Evolution

I've been pretty hard on Buzzr lately, so I want to make some amends to our little oldies diginet. Every weekday afternoon on the network you can watch the evolution of a storied game show format. I'm talking about the Password franchise, which often seems to have no end. In fact, one more knockoff, 25 Words or Less, will enter the syndie wars this fall.

On Buzzr you can see the format morph from the poky original - today's episode had one of those brutal ten-guess misses that took forever - to the much improved Password Plus and the still more improved Super Password. Yes, the last version ushered in the oft derided Cashword, but the doodad could be lively. Markie Post and friend nailed seven grand on the first guess in today's ep.

Of course, Bob Stewart took his creation, made it all the lightning round, and built the parallel Pyramid franchise. ABC still does good summer business with that formula. Charles Darwin might have some fun - he wasn't a party animal, but anybody can have a little fun - tracking the evolution of Password and its descendants under the pressure of commercial TV's survival of the fittest.

Game shows evolve like lifeforms, after all, and good mutations, er, features tend to get rewarded over time. Call it Goodsonian natural selection, instead of the Darwinian variety.

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: