$ale Of The Century, The Game Of Incredible Bargains, debuted on NBC's daytime schedule @ 11 a.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Central (in lieu of Bob Stewart's Personality). The original version was hosted by Maverick alumnus Jack Kelly until August 1971, when he was replaced by legendary MLB catcher-turned-sportscaster Joe Garagiola, who had been a regular on NBC's Today and had recently hosted a game show of his own, Joe Garagiola's Memory Game. Bill Wendell announced. The original version was created and produced by William Jones and Al Howard. Howard, who earlier produced a 1965-67 ABC Daytime game called Supermarket Sweep (which was revived on Lifetime in 1990), and several other business partners packaged the program.

All contestants were spotted with $20 to start. The host read a series of trivia questions to the three contestants (one of which was usually the winner of the previous show) who had to press a buzzer (if the host is in the middle of reading of a question) if anyone think he/she knew the answer. Correct answers were worth $5, while incorrect answers were minus the same amount. If a player answered incorrectly, the answer was revealed and the game went on to the next question - only one person could buzz-in and answer the question. On the original episodes, the value of each question varied throughout the game, in $5, $10, and $15 denominations.

$ale ran at that time slot for the entirety of its initial three-and-a-half years on the network, and was generally a ratings success against situation comedy reruns on CBS and non-network programming on ABC stations. However, by late 1972, CBS, having decided to return to the daytime game show race, scored a ratings winner with Gambit, hosted by Wink Martindale, at that time slot, and the producers of $ale attempted a last-ditch effort at saving the show's audience by changing the three-contestant configuration to that of two married couples, which the competitor used to good effect. It didn't help, and NBC axed $ale Of The Century on July 13, 1973, replaced the following Monday by the show which was the first American star vehicle for Alex Trebek, The Wizard Of Odds.

Nevertheless, Howard continued the game in syndication for another season (September 10, 1973 - September 1974). This version, with Garagiola hosting again, picked up where the NBC run left off. After production ended, the show went dormant for several years, until Howard sold the worldwide rights for $ale to Australian TV producer Reg Grundy. In 1980, building upon the success of his earlier Temptation, Grundy brought the show to prime time in his country, where it became the nation's top-rated show. Eventually its success would prompt him to revive it in America...

Trivia Footnote: the original $ale Of The Century set had to be sawed in half at NBC studios in order to fit into the studio elevator!





(Source of info: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page))

This is a day generally known as “Black Friday” among game show fans.

For on this day, The NBC Television Network junked four of its daytime game shows: 2 games by Bob Stewart, Personality and Eye Guess, Ralph Edward’s You Don't Say!, and Goodson-Todman’s The Match Game. Four new shows appeared in their former timeslots the following Monday: $ale Of The Century (the original version), Name Droppers, Bright Promise and Letters To Laugh-In, respectively; of the four, only You Don't Say!’s replacement wasn’t a game show, as Bright Promise was a soap opera.

The Match Game was the last remaining daytime game show on network television to be produced by Goodson-Todman. Save for first-run syndicated editions of What’s My Line?, To Tell The Truth, He Said, She Said and Beat The Clock (the last 3 debuting this same fall), no new games from G-T would be shopped to the networks to add to their daytime schedules until the resurrection of Password on ABC in 1971. (The Match Game itself would be resurrected with a vengeance for the CBS Daytime schedule in July 1973 as Match Game 73.) You Don't Say! would also be reincarnated, twice: on a new network, ABC, in 1975 (with the same host, Tom Kennedy), and in a syndicated version in 1978 (emceed by Jim Peck); both to disastrous results. (Upon its demise on November 28, 1975, You Don't Say!'s replacement on ABC, like its 1960s NBC predecessor, was a soap opera: the recently-defected-from-CBS daytime drama The Edge Of Night, The Alphabet Network's last daytime series to occupy the 4 PM Eastern afternoon slot.)

That was definitely a sad day for game show fans. Ywo shows popular with kids coming home from school You Don't Say and Match Game were purged despite high ratings. NBC brought in a new daytime VP who wanted to revamp the lineup.

The original $ale of the Century was a victim of new daytime VP Lin Bolen's plan to give game shows a new, modern look. When she took over, she didn't like the static sets and older-looking hosts. During her tenure, shows like Concentration, The Who, What or Where Game and Jeopardy were cancelled and replaced by shows with flashier sets including Jackpot! with Geoff Edwards and Celebrity Sweepstakes that was hosted by Jim McKrell.