Scrabble, call home

Beat Shazam knocked off Name That Tune to find decent success on Fox. Now Words With Friends will try to knock off Scrabble and find decent success somewhere on TV. Wikipedia delicately says the Win With Friends app is "similar to the classic board game Scrabble." We'll see how closely the TV show based on the app resembles the old Chuck Woolery chestnut.

Truth be told, I have an undying fondness for the old Scrabble game show, which found a place in my recent top 50 list. Maybe MGM TV couldn't get the rights to the Scrabble name, so they found the next best thing in Words With Friends. GSN tried a couple pilots for a Scrabble revival, but neither got to air.

Apps seem to be the natural source of game show formats lately, with Candy Crush also joining the TV fray. Can Minesweeper be far behind? (That's a joke. Minesweeper wouldn't make much of a TV game show unless it had literal explosions. Oops, I shouldn't give anybody ideas.)

No word on when we might expect Words With Friends on our big-screen TVs. There's not even a hint of which network might be interested in the project. But they've got to fill the summer months with something.

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: