“Pyramid” Revival for CBS Dead
We could have seen this from a mile away and I’m sure many of you could also. According to Deadline, which is really never wrong with this stuff, CBS has chosen the View-like talk show hosted by Sarah Gilbert of The Big Bang Theory and with other panelists like Holly Robinson Peete, Sharon Osbourne, Leah Remini, and the wife of the person who ends up making all these decisions Julie Chen. This means Pyramid is all but dead unless some unbelievable twist of fate occurs and Les Moonves wants a divorce.
And to be honest, not to be rude, if you expected Pyramid to get picked up you were delusional. When it’s against only game shows then yeah, it’s looking good. Put it against a talk show in the format of a very popular one on ABC and it’s looking iffy. Add the wife of the head of CBS into the mix and you’re boned. Andy Richter fronted the latest pilot with celebrities like Betty White taking place. Pyramid was done by Embassy Row and Sony Pictures.
At this point I really wouldn’t get your hopes up about it coming back. It’s had a lot of chances and I just don’t see it happening right now. There’s not a good number of outlets for it. It’s a shame but there we go. We do have a new season of the incredibly fun Let’s Make A Deal to look forward to. I mean obviously it could have a remote shot on cable or something and Sony is obviously still interested but given the history the past two years with the show, I’m just not expecting anything.
Pyramid is an awesome show if its done right. If they get big name celebrities like Betty White, it should do great. I like LMAD but its on for too long. It gets boring to me after a while. Why don’t they cut it down to a half hour and put Pyramid or another game show in the other spot? If not Pyramid, maybe The Joker’s Wild or Tic Tac Dough?
I know EXACTLY what you mean. The hour long long LMAD tends to get very boring.
Though I’m sure Pyramid might have worked better in an a hour, a hour block of 30 min Pyramid and LMAD episodes would be much better.
Quote: “The hour-long LMAD tends to get very boring. ” Oh, f*** you! I think LMAD is doing perfect in a full hour. The only difference is there are more traders being selected.
You’re so right! Bring ‘em back!
Now that Pyramid is dead, it will be a long while until another game show comes back to network daytime. None of the other soap operas will are going to be cancelled in the near future. If any network wants bring back a game show, Give up on Pyramid and Match Game and try to bring back Card Sharks, Classic Concentration, Press Your Luck, or Scrabble.
Or maybe come up with an original idea.
That’s just crazy talk, Homer! :-) There ARE no original ideas on television anymore.
And that’s because all of the great producers are either dead (Mark Goodson, Bill Todman, Merv Griffin, Steph Hatos) or retired (Bob Stewart, Monty Hall, Jay Wolpert). Heck, it took Merril Heater to come out of retirement to make another good game show.
And at one point, they were ‘green’ as well. It’s not as if they had some magical lock on brainpower.
The other producers you forgot are dead are Jack Barry and Dan Enright.
Card Shares? Press Your Luck? Scrabble?
Are you joking?
CS was one of the most inane concepts for a game show ever developed – “Explain Your Reasons for Picking a Random Number from 1 to 100…” it was grating, and deserved its demise long before it arrived. PYL was silly, but at least it didn’t pretend to be anything else. Scrabble was nothing more than Scrabble for Idiots. Concentration would be the best choice among those offered if they truly went back to the 30-square format of the Bob Clayton/Hugh Downs era.
But NONE, repeat NONE of those game shows are of the caliber or depth of Pyramid. Pyramid required actual intelligence, actual communicative ability, actual verbal skill in order to win prizes. I remember trying out for 25K Pyramid about 20 years ago, and only my family’s lack of vacation time kept me from getting on the show – darned work schedules!
Pyramid doesn’t get a green light because network executives are convinced that only stupid gameshows can survive. Bring back this great classic in its original form and see that a game show doesn’t have to be a Parade of the Stupid.
LMAD and TPIR run back to back in Detroit, we get Deal at 10 am (Guiding Light’s old time here) and Price at 11:00 on WWJ TV CBS should have kept World Turns by cutting it to a 1/2 hour
Quote: “The hour-long LMAD tends to get very boring. ” Oh, f*** you! I think LMAD is doing perfect in a full hour. The only difference is there are more traders being selected.