Game shows have been a part of entertainment, almost from the birth of radio. Academics have for the most part ignored game shows as serious inquiry, interpreting them as mere entertainment instead of a true reflection on the culture from which they were born. Olaf Hoerschelmann, an Associate Professor of Media Theory and Criticism, challenges this view with his book, Rules of the Game: Quiz Shows and American Culture[1]. Written in 2006, most of the prior approaches to the subject were written as critical pieces, either supporting game shows continued presence on television, or despising their greedy materialistic portrait of America. Whatever the critics are saying, the numbers do not lie; game shows are prevalent because they are popular. Amir Hetsroni (2004), in his study entitled “The Millionaire Project: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Quiz Shows From the United States, Russia, Poland, Norway, Finland, Israel, and Saudi Arabia,” found that over 70 countries had adapted ABC’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire into their own countries[2]. For much of the fifties, seventies, and early eighties, game shows rated amongst the most popular television shows in America, and they continue to be one of the most pervasive and prevalent genres on television today. Their popularity has much to do with its ability to captivate its viewers. Viewers watch people just like them, play fairly simple games that encourage spectators to play along, win fabulous prizes, all in the name of fun! Adding to their appeal, especially seen in the popularity of the Game Show Network (GSN), are game shows’ ability to foster a nostalgic experience. Classic game shows like Match Game, are returning to their former glory; just as it was in the seventies, Match Game was the number one viewed game show for much of GSN’s early years.   Active spectatorship, particularly its role in consumer culture, the every man, and nostalgia are the most vital pieces to the prominent nature of game shows for the last seventy years.

According to Hoerschelmann, most game show enthusiasts trace the genre back to as early as the 1920s, but the genre really came into its own in 1932 when Vox Pop, made its first broadcast in Houston, Texas. Self-branded as the first “Audience Participation Program,” Vox Pop rose to fame by interviewing the common man on the street, giving them a dollar a question[3]. The appeal of “Audience Participation Programs” was undeniable and they became one of the most popular genres broadcasted to Americans. The average American could empathize with the men talking on the radio or playing on television, it was not just the typical announcer or host but the literal “man on the street.” Hetsroni (2004) portrays this nicely when addressing game show popularity in the 1950s when he says, “Letting ordinary people win large sums of money and become instant superstars in a solemn ceremony, these shows caught the yearnings of war veterans, bored housewives, and frustrated youngsters to reinvent themselves in postwar America and achieve a bit of stardom.”[4] The average man became the sole stars, excluding the host, of game shows, and stars they became. Contestants, such as Herbert Stemple (Stemple was later involved in the take down of big-money quiz shows after he admitted to being involved in the rigging of the show) a Jewish WWII Veteran from New York who won big on 1950s Twenty-One, were idolized and rose to fame overnight.[5] The appeal of the everyday man was highly favorable to networks as well, as the creators of Vox Pop put it, “No paid talent: no cost.”[6] Thus the use of the man on the sidewalk, not only made the show possible, but what made the show an instant success. From the very beginning of game shows the contestants were meant to be like everyone, and anyone could then see themselves in their shoes, playing well and winning fabulous prizes.

The other side of the coin is that from the very beginning of the genre the “everyman” that participated fit nicely into the “white male” persuasion. Women did participate, and their participation became more pronounced once they were deemed the ideal consumer, but they too were made to fit the standard white housewife. Differing races were included especially after the civil rights movement in the 1960s, but the majority of contestants were still white[7]. Game shows, especially once televised, were instrumental in portraying to the rest of the country some of the very first interpretations of the “Average American.” The norm came to be handsome, courteous, white men in their professional business attire, with their beautiful, doting, white wife on their arm. On the same note, they were also some of the forerunners in adapting to social changes. What’s My Line?, a panel game show where 4 celebrities using yes/no questions ascertain the contestant’s occupation, aired for the first time in 1950. On their pilot episode the female contestant was a Hat Check Girl, and the second episode featured a Female Wrestler and Housewife. Many of the following episodes had similar appearances, if one female contestant challenged the status-quo the next one fit the bill. But, by the late 50s and early 60s one episode featured a female Bomb Decommissioner, and female Test Driver. Similarly their female panelists were often strong women, such as Dorothy Mae Killigan, a famous journalist and author. The celebrity portion, in which celebrities tried to fool the blindfolded panelists to earn money for a charity, also featured famous powerful women like Eleanor Roosevelt. The Newly Wed Game also followed similar steps, with its first episode portraying perfectly white heterosexual couples, but within a couple seasons black couples are included, and today interracial couples are common, and gay/lesbian couples were first introduced in the 2009-10 season. While the beginning of game shows fit squarely in the ideals of a White America, they were also the forerunners in portraying and embracing the diverse nature of America.

The ability to relate to the contestants in game shows, leads to the next appealing attribute of games shows: active participation by home and studio audiences. In their study on game shows, Stephen Gould and Pola Gupta (2006) described the game show viewer as experiencing a phenomenon known as empathetic imagination[8]. They quote one participant as saying, “Being able to answer the questions … makes you feel like you are part of the game yourself.”[9] When a home or studio audience listens to or views a game show they are able to actively participate in the game. When Bob Barker, on the Price is Right, asks the contestant “What is your bid for this marvelous fur coat?” everyone at home has a price in mind; maybe even shouting at the television when the contestant so obviously failed. Who Wants to be a Millionaire’s home viewers want to know the answer to the $1,000,000 question, and if they know it faster than the actual contestant, well then they could be on the show winning big too. Watching shows like the Newlywed Game every couple wonders how they would match up if they themselves were on the show. For example even in the first year of being on air, the Newlywed Game, began to receive letters from the home audience. In 1966, one such letter was read by Bob Eubanks at the beginning of the show he said:

We received a letter from a women in Grand Island Nebraska. I’d like to read it to you, “My husband and I have been married for 10 years and you would be surprised how little he knows about me. I wrote down some of your questions and had my husband answer them. He only knew 2.”

Home audiences became invested in the game shows they watched, and this was based heavily in their ability to create active speculative fun. Beyond just instigating yelling at the radio or television, audiences were encouraged to send in their own questions to the show. In the same Newlywed Game episode mentioned above, Bob Eubanks looking directly into the camera, asks the people of America to send in their own questions to be utilized in future shows. Another tactic for subsuming their distant audiences was to allow them to win big just for watching. On the famous episode of Press Your Luck (1984), featuring the man who cracked the Press Your Luck code, Michael Larson, Michael Landry won $1,000 during the Home Player Spin. Today this tactic is still in use. Jean a participant in the Gould & Gupta (2006) study stated that she loved Wheel of Fortune because, “they even give viewers a chance to win a prize just by watching their show. It’s great! They call it the Wheel Watchers Club.”[10] Hoerschelmann states, “It was as close as an audience came to controlling directly the content of its own programming.”[11] America made up the contestants, the questions, and the winners, making everyone invested in the success of their favorite game shows and their lucky contestants. It could be you! Viewers approach game shows with absolute attention and interest, active game shows integrate audiences in ways that other media genres are incapable of doing. (Video below: what was considered racy in 1977!)

The everyman’s participation played directly into the broadcaster’s ultimate needs, ad revenue. From the very beginning sponsorship gave game shows their means of survival. Networks ruthlessly pushed game shows capability for selling any product. Hoerschelmann quotes an NBC promotional booklet, written on April 2, 1953, meant for future sponsors. It is as quoted as follows:

Listeners also play Name that Tune. They are invited to submit a list of five songs. To each sender whose selections are used goes a prize equal to the amount won by the contestant who guesses the titles of his songs.

And listeners like it too … 230,000 have written in.

As of February 20^th, 230,000 listeners have submitted song titles to Name that Tune. Representing an increase from 8,338 letters for the first week to a current average of 40,000!

Each week this mass audience turns in to learn whether its list of songs will prove a winner … an unmatched incentive for regular week-in, week-out listening.

Name that Tune has built-in sales impact …

Name that Tune, by its very nature, is tailor-made for integrated selling effectiveness.

• Sponsor identification throughout the program, as the emcee speaks of …
  • “the ‘your brand’ quiz”
  • “the ‘your brand’ jackpot”
  • ‘the ‘your brand’ prize winner
• Give-away samples to each contestant with suitable product mentions.[12]

Anyone who watched game shows evolve, or watch them today knows this trend continues today. Early game shows, prior to commercials, required hosts to perform mini-commercials in the midst of the show. A particularly good example of this is $64,000 Question, sponsored by Revlon©. In a particular episode aired in 1956, the host Hal March, excitedly proclaims: “Here comes Ellen Patrick to take you out of this world and into a sensational world of color,” this is followed by a long commentated typical lipstick commercial in which the new shade’s color, Snow Peach, is repeated 20 times; to conclude the segment March states, “Snow Peach its hot, its cold, its beautiful, its bold; this power house peach will make your summer; girls if I might suggest you better reach for Snow Peach lipstick and matching nail enamel its Revlon’s© greatest shade.” It’s difficult to misconstrue an ad of this sort: girls go out and buy Revlon© lipstick! More typical today is the prize product mini-commercials. The Price is Right, does a really good job subtly integrating product pushing into its dialogue; the contestant has to know the brand name to be able to guess the price, right? Gould & Gupta (2006) describes consumer products as serving “costarring” roles in game shows; they are essentially irreplaceable “main characters”, sometimes superseding the host and contestants.[13] Leading the researchers and most Americans to the conclusion that most game shows would be obsoleted without their brand-name prizes; there could not be one without the other. To enjoy the continued experience of game shows, product placement must continue, and for many that is the best part of the experience. Furthering the ability to actively participate in the viewing experience by energetically playing along with the game, viewers can further this fantasy by imagining their potential winnings if they had been the glowing contestant. How many prizes or how much cash would they have won? Game shows and capitalist commercializing of products have been synonymous since their creations. Both birthed in the early years of mass media, both made the other possible of great things. Meanwhile the spectators tuned in at the same time, on the same day, every week to fanaticize about their own game show chances. (Pictured right, Bob Barker amongst his wonderful prizes.)

These pesky advertisements, also lend themselves to the final reason for continued game show fandom, nostalgia. Who would not like to watch a show like Lets Make a Deal, whose host, Monty Hall, offers wildly dressed contestants the chance to make a deal for a luxurious 1963 Pontiac© Temptest Convertible, worth $3,127, or a 25 inch color television set from Sylvania© worth $769? It’s a chance to see the consumer culture through the eyes of the early days. This connection between brand-name prizes, contestant, and game has remained constant. The shows may have grander sets and prizes, racier questions, and a wider demographic of contestants, but everyone tuning in knows that one contestant will rise to the top going home with an armful of Coca-Cola© endorsed products. Beyond just product loyalty the persistent “fun-loving” nature of game shows keeps people tuning in. Verne Gay, in an article telling entitled, “Longtime game shows cash in on nostalgia,” accounts for this faithfulness to the Law of the Familiar. Gay colorfully explains the America’s continued obsession with Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune as follows: “a sense that everything else in life may be thrown asunder, but Alex Trebek will forever remain his dear old dull Canadian self, while Pat Sajak will forever hold the card, and Vanna White — aahh, Vanna — will remain forever young and blond and mute.”[14] More than their perception of the beautiful unchanged, game shows are whimsically light-hearted, and comforting in turbulent times. Terry Teachout in a New York Times article, genuinely boasts GSN’s two hour block devoted to 1950s classic game shows, What’s My Line?, I’ve Got a Secret, and To Tell the Truth, artfully named “Black and White Overnight.” The author, writing just two months after 9/11, relishes in these game shows’ portrayal of the seemingly perfect past. Teachout states, “To watch these shows today is to rummage through a cultural time capsule, sealed shut in a more innocent time and now broken open for our delectation and wonder.”[15] Game show enthusiasts watch modern game shows because they embody consistent natures that life never could, and they watch classics to remember a simpler time when winning $50 seemed so perfectly wonderful. (Pictured left, What’s My Line? panelists preparing for the celebrity mystery guest, can’t ignore that beautiful advertisement either!)

