GSN Turns 17; Debuts This Day in 1994
GSN is almost old enough to buy us a carton of smokes legally. It’s GSN’s 17th birthday. On this day in 1994 Game Show Network debuted. The very first show ever shown on Game Show Network was Match Game. What’s the first show that appears on the schedule weekdays like today, its birthday? Match Game. Funny how things come full circle. Without GSN we wouldn’t have some of the all-time great game and dating shows like Lingo, Russian Roulette, and Baggage, nor some incredibly good short lived cult shows like Late Night Liars. Congratulations to David Goldhill and everyone at GSN and I look forward to more years of GSN.
Here’s the opening few minutes of GSN’s existence. Again, it’s fun to see how far they’ve come and it’s great to see a network devoted to our genre stay alive this long some how. Without them we wouldn’t exist so it’s we’re always grateful to GSN for everything and we look forward to whatever they have coming up next.
Also GSN has come a long way in online gaming. That’s probably where GSN earns the most money from nowadays. I love it.
Awww, our widdle network is growing up.
GSN has come a long way- a long way down the toilet.
What happened to the network that used to show Let’s Make A Deal, Press Your Luck, Tic Tac Dough, The Joker’s Wild and Card Sharks on a daily basis? At what point were programming misfires like Think Like A Cat, Big Saturday Night, How Much Is Enough, and Carnie Wilson: Unstapled considered good ideas? (Admittedly, I liked Drew Carey’s Improv-a-Ganza, but only because we may never see a new Whose Line Is It Anyway anytime soon.) Since when did it get to the point that acquiring the rights to Dancing With The Stars would be a cause for celebration? (More like a cause for slamming one’s head against the wall.)
Congratulating David Goldhill (and the-now long-gone VP of programming Kelly Goode) is like thanking Daniel Snyder (and his now long-gone right-hand man Vinny Cerrato) for the fantastic job he’s done with the Washington Redskins.
Every time I see that launch video, I ask myself, “What happened? When did Game Show Network become synonymous with ‘Being Run Into The Ground’? Will we ever see shows like those again?” Un-Happy Birthday, Shell Of What Used To Be Game Show Network. May there be brighter days in store for you in the future (though with Goldhill in charge, that may never come to pass).
So true, insaneben. It’s also like congratulating Frank McCourt for the fantastic job he’s done for the Dodgers.
Look at what’s happening to GSN. They’ve gone from airing great game shows (old and original) to airing Deal or No Deal or Family Feud 10x’s a day. Hopefully one day, the heads at GSN will come to their senses (and, by the looks of things, I highly doubt that).
It’s like congratulating Fred Wilpon for doing such a SWELL job with the Mets in the past five years.
Or the Hunt family not winning the Kansas City Chiefs a Super Bowl since 1970!
Posts like the one above are the reason I didn’t comment immediately. :-D
As much as I rail against what they are now (and I agree with many of Ben’s statements), I admit that, without GSN, I’d probably not have as much passion for game shows (nor would I have a game show collection, since it started with pre-2004 GSN recordings). Here’s hoping better days are indeed ahead.
GSN was good during the late 90′s and early 2000′s when they used to run classics like Password Plus,Super Password,The different versions of the Pyramids,Ray Combs version of Family Feud ,Jokers Wild and Bob Barker’s Price is Right CBS should give GSN the rights to air Barker’s Price is Right and please bring more of the classics back Pick up Weakest Link with Price is Right announcer George Gray and Chuck Barris’s Gong Show
GSN has three big hits right now, especially when new episodes start up again. Their greatest shows right now are The Newlywed Game, Baggage and Lingo. I agree with everyone else right now when they say GSN has to bring classics back. They have to show the classics again that were shown still in 2008, but it wouldn’t be a smart idea to buy any more classics right now. Just show the ones they already have leased.
You mean the same episodes of “Pyramid”, “Card Sharks”, “Match Game”, and “Family Feud’ that they have been showing the last two years repeatedly – I don’t think so!
I would like to see a return of some of the classic game shows (i.e. all versions of Password, any and/or all of the black and white classics, etc.) These are the shows that served as the foundation for GSN today. Let us not shove them into a corner and forget them but show them the love and respect due them. Now I shall step down off my soapbox and wait to see who supports this cause or sees no reason for it. Thank you.
Oh and PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY GSN!!!
Happy Birthday GSN !! If only they would air more REAL game shows (instead of “reality”). They could start by picking up “$100,000 Mind Game” (with a circle of $3K – $6K – $9K – $12K – $18K – $24K – $30K – $36K – $48K and $100K) !!
also eric to bring back some of the classics that made people joined all those great years ago
Oh GSN what went horrblie worng you use to show classics like Tic-Tac-Dough, The Joker’s Wild, Press Your Luck, Let’s Make a Deal, The Price is Right ,and GSN Live but now you show junk like Late Night Liars, Dog Eat Dog, Think Like a Cat, Love Triangle, The Amzaing Race, GSN Snap & (UGH) Dancing with The Stars, well i guess if not for GSN i’d i woun’t have gotten into Game Show trading but Insight Communications (aka Incompetent Complications) took it way (but soon Insight will be out of here hopfuly at the end of december) well a very merry unbrithday to GSN here’s to a (hopfuly) a better Future
I now remember what I miss about GSN after watching this video. It was all the special days when they would show the esoteric episodes of shows that were way back in the corners of the vaults. For example on Ronald Regan’s Birthday they would spend the day (it would take a couple days) showing all the different game shows President Regan was on and it would include shows in the GT library that hadn’t seen the light of day in 50+ years. You never knew what you would see and I enjoyed the suprise of it all.
Maybe someday the GT library and the others will be appreciated again……..
I got gsn after the launch around 2009 so I missed most of stuff. loved GSN Live segments though. Snap I can care less tweeting to them unless oodles are part of the deal.
in reply to bens post: simply put they lost the rights to air most of the GT shows and sony and Dirctv don’t want to spend the $$$ get them back.
hopefully that will change.
Yes, we all remember when GSN was interesting to see. We all remember the days when they would run black-and-white G/T shows on Sunday night. We remember the odd marathons, such as the busted pilots (“turkeys”) they ran one Thanksgiving. And we remember such ideas as “Inquizition”.
As for them picking up a scaled-down “Mind Game”, I don’t think it will happen, despite the buzz that show has received on game-show-related blogs and websites. GSN wants a bigger audience than this show could ever deliver, considering how few intellectuals there are out there (and how few of that few watch television, or will admit to doing so!)
So, we’ll get more “reality” shows, more “dating” shows, and apparently endless reruns of “Traipsing Down The Stairs”–er, I mean to say “Dancing With The Stars”.
I want the old Game Show Network back – the Game Show Network that aired game show programming such as Greed and Twenty-One. The Game Show Network that used to push reality television to the side in favor of actual game show programming. The Game Show Network that conveniently died right after I first got satellite tv and was able to get the channel.
Rest in peace.
There are probably some people with the network who don’t know what the GS in GSN stands for. As much of a game show nut as I am, I can’t really tolerate too much of the current schedule. Why can’t they try and put actual game shows on? Sure, a show like “Dancing With the Stars” may have worked in major network primetime, but it’s not a game show! GSN, are you listening!? Officially, they are still Game Show Network, so they should try letting more of the public know. It’s definitely not the channel I first came to know when I first got cable in 2002.
Anyone remember the MadTV skit “First to a Million” (or something like that)? Was pretty funny, but it is what I could see GSN doing now – Having a gameshow where each question is 1 point and first to get 1,000,000 wins.
I’m guessing Pyramid was under another network’s control (USA?) at that time. Still amazing that they’re still alive and kicking after 17 years. As much as I want to see the older shows a bit more often (like Pyramid), the network has to aim for a younger audience in the long run as part of the mix.
And the more they do that, the sooner it will be in the crapper!
Actually, I believe the first game show shown on GSN was “What’s My Line,” which was the first of a 24-hour marathon of chronologically organized shows to feature what they had at the time. (“Match Game” was shown on the schedule, but was in fact not the first aired show.)
They’re a business. They got their foot in the door with some of those oldies because of the novelty, but to move on to become a mature, profitable business means more than appealing to some die hard fanboys who seem to disregard that it’s about the bottom line.
I know what you’re saying. As was once said, “the business of business is business.”. That said, a healthy business should try and throw their main clientele a bone occasionally. I’m not going to demand a return to 1995, but showing something like 5th Grader six times in a day (and the ads about 67 billion times) doesn’t sound like good business for either the hardcore fans or the casuals they covet. If they simply add 1-2 different game shows (I was about to say “shows”, but that’s too broad) in their rotation, that’d at least show they care a little bit.
GSN used to be my all-time favorite channel. Then, when they cancelled the 1979-1982 “Match Game”, “Password Plus” and “Super Password”, I stopped watching….. Soon after our cable provider dropped gsn and I was glad. I guess the people at cablevision also hated what the channel has become. I predict the channel will become defunct soon.
You know I find it quite upsetting that people would rather be selfish and see GSN rot in hell all because they don’t get what they want. GSN is likely to mature before many of YOU quit your whining. Grow up please. GSN is going to air game shows. Goldhill will stand by that BUT what they give you is what you’re gonna get. If decides to bring back Password, The Joker’s Wild, etc then that’s his call but in the meantime reminiscing is only making things painful for yourself. Can’t we please just be happy for what we have? For good reason this is why I try staying off the GSN forums.
Wow! GSN is 17 now(but will be 18 in just ten months). my real dream prediction that in the future, GSN can make a huge major agreement with Challenge(UK) and FremantleMedia to create 2 channels (GSN Classic and GSN Modern) that features most of the game shows(from Australia, United Kingdom and United States) that aired or never been aired on GSN and Challenge(UK) respectively before.