Passionate about Game Shows since an early age. When I was lucky enough to be home from school, I would enjoy watching a veritable marathon of game shows each morning in the 80’s, such as Family Feud with Ray Combs and The Price is Right, with Bob Barker all the way into the afternoon with Chain Reaction and Supermarket Sweep and into the evening with Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. I was too young to know about the older classics, but I would soon learn about when a new satellite TV company launched in my country and I found a brand new channel, to me, called Game Show Network.
I never knew that so many amazing shows existed, and all in one place. An entire network dedicated to the best and most fun programming on television. “What’s My Line?”, “To Tell The Truth”, Black and White episodes of Price is Right that I never knew existed, and colour episodes of Bob Barker wearing bellbottoms! I was a regular member of their discussion forum and spent hours a day reading and discussing about the best programming on television.
Sadly, over time the network parted ways with most of their classic programming and began focusing on newer, edgier shows. They lost the rights to airing Classic Price is Right episodes, and discontinued their black and white over night block, and continued to chip away at the classic episodes until finally they were left with Match Game and Pyramid with Dick Clark. Still good shows, but 1-2 hours a day was not nearly enough for me.
Thankfully, for me, along came BuzzrTV. Only problem when this network first launched was that it was an OTA network, which only was available “over the air” from a TV antenna, in certain markets near large US cities. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option for me, since I didn’t live near any large US cities. Then a satellite tv channel, on the service I was subscribed to, picked up an overnight programming block that aired Buzzr classics in all their glory. Including shows such as Match Game, To Tell The Truth, Sale of the Century and others, in a rotating schedule every night.
About a year into this, BuzzrTV began streaming their programming on their website and I was finally able to watch their entire schedule. At one time years ago I would watch close to 12 hours per day of classics on the original Game Show Network, and I was back glued to the TV screen once again on the new BuzzrTV network, with all my favourite classics, all day and they even had Black & White game shows over night. It was like I was in a time machine back 20 years.
Thankfully to this day BuzzrTV has remained a Classic Game Show haven, even though they have more recently cut back on the variety, they are still way ahead of the game, with complete episodes that are not sped up and the endings are not cut off, except for a few sponsor ads, but at least I get to hear the announcer signing off, which is a very important part of the program, to me.
I’ve been collecting game shows for many years, starting with VHS, then to DVD and now digitally. I missed out on the first few years, and always assumed that the classics would be there whenever I wanted. I won’t take that chance again and every opportunity I get, I will continue to save as much as I can, incase there is yet another “Dark Period” of no Classics, at least I’ll have my collecting to fall back on.
On a very positive note, now classic game shows appear to becoming more and more popular, with all ages, and Buzzr decided to offer their channel on other platforms to be seen by more viewers. PlutoTV first picked up the network, followed by Roku and several other free streaming services. And spin off channels have now appeared, including a 24 hour Bob Barker channel, with episodes airing now that haven’t been seen since they originally aired in the 1980’s. There is now a Supermarket Sweep channel, and even a few channels that cater to more modern game shows, such as Wayne Brady’s Let’s Make a Deal, and coming soon two more channels dedicated to classic Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!
I created this site to help share the news with everyone about all these amazing new additions, and introduce a new generation to some of the most fun programming ever produced!
It’s a good time to be a game show fan!