The $1,000,000 Pyramid: Available Now on Wii
Over 800 categories and 4800 words, avatar unlocks and bonuses provide hours of replayablity. With an innovative new party mode, you can bring your friends with you and finally find out who’s worthy of taking the Winner’s Circle.Learn More.

Family Feud Decades Edition: Available Now on Wii
With 2000+ surveys and decade-specific questions, this is the best way to play the Feud you remember! Along with sets from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s, you can also personalize your avatar with hippie, disco, grunge, and other styles. It’s also easier to enter your response with predictive text and a spell-checker. Three difficulties mean everyone can have fun at their level. Play by yourself against the AI or gather family and friends to continue the Feud.Learn More.

GSG: Who are you?
MGS: My name is Chris “MrGameShow” Colbourne, and I’m from Sudbury, Ontario, Canada (northeast of Toronto) – the same hometown as Alex Trebek!

GSG: What do you do?
MGS: When it comes to game shows, I’ve worn many hats over time – from creating show ideas, to making the software to play those games, to even hosting live shows! Nowadays, I develop what I call “Interactive Pitch Presentations” for producers in Hollywood. In the past, you would have to spend a lot of money to build a physical set, get a host and contestants, and shoot a pilot in order to get your new game show idea together for people to see. With today’s technology, it’s possible to build virtual sets on the computer, and allow the people you are presenting the concept to the opportunity to participate and experience the excitement of the show first hand – rather than watching a couple of actors fake applauding on the screen. It’s proven to be much more effective in helping the producers convey their ideas, as well as helping in the pre-production stages to know what is and isn’t going to work.

GSG: How did you end up with the name “Mr. Gameshow”?
MGS: During high school, I used to produce game shows for everyone to come see. In the week prior, I would partake in the morning announcements to remind people of the show. I would use my real name, but never felt it had a ‘catch’ to attract attention – but I didn’t want to come up with something so left field that people would forget. So after one of my shows, I was walking down the hall and some of my Italian classmates were acting macho around some girls and said rather loudly, “Hey look! It’s the game show guyyyy!” Without missing a beat, I turned and said “No, that’s MISTER Game Show to you!” and continued on. We all had a chuckle over it, but I began to think, “Hey.. this fits! This could work!” and from that moment on, I used the moniker with anything else I did. I’ve been fortunate enough to carry that recognition over to the online community for many years now; I’ve even had someone who opened up a .com website with the name try to buy my IM and social media accounts for $50 to promote his business – my reply was short and sweet… “NO DEAL!”

GSG: Why do you love game shows?
MGS: I grew up watching game shows from a young age – as my mom likes to put it, my vocabulary as a baby was “Mama” “Dada” and “Bob Barker”. There’s a certain excitement to game shows similar to that of sports, where you are cheering for the underdog to win, then celebrate with them when they do, or mourn their loss if they don’t. However, unlike sports, game shows are something that you can participate with from where you are sitting instead of just spectating. Whether it be trying to say the Jeopardy! question before the contestants ring in, or yelling at the screen which briefcase a contestant should take next on Deal or No Deal, there’s a sense of interactivity you don’t get from many other forms of entertainment.

GSG: How did you get into the game show industry?
MGS: As I began to explore the Internet back in high school, I started hearing about these things called newsgroups where people with collective interests would post messages and chat about things, much as people do in forums these days. There seemed to be one for everything, and to my surprise, there was even a group for game shows! I started posting the odd message and learning that people ‘within the industry’ were actually posting messages too – how cool was that! This led to exchanging emails with people behind the scenes of these shows and creating new long distance friendships, some of which I still have to this day.

GSG: What are some of the game show properties you’ve worked on?
MGS: Well, due to confidentiality reasons, I can’t name shows; however, I’ve been fortunate enough to collaborate on ideas with many of the bigger companies like FremantleMedia and Sony; networks like GSN, CBS, and MTV; and even having the honor of working with some celebrities like Dave Coulier, Tommy Davidson, and fellow Canadian Alan Thicke.

GSG: How did FLASHGAMESHOWS.COM get started?
MGS: There were a small group of people who were creating playable game show games, each with their own strengths – mine was graphics, another was programming, another was puzzle and question writing, etc. We all had our own little faux logos that would come up at the start of the game, to show that we worked on it. The more we did together as a group, the more I kept thinking “Can’t we just all come together under ONE name, since we’re all working on the same stuff all the time?” – and since our programming language of choice was Flash, it seemed fitting to name it FLASHGames. After we let the website lapse due to paying for the site out of our own pockets, a friend offered to pay for a year of hosting if I did some work for their site. I decided that the relaunched site should have a slightly different name, and thus adopted the “squared” 2 onto the logo.

GSG: Your site averaged 16,000 visitors per month with your games being played over 100,000 times. However, recently the games section was taken down as a result of a licensor request. Can you tell us what happened?
MGS: Something that I think should be made clear is that we were first and foremost a FAN SITE that was opened nearly a decade ago, when “interactive online media” was very rare to find; in comparison to today where there’s MANY sites competing for your attention to play the games on their site. I think we opened the eyes of these companies to say “Hey, there’s a market here.” On the flip side, these companies are a BUSINESS which makes money on allowing people to license their properties/shows to create a game they can sell or a TV show they can show on their network. We never intended to sell the games or any type of membership to the website, so in hindsight, we never figured to pursue any type of licensing agreements with the owners of the games we were creating. This created a conflict with companies who were trying to purchase ‘exclusive’ rights to these formats (meaning the contract says they are the ONLY company for a period of time that will be able to do anything with that property/show) – so why does FGS have a version of the game on their website when (we) have the exclusive contract? And so, since we technically “have the rights” to produce these games, they politely asked us to take the games down. The “Ceist and Desist” legal letters are just a formality to show that they did in fact officially request that the games were taken down – but the companies contacted us prior to those letters to discuss the situation. On a positive note, the website did garner the attention of people in the industry over the years, and I have been involved in many aspects behind the scenes of quite a few game shows!

GSG: Tell us about your involvement with Whammy: The All New Press Your Luck on GSN.
MGS: Over the internet, I’ve met quite people who were in the television business who worked on game shows. One of them was familiar with my games and said that they were helping to create a revival of PRESS YOUR LUCK, and while there were some software replicas out there, none were customizable enough to suit their needs. I offered to take a stab at it, and he said “But we’re starting meetings on Monday” – and it was Friday afternoon. I asked him to give me a chance, and so he did. I recall losing a lot of sleep that weekend getting all the bugs out of the software, but they had a workable game on their desk by Monday morning. They ended up using my software to test potential contestants for the show during auditions! When they were picked up for a second season, they came back to me to work some of their new ideas (like the BIG BANK) into the software to game test. As a token of their appreciation, some friends and I were invited to the studio the morning of the final tape day to play our own private show! Such a great experience, and it was a stepping stone to many more things to come…

GSG: What’s your favorite classic game show?
MGS: I think you can’t get much better than MATCH GAME 7x. Even though they’ve tried several times to reincarnate the show, the pure chemistry of Gene Rayburn, Brett Sommers and Charles Nelson Reilly will never be duplicated. It was a show that almost didn’t feel like a game show; it was a bunch of friends hanging out, telling some jokes and just having a good time (sometimes more than others depending on if they had a cocktail or two during the lunch break!)

GSG: Settle this dispute: Who’s the best game show host of all time? Why?
MGS: I’m afraid there’s no single right answer for this question. Each host had a unique role and personality in the shows that they’ve hosted, whereas a host for one style of show may not necessarily fit another. I certainly have a list of my favorites: Jim Perry, Jim Lange, Gene Rayburn, Bill Cullen, Wink Martindale, and of course, Bob Barker. All of these hosts were great for developing their craft of building everyone up to that defining moment of the game that you were going to win it all, and once you did, it was pure magic. They were the definition of what a game show host was, and who I aspire to follow in the footsteps of.

