The Game Show Channel: Classic or Dud?

What's fascinating is that you feel like you're watching the evolution of American television itself. While the basic template is at once so familiar...at the same time this is so obviously from a time before the broadcasting companies figured out the science of calculating at every corner and milking it for all it's worth:

Enshrouded in the nine-square panel, with a production design about as vibrant as a trip to the local library, rest the "stars". Three (at least) of them are by now dead, and at least three more of 'em should be by now but probably aren't (hell, back then they even looked like they were in their 50s or older). This is from a time when a "star" might include the homely Wally Cox, great-grandaddy of 'geek schtick', in upper left square. A Courtship of Eddie's Father-era Bill Bixby, youthful beyond belief with eyeglasses, adjacent to Wally. Both men wearing ties. The women: Angie Dickinson, Connie Stevens, and Rose Marie. Paul Lynde NOT in the center square...that's reserved for: **Buddy Hackett** (with not a grey hair on 'im).

As it goes on, the focus of the show actually seems more on PLAYING the game than the super-corny jokes or focusing on the celebs they've hired to tell the corny jokes! In far contrast to Whoopi & Co., they actually manage to race through a sobering 6 rounds in a show, and in that time, weirdly still, neither contestant demonstrates even a most rudimentary knowledge of basic Tic-Tac-Toe strategy.

The consolation prize: A sprawling, behemoth-sized, wooden cabinet LP player...with remote control functions!

Sample joke:
Host: "What is currently the United States' largest-grown crop?"
Wall Cox: "Isn't it...the Indians?" [laughter from audience] "I'm kidding. I believe the largest-grown crop in the United States...is what we Americans call 'corn'."

So, is there anyone else out there as fascinated by the electric tomb known as "The Game Show Channel"?