Not dead

OK, I know, it's been forever since I posted.  I'm not dead.  I got caught up with work, then went to L.A. on vacation for a week, and then caught a virus when I got back.  But I'm here now.  I did two awesome game show related things in L.A.  First, I was in the audience for a taping of The Price is Right, which I'll blog about in the next few days.  Second, I got to visit the L.A. branch of the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills.

The Paley Center rocks.  It's a public broadcasting archive with hundreds of thousands of TV shows that you can pull up and watch, including hundreds of rare game shows.  Somehow if a kinescope or two inch quad escaped NBC's bonfire, it found its way to the Paley Center.  I've been to the one in Manhattan, where I watched original NBC Concentration and H0llywood Squares.  In New York they limit you to an hour.  In L.A., there's no limit except my wife's limited tolerance for television.

For this trip, I selected two more long lost NBC classics.  First, I was treated to a color episode of original The Match Game from 1969.  Guests were Tony Randall and Peggy Cass.  The game was a lot of fun and Gene Rayburn looked and acted much more like himself than in the earlier NBC Match Game episodes I have available in my personal archives (see my website), which are from 1962 and 1964.  Also, the questions were much closer to those to be seen in the more well-known CBS Match Game of the 1970s.  It was great.  Johnny Olsen announced.

The second episode I saw was a kinescope of a "Test Episode" of Art Fleming Jeopardy.  It was really interesting.  It supposedly a pilot-type episode, but they announced one woman as the returning champion.  The set looked the same as the one from the Fleming Jeopardy in my personal archives.  However, the gameplay was slightly different -- they took the question and answer concept much more seriously.  To give an example, one category was "Television."  The $20 answer was "In the 23rd Century."  The players actually had to figure out the question:  "In what century is the series "Buck Rogers" set?"  Whereas the modern show (and even the later Fleming show) would have had a clue that read something like, "This sci-fi hero was transported to the 23rd Century through a black hole".  To give another example, in the category "The Funnies", one answer was "A blanket."  The question was, "What item does Linus carry around with him in 'Peanuts'?"  Very different, but also very fun.

I wonder whether this episode was ever broadcast?  I have read that Jeopardy was only ever broadcast in color.  But the episode did have the NBC chimes at the end, along with a reminder that "This program was reproduced using the kinephoto process."  Who knows?

One other intriguing thing:  The catalog at the Paley Center lists an episode of Jeopardy from June 28, 1975, but also lists it as an NBC ep.  The original series on NBC ended on January 3, 1975.  Is this an episode from the long-lost syndicated series, or is it really the final episode from January 3 with a miscatalouged date?  If anyone goes to the Paley Center and watches it, I'd sure love to know!