Saturday, January 16 marked the 50th anniversary of one of the longest running first run syndicated game shows Celebrity Bowling. Jed Allan presided over a very fun show that featured two teams of celebrities playing for selected audience members. The winning team's score determined the prize the audience member won.

Celebrity Bowling was known for its rigorous taping schedule, taping a whole season in three to five days.

Anyone remember the show? Feel free to post.

A lot of people saw it as one of the Decades weekend binges (marathon), some time ago now. I had vaguely remembered having seen it back in first-run episodes. Anyway, unlike some game shows, the episodes are all believed to have survived. Decades should do a binge again, in memory of Jed.

Celebrity Bowling was known for its rigorous taping schedule, taping a whole season in three to five days.

What?! Then they could've taped a decade's worth of shows in 2 months! How many episodes constituted a season?

What?! Then they could've taped a decade's worth of shows in 2 months! How many episodes constituted a season?

The information supplied by Wikipedia indicates there were 144 episodes over 8 seasons which comes out to 18 episodes a season (filming 18 episodes over 5 days seems doable), don't most game shows film multiple episodes on days they film?

The information supplied by Wikipedia indicates there were 144 episodes over 8 seasons which comes out to 18 episodes a season (filming 18 episodes over 5 days seems doable), don't most game shows film multiple episodes on days they film?

Sure, I know the Goodson/Todman 1/2-hour dailies and Wheel of Fortune taped 5 shows per day, so a similar C.B. production schedule could've knocked out an 18-episode season in 4-5 days. Celebrity Bowling was before my time, though, and I've only seen a couple of snippets on YouTube. I didn't know it was broadcast just once a week, but only 18 episodes a season for a weekly show seemed skimpy for a program of its era. I would've assumed it produced 39 or 52 episodes per season to meet a weekly broadcast schedule.

For what it's worth, producer Bob Stewart said his show Pyramid normally did 15 shows in 2 days, and that they held the record for doing 25 shows in 3 days. At that rate, a production crew can do 41-42 shows in 5 days. I guess the only thing stopping a producer from making years' worth of episodes in advance is that the clothes worn could go out of style. (Celebrities too, I guess. :))

https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/bob-stewart?clip=34612#interview-clips (go to 3:55)

Sure, I know the Goodson/Todman 1/2-hour dailies and Wheel of Fortune taped 5 shows per day, so a similar C.B. production schedule could've knocked out an 18-episode season in 4-5 days. Celebrity Bowling was before my time, though, and I've only seen a couple of snippets on YouTube. I didn't know it was broadcast just once a week, but only 18 episodes a season for a weekly show seemed skimpy for a program of its era. I would've assumed it produced 39 or 52 episodes per season to meet a weekly broadcast schedule.


"18 episodes a season for a weekly show seemed skimpy for a program of its era".

Good observation. I racked my head trying to figure that one out myself. The production company (7-10 Productions) were two guys, one a Hollywood press agent, the other some type of a talent manager. I don't remember anything about this show, didn't know it existed until the Decades binge weekend (when we all had Decades). It may have been something that worked with other sports programming elements to fill a variable timeslot (maybe after baseball/basketball/hockey games) that were televised by local stations throughout the country. It's hard to imagine how something with only 18 episodes per year could be regularly scheduled. I'd be interested if anyone had additional information.