GSN Announces “Pyramid” in Development and Adds Reality Shows
GSN held an upfront announcement today announcing two firm-go shows and several in development. Note that this really isn’t finalized information, and that this is stuff in development. But the network seems to be going heavy on reality again. Let’s start with the only news most of you will be excited about. GSN is, yet again, developing The $100,000 Pyramid. The show is from Embassy Row and Sony Pictures. I’d just like to remind everyone how many times this show has attempted to come back and hasn’t, and that GSN has, allegedly, already turned down a revival of the show at least once, so let’s not get our hopes up too much. But it’s a start. It has been tried at CBS twice, GSN once before, and TBS.
GSN has picked up a new series and renewed another one officially. First, The Newlywed Game will return with 65 new episodes. The newest GSN series is called Beat the Chefs, where home cooks try to beat professional chefs for a $50,000 prize. These are both legitimately game shows, so there’s no complaining about that.
GSN is going to try reality again, though, after repeated attempts like American Dream Derby and Unstapled and other shows. They have coined the term “real life games”. Shows announced for development are
*Pure Gold, which is about a chain of stores called The Gold Guys and the customers that come in to sell gold and tell their stories
*The Family Trade, about a car-bartering family business
*I Do, Now I Don’t: A New York City business that buys and sells used engagement rings
*Crowning Glory: A reality show about America’s most bizarre pageants
*War of the Rose Sisters: Two sister auctioneers who compete to sell the most.
Any of these look good to you? Also, Jeff Foxworthy is hosting GSN’s bible show. If you are shocked at any of these developments, then you really haven’t been paying attention the last few months.
Source : B&C
Foxworthy did once say he wanted to be a preacher (I believe he’s Baptist). So that part of the equation is believable.
You know, when we talk about the old “Pyramid”, there’s a name that keeps popping up here an there of a great Pyramid player who now works for the Mouse. You would think with all the channels and a network they have that there would be room for a “Pyramid” somewhere. As much as I’d like GSN to be the place, this pretty much much convinces me otherwise.
The Upfronts for the kids networks were better. This one doesn’t even enthuse ME much and that’s saying something. To be fair, if Pyramid does come alive on GSN, I’ll support it.
So I have a question for GSN. Reality shows have flopped over and over and over again every single time you try them, so WHY IN THE HOLY NAME OF BACON WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN?!! I’m a game show fanboy but I have enough sense to know that 30 year old shows all day will not be profitable. I also know from the network’s track record that REALITY DOES NOT WORK. In the words of the Angry Video Game Nerd, “WHAT WERE THEY THINKING??”
From a fellow Video Game Nerd, I agree with you 100%. I think we should vote out the current GSN President and get someone new who understands what ‘GSN’ is all about.
You know, I was hoping for Bob Boden as president of GSN but they picked Amy Davis instead. That’s what you get when you don’t have Bob Boden!
As much as I’d like to see GSN be a mega-successful game show destination, I don’t think it can survive in the long-term as a “museum of classic game shows.” That audience is getting older and literally dying off. There’s a generation of daytime viewers that grew up watching just one daytime network game show, TPIR…and today, there are only two. This isn’t 1975, when there were more than 25 game shows on just three networks. GSN has to become more than just The Family Feud Channel.
It’s not like they haven’t tried to appease the fanboys over the years. I remember the salad days of GSN originals like Russian Roulette, Friend or Foe and Lingo very fondly. But they didn’t last very long for a reason…like they weren’t reaching an audience beyond the Hoveround crowd. And barring another “Millionaire-like” breakout hit in prime time on a broadcast network, those salad days may be gone forever.
And as much as I LOVE The Pyramid, I can’t help but think that after 3 or 4 tries in 3 years over 2 or 3 networks, there had to have been something that executives didn’t like about those Embassy Row pilots. Otherwise, the show would be on the air. But, given that the Clark shows are still fairly popular, GSN might as well try it. I just hope ER doesn’t screw it up…like they did with Chain Reaction.
Ding….winner!
“And as much as I LOVE The Pyramid, I can’t help but think that after 3 or 4 tries in 3 years over 2 or 3 networks, there had to have been something that executives didn’t like about those Embassy Row pilots.”
I can’t help but think that the main stumbling block would be the amount of work that it would take. We’re talking a dedicated writing staff taking a decent amount of time to keep it fresh and varied.It would require getting celebrities that are well-known enough that they would attract new eyeballs, but are still good enough that their gameplay won’t make the eyeballs wince. The contestant coordinators would be charged with finding good game players who are good-looking. There would have to be a fair judge, who can make quick, accurate decisions involving clue validity. That probably scares off modern-day producers, who care only about telling stories and squeezing every ounce of drama, no matter how ridiculous it looks.
I agree that GSN can’t just subsist on 70s and 80s game shows. They can’t even depend on off-network reruns. They burned through Millionaire. They burned through Deal or No Deal. TPIR, Wheel and Jeopardy!, three of the biggest names in game shows, make up all of three hours of their weekly schedule, all J! Two air in the middle of the night That’s insane. I know that there are probably some limitations because they still air, but come on! It seems like it would be worth it. For those of you complaining about too much Feud, some of those morning or early afternoon airings could be Wheel or J!, and some of those evening and late night ones could be Barker or Carey PIR. But no.
