Re: TV Guide sez...

Mike said,

"I have seen the episode in New
York, and I will tell you a few things. One, if you
thought your moderator at Penn Bowl was slow, you would
be flummoxed with the number of tossups this 20
minute game had -- thirteen. Blitzing seemed to be
allowed (at least on one question, anyway). Bonuses could
be 20, 30 or 40 points. And, the captain gets to
narrate a short film about their campus."

Yeah,
not all of the episodes were gems :). And I've found
tales of some controversial calls and protests - one
match was thrown out and replayed the next week during
the TV era. But accounts of other matches sound
epic.

The shows were broadcast live throughout the entire
run - in 1970 _GE College Bowl_ was the last live
game show on the air. So when things went wrong, they
couldn't be fixed in editing later. In fact the 1984 "30th
Anniversary Special" on NBC was also done live, and when
Sajak got the packets out of order (against the strong
advice of the production team, he had insisted on taking
the questions to his suite and pre-reading them in
private), the pre-ordered A/V bonuses didn't match with
what he was reading and, well, "hilarity
ensued."

Teams were rehearsed, and played four or five practice
games against each other prior to the live broadcast.
Ludden moderated those practices himself; after Earle
became moderator a staff member seems to have run the
rehearsal games. I haven't yet been able to view any
matches were Earle moderated, but Ludden seems to have
been really fast, even by today's standards.

As
Mike mentioned, and I didn't quote, the UCLA Film and
Television Archive has the eight TV shows known to exist. I
believe what the Museum of Broadcasting and Television
has is a copy of one of those. UCLA also has the
_Alumni Fun_ pilot, and a show from (IIRC) it's third
season. (_Alumni Fun_ may be the only show in history to
have been on all three major networks).

Tom

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