GSN plans a super duper, poker-filled Father’s Day
Father’s Day has always been a weird holiday for me. I never knew my father, as he died when I was only a year old in the ’60s, so to me Father’s Day has never been anything more than just another day to me. I sometimes wonder how I would be if I had known my father growing up.
(Wait, did I just get serious there for a moment? Quick, say something snarky! Moment of Truth sucks! OK, back to the post.)
This Sunday, June 15, GSN will celebrate Father’s Day with a poker-filled marathon. Actually, the celebrating starts tomorrow, Friday, at noon. World Poker Tour host Vince Van Patten will join his father Dick on an episode of GSN Live, which will be followed by episodes of game shows that the elder Van Patten appeared in. Then on Sunday at 3pm, the network will have a six hour marathon of classic World Poker Tour matches, followed by the two hour premiere of the 5th Annual Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure tournament, hosted by A.J. Benza and Daniel Negreanu.
Not into poker? Head on over to GSN’s web site where you can participate in a special Scrabble tournament they have going on. You can also vote for your favorite TV dad in the tournament. At first I thought the press release said that you’d be able to play with your favorite TV dad, and for a second there I got excited that I might actually be able to play Scrabble with Hugh Beaumont.
Maybe if enough people watch this marathon it might mean this news isn’t true. I think poker did get overexposed on TV a couple of years ago, though I do still enjoy watching it.
Is GSN done with poker?
I’ll be the first to agree that at some point after Chris Moneymaker’s World Series win, poker on TV got a little bit out of hand. For a while it seemed that you couldn’t turn on the TV without stumbling over some new poker-based show. Things have settled down somewhat lately, with a few survivors remaining. For my poker watching vote, there remains a big three. The World Series, despite ESPN’s screwed up scheduling, World Poker Tour, and the newcomer, High Stakes Poker.
Now it looks like two of the three could be in trouble. It seems that the expected dates for the renewals of WPT and High Stakes over at GSN have come and gone. The speculation is that the new CEO at GSN, David Goldhill, wants to move away from the interest in poker that the former CEO, Rich Cronin, brought to the network. Goldhill would instead like to get back to more traditional game shows.
The move is somewhat surprising because the shows both do very well in the Adults 18-49 demo. For the network, High Stakes is number one, while the recently relocated WPT comes in at number six. They do both take a hit when you look at total viewers though, with WPT moving to seventh and High Stakes falling to twenty-eighth. That twenty-eighth place number is troubling, but with so much attention paid to the A18-49 number these days, it’s still odd to see a network actively trying to get older.
Should both shows fail to be picked up, all is not lost for fans of High Stakes. The show is produced by Poker Prods., who also do Poker After Dark for NBC. They’ve said that they have plans to do a High Stakes-style cash game in July. No word yet on what other options there might be for the WPT. I hope that both of them can find a spot somewhere in the vastness of cable television.
Newlywed Game and Dating Game coming back to TV
I used to watch both The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game when I was a kid, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized how filthy both of them were. Both would have all of these double entendres and suggestive questions, and the answers from the contestants were often something you wouldn’t even say to a friend in private. Example from The Newlywed Game:
Bob Eubanks: “Where’s the weirdest place that you and your husband have made whoopee?”
Woman: “In the a**?”
Now, this wasn’t shown on TV until Eubanks showed the clip on an episode of NBC’s Most Outrageous Moments a few years ago (the original answer was never shown on TV and the woman was given a chance to give another answer, and another contestant gave a similar answer years earlier), but many of the questions and answers were suggestive in that way.
I wonder if they’ll have those type of questions in the new GSN remakes? The cable network is bringing back both shows. Of course, they’ll both be updated in this age of computers and microwave ovens. The Dating Game will team up with Match.com to find single people to go on the show, and The Newlywed Game will feature a bonus round where the winning couple goes up against a couple who won on the older version of the show.
This will be the sixth version of The Newlywed Game. Eubanks hosted the original (he also hosted a later revival of the show), and then other versions were hosted by Jim Lange, Paul Rodriguez, and Gary Kroeger. The Newlywed Game was produced by Chuck Barris, and Barris created/produced The Dating Game.
Here’s your guide to Memorial Day marathons and other shows
TCM has classic war/military movies all day and night. - At 6am, USA has an NCIS marathon.
- At 8, A&E has a marathon of City Confidential episodes.
- History Channel has a MonsterQuest marathon at 8.
- Sci-Fi has a Star Trek: Enterprise marathon at 8.
- Also at 8: TV One has a Day Break marathon.
- At 9, BBC America has a Monty Python’s Flying Circus marathon.
- FX has a That 70s Show marathon starting at 9.
- GSN has a Match Game marathon at 9.
- Spike has a CSI marathon starting at 9.
- At 10, TNT has a Law and Order marathon.
- At 11, G4 has a Cops marathon.
- Lifetime has a bunch of “sex” movies starting at 11.
- At noon, GSN will have a special GSN Live from Iraq, featuring ex-game show contestants who are stationed there.
- There’s a Top Chef marathon on Bravo starting at 2:30.
- At 4, Discovery has a Deadliest Catch marathon.
(Thanks to Interesting Pile)