So it seems to me that the answer is a continuous introduction of Original game shows. Shows that they control. Shows that they can air when they want. Some could be half-hours stripped five days a week. Some could be bigger money games that are weekly. What I don’t believe, however, is that this network needs is “branching out”. The past couple of years could have gone a lot smoother if they didn’t “branch out” with a comedy show and a talk show. It seems like every few years, GSN decides to branch out, and it usually works out poorly. The video game shows from ten years back, followed by the reality shows during the changeover. And now the past couple years of reality/game hybrids, followed by this motley bunch of straight reality shows. The only time it’s worked in their favor was when they had the casino shows during the thick of the poker and blackjack fad. But those shows have since faded away, and now GSN, instead of choosing to innovate, has found another fad to latch onto. I once again find myself in the awkward position of rooting against the shows they’re depending on.
To me, the issue with the CBS pilots may have been nothing more than a numbers game. First try around, it was “1A”, but LMAD was 1 and got picked. For the second try, CBS found a hole to fill with Oprah’s retirement and added “The Talk.” The CBS pilots did nothing wrong — they were just simply second options against shows that, at the time, were better fits.
As far as the TBS attempt to bring back Pyramid, we really don’t know what took place. Was a new pilot made, or did Embassy Row simply use the CBS Andy Richter pilot? Honestly, I couldn’t see Pyramid working on TBS, given the network’s comedy-centric prime time schedule.
Honestly, I don’t have a problem with GSN producing “reality” shows — they’re cheap to produce and have helped fill the schedules of many networks. The problem is that GSN seems to be piggybacking those who’ve already piggybacked on proven formats. Why watch the fifth or six incarnation of “Pawn Stars” when you can watch the real thing on History?
Those are some crappy reality shows. They all sound the same. I would say that shows like Storage Wars would be more Game Show like.
I was just about to say that based on what GSN is doing, it wouldn’t surprise me if they acquired Storage Wars, Shipping Wars, Parking Wars, Auction Hunters and Auction Kings. After all, bidding in an auction is a game, so it would be a great game show! [/sarcasm]
My cable provider dropped gsn over a year ago and I couldn’t be happier about it. When I had gsn, I was always so frustrated that they got rid of ALL the game shows I watch (syndie Match Game, Password Plus, Super Password) and now that I don’t get the channel it’s like the channel doesn’t exist. I wish it would just go out of business entirely since the channel refuses to air game shows anymore (except for the one season of “Match Game” that had been on repeat for 3 years now.)
Password Plus and Super Password are coming back April 2, replacing Card Sharks.
Just wait – they probably only leased 200 eps of each version like they did for “Card Sharks”, and they will run them into the ground as well for three years or more!
GSN is turning into “Game Shows Never”
Just change your name GSN. Go with The Reality Channel. It was so successful for Fox that NatGeo went Wild for it.
I know I’m too old and not the right demo. And I won’t be collecting Social Security for 2 more decades. But I still miss WML & IGAS.
Categories on the GSN version of Pyramid…
“Long Things that go into other things…”
“Things that rhyme with rock…”
They’ll sleaze it up if they go with it.
A straw, a vampire, GSN. Things that suck.
I will, as always, remain optimistic about Pyramid until I find out otherwise.
As for the reality shows, the first three are so similar that they might as well be mashed into one show. The pageant show is jumping on a bandwagon that is already on the wane. The auctioneer sisters might be interesting, but the pitch is already screaming “this is so scripted we considered packaging it as a sitcom”.
Games, GSN. Games.
They should change it to Million Dollar Pyramid
Not if GSN develops it; their budget simply can’t cover that.
I honestly think that even though its unrealistic for GSN to produce a game show that offers a million dollars as the top prize, they should have another game show with returning champions. They’ve only done it once before with the Money List (which they were stupid to cancel so soon) and it definitely a ratings booster. Plus its an easy way to say that someone can win over $XXX000 without having to actually give it out during a single show.
Let’s just hope and pray that they keep Pyramid ORIGINAL, the 82-91 theme and keep the set from the ’09 pilot. NO DONNYMID!
Hi Dontryl.
I’m with you on keeping the rules from the Clark versions.
The pics from the ’09 pilot I saw looked kinda cheesy. I think they can build a better Pyramid that still pays tribute to the original Jim Ryan design.
And I think an updated cover of Ken Aldin’s “Tuning Up” could be very cool…but I never fully embraced Bob Colbert’s 80s cover.
The only way they could do that would be if they did it as a once a year thing. But why do that and have one big boost in ratings, when you could have three $100,00 tournament and three boosts?
For the millionth time GSN, REALITY! DOESN’T! WORK! ON! YOUR! NETWORK!
I’m sorry for typing in all-caps, but I’m sick of them throwing so much money into something that hasn’t worked before, and most likely never will.