Game shows reflect an interesting subsection of game culture, because they fit so well in the ideas surrounding spectatorship and its uses in a capitalistic America. What keeps people tuning in? How can we make money on this? When it comes to game shows it seems a number of reasons keep people coming back for more. They show the average American competing for fabulous prizes, thus the average American viewer can find just about anyone to relate with on game shows. The common man lends itself to the active participation that game shows foster. It’s easy to become captivated in the festive show; playing along as if you were the one sitting in the “hot seat.” What about those fabulous prizes? Co-starring with every shows “Bob Barker,” famous corporations and their brands have vied for access to the attentive consumers that game shows produce. But … spectators eat it up. Filled with fabulous top name-brand prizes that the everyday consumer would never be able to afford otherwise, who cares if the presentation is a little tacky? All of these wonderful characteristics make for a wonderfully nostalgic and comforting experience. Every viewer is bound to find a smile on their face as the seemingly drunk cast of Match Game try to fill the blank. Whatever the view toward game shows may be it is hard to deny their persistent charm, allowing a unique look into America that most genres can never truly give. (Video below, the drunken party typical of Match Game)

[1] Olaf Hoerschelmann, Rules of the Game: Quiz Shows and American Culture. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006).

[2] Amir Hetsroni, “The Millionaire Project: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Quiz Shows From the United States, Russia, Poland, Norway, Finland, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.” (Mass Communication and Society, 2004).

[3] Hoerschelmann, 22-23.

[4] Hetsroni, 135.

[5] Hoerschelmann, 70

[6] Ibid., 44.

[7] Ibid, 50.

[8] Stephen Gould & Pola Gupta, “Come on down”: How Consumers View Game Shows and the Products Placed in Them.” (Journal of Advertising, 2006).

[9] Ibid., 74

[10] Ibid., 72.

[11] Hoerschelmann, 51.

[12] Ibid., 55.

[13] Gould & Gupta (2006). 72.

[14] Verne Gay, “Longtime game shows cash in on nostalgia.” (Chicago Tribune, 19 August, 2004).

[15] Terry Teachout, “The games people played in a simpler time; finding solace in a daily helping of formally dressed panelists and Mystery Guests.” (New York Times, 28 October, 2001).

 

Bibliography

DeMichael, Tom. 2009. TV’s Greatest Game Shows. Barrington: Marshall Publishing & Promotions. Book.

Gay, Verne. 2004. “Longtime Game Shows Cash in on Nostalgia.” Chicago Tribune, August 19: Online.

Gould, Stephen J, and Pola B Gupta. 2006. “”Come on down”: How Consumers View Game Gows and the Products Placed in Them.” Journal of Advertising 65-81. Online.

Hetsroni, Amir. 2004. “The Millionaire Project: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Quiz SHows from the United States, Russia, Poland, Norway, Finland, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.” Mass Communication and Society 133-156. Online.

Hoerschelmann, Olaf. 2006. Rules of the Game: Quiz Shows and American Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press. Book.

Teachout, Terry. 2001. “The games people played in a simpler time; finding solace in a daily helping of formally dressed panelists and Mystery Guests.” New York Times, October 28: Online.

Side note, watched numerous YouTube classic gameshows, and they are referenced above. I could not figure out how to glean the original information for the shows, so I apologize that they are not better cited!