1980's "Game Show" Involving TV Celebs Playing Video Games...What Could Be Better???

[Brian Damage]

While set on a cheap-looking soundstage, the show was well-funded enough to have three (!) hosts: “Happy Days”’ Anson Williams (Potsie); model Jayne Kennedy (who would have been familiar to viewers because of her appearances on "NFL Today," if they weren’t aware of her popular exercise videos or Playboy spread) and future game-show host Marty Cohen ("Super Password," "The (New) $25,000 Pyramid"). Technically, Cohen was billed as the “commentator” rather than a host, as three hosts would have been silly, but the difference in roles seems to have mainly been that, as commentator, Cohen got to tell more bad jokes.

The contestants were about as random of an 80s grab bag as you could ever dream up: soap actors, Dynamite cover regulars and Lou Ferrigno. During the introductions, some performers were judged to be well known enough to be identifiable without a TV show credit (Scott Baio); some got the name-hint of their TV show being read after their name (Mindy Cohn from "Facts Of Life," Todd Bridges from "Diff'rent Strokes"); and others, like Jenilee Harrison (Suzanne Somers' replacement on "Three's Company"), just got the vague “TV Star” descriptor. Watching it now, the actor whose presence seems most random is Lynn Redgrave, who was then hyping her (soon-to-be-cancelled) TV series “Teachers Only.”

Here's how the battle worked: The celebrity players were divided into four teams of three. Across three rounds, a player from each team would come out to play a different video game (Ms. Pac-Man, BurgerTime and Frogger). After the third round, the two teams that had scored the most points sent up their best player for a rousing round of head-to-head Pac-Man.


http://www.theawl.com/2012/05/battle-of-the-video-games