Pyramid game show: Encyclopedia II - Pyramid game show - Broadcast history

Pyramid game show - 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 can win in that version.

Pyramid game show - 1970s editions

The show debuted as The $10,000 Pyramid on March 26, 1973. It ran for one year on CBS before it was canceled, with its last telecast on March 29, 1974. ABC revived the show on May 6, 1974, and it became a hit. For three consecutive seasons, it was the number-three-rated game show on television (behind Hollywood Squares and Match Game). On January 19, 1976, the show was renamed The $20,000 Pyramid.

A once-a-week nighttime syndicated version, called The $25,000 Pyramid, 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 7:30pm (Eastern), on many network owned or affiliate stations in various markets on a different day. 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 episodes 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 Sunday, September 2, 1979, at 7:30pm (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 led to the daytime version reverting to 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 went back into its normal $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, and as ABC's last game show being done there until 1999 when that network introduced Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? for its primetime schedule. ABC's daytime version ended its run on June 27, 1980, with an overall total of 1,808 telecasts that had aired on both CBS and ABC.

The theme music used is called "Tuning Up" by Ken Aldin. The original set created for the CBS version was done by its in-house network scenic designer Jim Ryan, while the replica set made and constructed for the ABC daytime and 1970's syndicated versions, copying much of Ryan's basic design at a cost mentioned of $80,000 was co-credited to Dick Bernstein.

Pyramid game show - 1980s & 1990s editions

After a short-lived syndicated revival known as The $50,000 Pyramid failed, airing from January 26 to September 4, 1981, the show returned to CBS as The $25,000 Pyramid on September 20, 1982. That meant a permanent move to CBS Television City in Los Angeles. The show had been based in New York City, first at the Ed Sullivan Theater (CBS Studio 50) and then the Elysee Theatre (ABC TV-15), since its 1973 debut that save for a few weeks at the start of the 1973-74 season during which tapings were done at Television City.

Within a few weeks of its CBS-TV return, the show was retitled The New $25,000 Pyramid to avoid confusion with reruns of the syndicated 1974-79 Cullen version (the "New" was eventually dropped from the title on the January 28, 1985, episode [#608]).

During the updated Pyramid run on CBS, a second five-day-a-week version also aired in late-afternoon or nighttime syndication as The $100,000 Pyramid from September 9, 1985 to September 2, 1988 — this became the most famous incarnation of all the versions of Pyramid produced. The gameplay was identical to the daytime version, except the three players with the fastest winning time in the end game returned to play for an additional $100,000. The tournament took place every six weeks or so. The nighttime version was distributed by 20th Century Fox.

And the $100,000 tournament lasted days and even weeks, the record for the amount of tries to win $100,000 was 24.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Broadcast history", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki