The animated sequence at the very beginning of "Whew!" was done by Hanna-Barbera, the same studio that made "Scooby-Doo", "Tom & Jerry", "The Jetsons", "The Flintstones", and so many great cartoons.
I have to agree, this was a highly underrated yet short lived game show. They should bring it back. It’s an exciting and fast paced mix Of strategy, smarts and a little bit of luck. The characters also make for a fun atmosphere. Bring it back!!!!
Whew! was a really underrated game show. The fast paced format it had and the humor in it from the 5 second block countdown to the messages on the Gauntlet of Villains was fun. This show got ruined when they added celebrities to the game.
All Celebrities editions of game shows have sunk many a game shows, starting with the ABC version of "Password." Ironically, the show that Tom's brother, Jack Narz, announced on, the Monty Hall-hosted "Beat the Clock", also went to a Celebrity format.
Whew was such an underrated game show. Exciting game play that moves along briskly with an interesting strategy element and colorful 'characters' (the background music, the timer music, the villains screaming "Time's Up".) The gratuitous, rating-grabbing gambit of adding celebrities only served to hurt the show a tad but overall it deserved better.
There was no daytime programming on ABC due to them not starting network programming until 11.00. As for the Peacock network, Card Sharks was on at 10.00 while at 10.30 was All-Star Secrets and later Hollywood Squares.
+Dave Frye Has CBS ever listened? Wish GSN would revive this, since it's essentially as cheap as Idiotest and CR right now, and they desperately need something to bring in viewers, especially if they decide not to renew The Chase. See, this is why one of us has to eventually one day own a television network, so we can decide what to spend money on when it comes to acquiring licenses and airing rights.
This was a great format. It was a pity in some ways that the US game show industry was so successful (and therefore overloaded) in the 1970s -- shows like this really deserved a lot more success than they managed. It helps of course that it had such a strong host in Tom Kennedy; I'm from the UK (but find US game shows fascinating) and he seems to be the American equivalent of our Bob Monkhouse, incredibly solid and slick emcee.
Tom Kennedy hosted a pretty good number of shows in his day. They included "You Don't Say", "Split Second", "Name That Tune", "Password Plus", "Body Language", and "Wordplay". He could have done alright with the nighttime version of "The Price is Right" had Bob Barker not already been hosting the daytime version for 13 already at that point. Nonetheless, Kennedy had a pretty successful emceeing career. Kennedy, whose real name is Jim Narz, had a brother, Jack Narz, who was also a game show emcee. He had some good shows himself.
CBS needs to bring back more classic game shows. lets make a deal and the price is right are the only game shows on. they need to bring back whew card sharks tattletales and press your luck
What would you cancel to make room for it? The Young and the Restless The Bold and the Beautiful The Talk Let’s Make A Deal Price is Right Because that’s all that’s coming from the network in daytime. The rest are syndicated shows.
@@SonnyBubba Here's a thought. Whew! put The Price Is Right in the timeslot it's in now. The Price Is Right hasn't moved in 40 years!!! If CBS moves The Price Is Right out of the 11am Eastern time slot, it's dead.
@Tom Richards: Starting Wednesday, June 12th; ABC will be airing 1 hour revivals of Press Your Luck (hosted by Elizabeth Banks) & Card Sharks (hosted by Joel McHale) as part of its Summer Fun & Games line up.
I remember when CBS promoted this show. They were selling it as "something different". It had a real good and long awaited format IMO. You couldn't have gotten a better host. But, it just didn't make it. Maybe it was a little too fast paced. You know it's a kiss of death or a red flag when you see game shows start to bring in celebrities to play. In fact, this show and it's neighbor in it's time slot, "The all-new beat the clock" (which also went to celebs) both got pulled around the same time, and CBS went about two, two and a half years before bringing in another game show to compliment The Price is Right. This was IMO the start of the decline of morning game shows.
This is a show that would do well with modern technology since you don't have to wait through commercials to set the next board up. I think that high speed-commercial-high speed pacing became a problem. A few tweaks can make this show work today.
Your channel is absolutely terrific and thanks for having posted this classic episode of "Whew!". Loved it as a kid and it is, to this day, an imaginative and competitive game:)
BUZZR should have something called "one season or less"to show game shows that lasted one season or less(i.e."Card Sharks 86(night time),The Price Is Right(Tom Kennedy),etc.
Welllllll....if you don’t know by now, Buzzr got the rights to start airing “Whew!” starting September 2021. I’m surprised that I don’t see that posted around here. Not exactly a spouler now!!
4:57 Sherry: Long Shot Villians: Time's Up Tom: You did not make it. Judge: She did make it Tom: She did make it, just in time, alright, on the 0 she got it.
This is a show I wish Fremantle would get the rights to so they could air it on Buzzr. I'm sure whoever owns it would sell it to them for the right price.
@@veggieoilerfan2940 @Mitchell Ries Yep, show creator had the Dream House master tapes but everything from the show was destroyed in a flood in 2013. Buzzr tried airing Wordplay a few years ago but ran into some kind of rights or clearance issue and had to stop after the first episode. For Scrabble, they'd have to come to an agreement with Hasbro to broadcast, and beyond that, they may not want to give Woolery any face time these days. Shame because that one was fun to watch and could probably run 2-4 times daily like Trebek Concentration.
When I played this video, I could've sworn I never saw this show before until I saw the gauntlet villains, especially #2. Funny the things that stick in your head from when you were 5 years old.
+donald paluga I think it was a "soft" $25,000 limit at the time of this show, in that the players got to keep anything over the $25,000 when they got to that level, but their run ended right then and there. Early in "Gambit" 's run (and maybe throughout the run), the $25,000 limit was a "hard" limit, in that the couples had to give up anything over that limit.
"I think it was a "soft" $25,000 limit at the time of this show, in that the players got to keep anything over the $25,000 when they got to that level, but their run ended right then and there." That was how it was on PYL w/Peter Tomarken and the $25K limit there; when a champion reached/exceeded the limit, Peter would say words to the effect of, "You get to keep every cent of that money, but you go into the Press Your Luck Hall of Fame as a retired champion" (sometimes he would phrase it differently, but the meaning was the same).
That's because they couldn't compete against Hollywood Squares even after Paul Lynde's departure. Both would eventually leave around the same time period.
Interesting this shows up just a week or two after Wink hung out at an event with Burt Sugarman, who still holds the rights to the show. Wonder if that's where he acquired this PRISTINE video. This is a wonderful episode of a REALLY underrated show.
@@OliveOyl12590 NBC wanted to air a soon-to-be-ill-fated 60 minute talk show (formerly planned as 90 minutes) hosted by a then unknown David Letterman whom due to his appearances on ABCs the $20,000 Pyramid gave him the green light to NBC. In order for that to take place, 2 game shows had to be pink-slipped. Sadly, the ones that were too expensive and high-priced were the ones to go: High Rollers and The Hollywood Squares. Wheel Of Fortune was happily spared and would remain on NBCs lineup for 9 more years. CBS resorted to sitcom repeats for 2 years before rethinking their game show lineups with two: The $25,000 Pyramid and Child's Play. ABC remain low on game shows.
@@meyerj75 Wheel Of Fortune was NBC's bread and butter. Hollywood Squares was doomed with the alternate theme, no Paul Lynde, and four time changes in less than four years. High Rollers was only there to keep CBS from putting The Price Is Right up against Wheel Of Fortune. NBC also gave up on Chain Reaction. So NBC scrapped three game shows for Letterman and the soap opera, "Texas".
CBS did something absolutely genius when they replaced Match Game. They FINALLY left The Price Is Right alone!!! After six time changes including expanding it from 30 minutes to one hour, CBS left it in the 11am Eastern time slot for the last 40 years!!!
Home Game Enterprizes (www.homegameenterprizes.com) put on a beautiful replica of this show at TCONA (www.tcona.com). I got to be on that replica show, and I had wanted to be on Whew for 36 years, since I discovered it on CBS back in 1980. It was a lifelong fantasy come true to be on it!
Serious question: Can a contestant yell out “Longshot!” at any time during the 60 seconds? I constantly see them do it with 5 or less seconds left-even when it’s obvious they aren’t getting anywhere.
As long as you are not at the sixth level (being as Longshot is meant to get you up there from one of the first five if you were stuck and time was running out), or blocked (must wait out 5-second penalty), you can say it whenever you want (even when Tom is reading out a blooper), IIRC.
The fast pace, the hurricane of puns, it would probably work better today. But you’d have to cancel a stable show, such as The Bold and the Beautiful, to bring it into the lineup.
Adding celebrities was an obvious sign that they struggling with the ratings and they were trying anything to keep this show going. CBS did the same with it's sister block show "The All-New Beat the Clock" as well. Probably because they didn't want to create any more game shows. Incidentally, when both those game shows were pulled (not surprisingly, soon after they tried celebs), CBS would go about 2 years before putting any new game shows on to compliment "The Price is Right". Probably the start of the end for game show blocks.
CBS also tried Tic Tac Dough as its "lead in" to The Price Is Right. But I really think the reason why CBS took a flyer on Tic Tac Dough was for nothing more than a summertime filler plus Jack Berry was preparing TTD for syndication. Card Sharks and Wheel Of Fortune were also killing CBS in the ratings at that time.
This was a unique format with interesting strategy, but the main game was too heavily biased in favor of the blocker. Either reduce the length of the blocks to 3 seconds each or place only 5 blocks instead of 6 to make it more fair.
8:53 🤣 every episode had at least half a dozen outrageous-but-now-tame-yet-still-out-loud-funny moments. This show would have been good for a lot longer...
Did they saved all those episodes? The networks (NBC & ABC) had a nasty habit of "wiping" episodes like "The Magnificent Mable Machine". CBS which aired this series, I believe didn't.
Burt Sugarman, who holds custody of the show, states that the entire run is fully intact. It is uncertain if GSN or Buzzer will air the show unless Sugarmen offers a reasonable price in the deal that's not too excessive.
I like that opening animation, especially when the woman ducks the cutlass and her backside wiggles as she walks. I wish the separate RU-vid selection were not so indistinct and the comments were not "disabled."
10/5/79 is on the slate just as the tape date. The air date was still unknown at that time. I think adding celebs ruined this game, or at least complicated it unnecessarily.
Jon H Ah, I guess you mean just at the time of the clapboard part the date was still unknown? Since later on in this episode they do mention that "next Monday, November 5" Celebrity Whew! will begin. That would make this Halloween since in 1979 this episode was on a Wednesday (and also the Villians said Happy Halloween). I agree celebrities were a bad idea; that was almost always the death knell for a game show. I was happy to see Jamie Farr on this show, however. He seems like such a nice guy.
"A combination guaranteed to make you say..." (burp!) I like to watch the animated sequence at the start, with the woman walking past the villains...including the way her backside wiggles--especially when she ducks the cutlass.
I know this show is a cult favorite with many, but I've just never been able to warm up to it. I admit, back in the day, this show totally escaped my notice and I suspect I was watching the competition on NBC, which I believe was "Password Plus." (ironic given that Tom would take over that show). To me, the real problem is that 90% of the time the "Charger" always loses and IMO it's not fair to the Charger that he/she has to wait for Tom to read the whole blooper given the race against the clock. While it's an interesting show it could have used some tightening up (and adding celebrities was no solution).
NBC had The Hollywood Squares against Whew!! NBC cancelled The Hollywood Squares, High Rollers, and Chain Reaction three weeks after CBS scrapped Whew!
@@OliveOyl12590 At the time, game shows were endangered by sitcoms. A decade later, they were eaten up by talk shows like Steve Wilkos and Jerry Springer.
@meyerj75 Game shows were in great shape during that time. But the networks were starting to feel the pinch with The Joker's Wild, Tic Tac Dough, and Family Feud being hits in syndication. The network's daytime landscape was ever further eroding later in the 80s when Jeopardy! and Wheel Of Fortune hit the syndicated market. The networks were also starting to notice the potential in talk shows with NBC backing Donahue and ABC backing Oprah for syndication.
