with this bit by suggesting he'd move to the knees, and then suggested working his way up toward the head. In the early '80s, this was seen as playful and fun. It wasn't mean spirited, but I suspect such proclamations from Drew Carey in 2020 might not be laughed off. 

So far I've seen a few retired games show up in moments I've watched. One was Poker Game, which was in the rotation for more than three decades and was retired in 2007. It was mostly a guessing game, but I found it entertaining. 

Make a better hand for yourself than you do for the house, and you win a prize!

Another game that showed up in 1982 was Trader Bob, a game that ran for about five years in the early '80s. The game simulates a trading post, but isn't that exciting. It basically requires players to pick the more expensive item from three pairs of small prizes in order to win a bedroom set or dining room group. 

It's Optional was another game that had a five-year run, starting in 1978. It wasn't used frequently, according to online reports, and that's probably because the contestant was playing for two new cars. The episode I saw featured two Ford Escorts. The premise of the game is to guess which options to add to the price of a stripped down car so that the price of the car is comparable to that of a fancier car, without going over. I'm guessing in most instances a contestant had to pick out about $1,000 worth of options to equalize the price of the two vehicles, with a $100 margin or error. 

It's Optional was a reminder that air conditioning wasn't standard in cars way back when. Some of the other options you could choose for your stripped down vehicle were tinted glass, cloth bucket seats, color floor mats and automatic transmission. 

It was an odd game, and I'm not surprised it disappeared more than 35 years ago. 

Pick your automotive options, and if they add up to a magic number, you win two new cars!

The Price is Right used fancy split-screen technology during It's Optional.

When I saw Pick-A-Pair, it brought back a vague memory of the game from my youth. The game debuted in 1982, but has had a different presentation for many years. The game is simple, there are six grocery items comprised of three sets of equally-priced products. The contestant has two chances to find a matching pair of items. 

Since 1988, all six products are on display on a long, flat tabletop, speeding up the game play, no doubt. In its early years, the products rotated into view on a miniature Ferris wheel, making it impossible for the contestant to see all six grocery items at the same time. 

Pick-A-Pair was colorful and slow in its early years.

The showcases bring back fond memories. Plenty of showcases weren't that spectacular in the '80s, as three was no car or truck, boat or fabulous trip to be won. But plenty of showcases offer one of those coveted prizes. 

The showcase nostalgia comes from the fact that the show used skits periodically. There's be a short story that linked the showcase prizes, and sometimes the story included props, an elaborate set or pencil sketches to accent the story. The presentation wasn't highly technical, so the props and special effects were akin to a high school theater production.  

Olson, the announcer, would sometimes appear in the skits, and costumes for some or all of the models were frequently part of the presentation. In one showcase, a model was dressed up as an organ grinder's monkey. In another, a model was dressed up as an alien.

What better way to introduce the prizes in a showcase than emulating an auction?

Illustrations about types of clubs set up the showcase prize presentation during a showcase.

There were simple showcase themes in the '80s that were abandoned long ago. One recurring showcase was a trip down Main Street. Two doors open in a dark studio, and each door has two prizes behind it. The idea was that the prizes represented a look into the storefront windows of a bustling downtown district. 

The showcases weren't mind blowing or fall-off-the-couch hilarious, but they represent a bygone era of the show, and offer nostalgic fun. Much to my surprise, one of the showcases I saw today used the Star Wars theme as its background music. From a licensing standpoint I would have assumed that episode would have remained in moth balls. 

For those that have had a love of games shows throughout their life, seeing Bob work his magic on a periodic basis is a welcome, and unexpected, opportunity. 

Fun fact: Bob celebrates his 97th birthday next week. 

Temptation, played for a car, has been in the show's pricing game rotation since 1973.

Shell Game has been around since 1974. 

A 1982 showcase features a Pac-Man arcade cabinet. I was a bit obsessed with that game and the idea of winning one on The Price is Right would have blown my mind. 

You mean Wheel of Fortune isn't broadcast live?

There are many, many important things in this world that I know little to nothing about.

And there are things I know a lot about, not because they're important, but because they interest me.

I'm not an encyclopedia of game show knowledge, but I know a lot more than the average person. And that's because game shows have interested and entertained me my entire life. I watched cartoons when I was young, but I was as interested in watching a game show as I was interested in watching cartoons by the time I was 6 or 7 years old. I enjoy the magic of animation, but I don't keep on top of what's happening in the world of animation. But game shows, I usually have some idea of what's out there from year to year, even if I don't gave access to GSN.

Several years ago I was going to Las Vegas in the fall, and it turned out that my trip would coincide with the taping of a new version of "Let's Make a Deal." For the first several months of its CBS incarnation the show was taped at the Tropicana, and I went to see it during my fall 2009 trip to Vegas. I didn't brag about this to everyone I crossed paths with. Had I been going to see "The Price is Right" then perhaps it would have warranted mentioning. LMAD is not a show woven into the fabric of society, it's not a show that everyone can relate to.

But I did mention my LMAD appearance several times, and more than once I received a strange comment in reply to it. I'd get a response along the lines of "that show is still on?" Never mind the fact it had been about 18 years since the show last aired on daytime television. Aside from a couple of short-lived, prime time attempts at resurrecting the show, (only one of which was technically LMAD,) the show had been all but forgotten by most casual viewers. And yet I heard the "still on" comment at least three times. It had just launched on CBS daytime that fall, so my snarky reply was, "Yes, after four weeks it is still on the air."

Not everyone pays an ounce of attention to what is or isn't on TV from one year to the next. Some people want to know when "Judge Judy" will air in their market, other people are far too busy to even know if the show is or isn't on the air these days, especially since so many people stream television programming and forgo traditional broadcast channels.

Last week's "Wheel of Fortune" episodes were special. It was a week saluting veterans, and it featured a couple of players who failed to solve what seemed like ridiculously obvious puzzles. It happens now and then, having it happen twice last week is not particularly notable.

But those cringe-worthy moments were compounded last week by the strange, unusual play of Nura Fountano, a player who will not be forgotten any time soon by diehard viewers of WOF.

Then came the coup de grâce, Friday's show. Given the show's typical airtime in most markets, its broadcast came within a few hours of a series of terrorist attacks across Paris, France. It was major news, and hard to escape the notice of, unless you were taking a long afternoon nap. I, and many other viewers, were aware of the chaos in Paris as our Friday night episode of WOF began.

During the show one of the trips that was offered as a prize on the wheel was a trip to Paris. Yes, unfortunate timing. When the show taped months ago, the producers decided to offer a trip to Paris as one of the prizes during a week dedicated to veterans, never knowing the city would one day be subjected to multiple acts of terrorism. And that show wound up airing on the same day as terrorism made worldwide headlines.

Plenty of people tweeted about the sad coincidence that had just unfolded overseas. Several people were outraged that the show would be so insensitive as to offer a trip to Paris when all hell was breaking loose.

Yes, there are people who have no idea that most TV shows are not live. I was dumbfounded by this. I'm guessing most WOF viewers who tweet are older than 13. And I'm not sure at what age you realize that most programs are pre-recorded, but how do these WOF viewers, casual or not, think that somehow the show insensitively offered a trip to Paris?

I questioned one woman's confusion. (She has since deleted the tweet.) She claimed ignorance, which blew me away. I questioned if she was aware that most TV shows are not live, to which she tried to belittle me for daring to comment to her directly. She also replied that "Dancing with the Stars" is live, as if somehow it's logical to assume every soap opera, prime time drama, talk show and game show is broadcast live. At that point it was time to be snarky, and I responded that I forgot teenage girls watch WOF and use Twitter. Her reply was an accusation of bullying, and pity, because she's an educated adult woman. If so, she's not very cognizant of the world around her.

There's no shame in not knowing the ins and outs of WOF, but I was amazed that allegedly educated adults in this country think the world they view through their television is always as live and spontaneous as the tweets they consume.

They say Twitter is dumbing down society. Chalk up another piece of evidence for the prosecution.