Games - Pyramid

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Pyramid was a durable American television game show where contestants tried to guess a series of words or phrases, based on descriptions that were given to them, in the shortest amount of time. It has won nine Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Game Show, second only to Jeopardy!
, which won its 10th in 2005. Its most recent run of original episodes ended in 2004, although reruns of at least one version or another have been airing continuously since 1988.

Broadcast history

Pyramid was created by Bob Stewart, the quiz-show producer who also invented To Tell the Truth
, The Price Is Right
and Password
during his years at Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions before forming his own company. It went through several name changes over the years, with the title originally reflecting the top prize that contestants could win in that particular version.

1970s editions

The show debuted as The $10,000 Pyramid on March 26, 1973. It ran for one year on CBS at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time before being cancelled on March 29, 1974 due to some ratings decline the weeks before. However, several weeks later, ABC brought back the show on May 6, 1974, airing it for the rest of the year at 4 p.m., where it made headway (not just in ratings, but in affiliate clearances) against Tattletales
on CBS and the soap opera Somerset on NBC. The day before Christmas Eve, ABC relocated Pyramid to the old time slot of the just-cancelled Newlywed Game, 2 p.m., and there it would become, for three consecutive seasons, the number-three-rated game show on television (behind Hollywood Squares
and Match Game
). This was especially extraordinary because Pyramid had to lure viewers away from popular soaps such as Days of Our Lives, As the World Turns, and Guiding Light. On January 19, 1976, the show was renamed The $20,000 Pyramid, doubling the payoff for victorious contestants. After being displaced by the expansion of the soap One Life to Live to a full hour, the show settled at 12 Noon on January 16, 1978 for the rest of its ABC run.

A once-a-week nighttime syndicated version called The $25,000 Pyramid, hosted by Bill Cullen, ran from September 9, 1974 to September 9, 1979. Originally sold and distributed by Viacom, this edition was mostly seen in the prime-access time slot, usually at 7:30 p.m. Eastern (6:30 Central) on many stations in various markets, on different days of the week (known in the trade as "bicycling" videotapes). In New York City, the show was first seen on CBS' flagship station, WCBS-TV on Thursday, September 12, 1974, with an episode featuring Anne Meara and William Shatner.

A special week of five shows with celebrity adult-children contestant teams featuring Susan Richardson and Jimmy Baio on the network daytime version was titled as The Junior Pyramid and it originally aired between Monday, July 9 and Friday, July 13, 1979. A network primetime celebrity half hour special, The All-Star Junior Pyramid, aired on ABC on Sunday, September 2, 1979 at 7:30p.m. Eastern. It featured Susan Richardson and Tony Danza playing the game for charity with young future stars from the new ABC shows debuting in the fall of that year (one of them on that particular episode was a youthful looking Rob Lowe). That broadcast's ratings success led to the daytime version briefly adopting a full-time Junior Partner Pyramid format featuring civilian adult-children teams (with no celebrities at all) between Monday, October 1 and Friday, November 9, 1979.

A special Celebrity Junior Pyramid week followed suit with celebrity guests Susan Richardson, LeVar Burton and Michael McKean, but beginning with the Monday, November 19, 1979 telecast, the daytime show reverted to its original $20,000 Pyramid format.

By 1980, The $20,000 Pyramid was the last remaining network daytime game show among the three commercial broadcast networks then to be produced and videotaped in New York City. Further, it was ABC's last game show to be recorded there until 1999, when that network introduced Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? for its primetime schedule. ABC's daytime version, which had taken a strong beating in the ratings from the soap The Young and the Restless
on CBS, ended its run on June 27, 1980, bringing the overall total of episodes that had aired on both CBS and ABC to 1,808 telecasts.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Pyramid (game show) ]

Games - Pyramid

Broadcast history

1970s editions

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