GSG: What’s your best game show story?
MGS: I think my most memorable experience was consulting on an MTV show where they were doing a mock version of Family Feud, and they had brought in Tommy Davidson as the host. During a rehearsal for the crew and Tommy, the director kept deferring to me about rules and game tidbits. The moment the director was done, Tommy pointed at me and said “You need to come with me and teach me how to host this thing.” We took about 20 minutes together and he watched me do the throws and body movements as if I was hosting, practicing each piece himself as we went along. It also gave me a new appreciation for the craft of hosting, because you don’t realize just how many rules are ingrained into these shows until you try teaching someone else to walk in your footsteps. Tommy did a great job and it was a lot of fun to watch it back when it aired.

GSG: Of the games at gameshowvideogames.com, what’s your favorite? Why?
MGS: If I were forced to choose just ONE, I think I’d have to go with PRICE IS RIGHT 2010 – since now you can play 30 of your favorite pricing games along with family and friends from the comfort of your own living room!

GSG: Are you aware of this guy?

MGS: As a matter of fact, I still have “Gus Glitz” in my games closet! The box still has the original price tag on it of $179.99 – but I got it on sale for about $60, which was still a lot of money back then!

$1,000,000 Pyramid for the Wii launches on March 8th, and it’s packed with features that will keep you playing for a long time. Of course you can go head-to-head with someone on the couch in party mode, but the game also boasts career mode where you play through shows against distinct AI opponents with increasing levels of difficulty.

You won’t likely run out of material either, since the game comes packed with over 4800 words in 800 categories. And don’t worry: there’s a fast and easy-to-use set of spell-checking and word-shortcut tools so you’ll always enter your guess quickly and accurately.

Whether you’re showing the kids who’s still the brains of the family or getting embarrassed by grandma, join the rest of us at Game Show Games on March 8th to climb the $1,000,000 Pyramid!

Grab your pre-order from the Ubi store!

Buzzerblog

Besides having one of our all-time favorite game show blogs, Alex at Buzzerblog offers a unique assortment of game shows across a refreshingly wide assortment of media. Play Letter Pops on Facebook, QuizQuizQuiz on your iDevice, or tune in to the podcasts DoubleCross or PinPoint.

http://buzzerblog.flashgameshows.com/games/

FlashGames2

Mr. Gameshow is a friend of the site from the frosty north of Canada. He’s been a game show fan for years and he’s put a lot of work into some fun Flash games. Check out my favorite, Reel Pyramid. HiLo is also amazingly addictive despite being absurdly simple.

http://www.flashgameshows.com/

Joytube

Joytube features 36 games loosely based on game shows. Personally, I love the retro sitcom trivia from Sitcom Blocks, a Hollywood Squares-esque game of tic-tac-toe. Hexed is another fun variation on trivia with letter-themed questions.

www.joytube.com

Pacdude Games

“Be Less Bored,” he says. Command accepted. I can’t argue with the spirit of Pacdude’s site, which offers goofy and playful takes on some game show favorites. I’m a huge fan of his variation on Millionaire, “Super Generic Quiz Game.”

http://pacdudegames.com/

BigJon’s PC Games

Big Jon has put together quite a stable of downloadable PC game show games over the years, and he’s got a lively community on the forums to prove it. He offers everything from Hollywood Squares and Tic Tac Dough to The Joker’s Wild and Match Game.

www.bigjonpcgames.com

If you know of any more fan created game show games, let us know in the comments. And remember, you can always play our contributions by clicking “PLAY FOR FUN” in the upper-right of this page.

But did you meet the REAL Bink Dawsondale? If you quickly clicked through the questions, you likely missed the best part: the strange and hilarious ramblings of man who may or may not be completely sane. Here are our top 5 Bink Dawsondale moments you might have missed (except for the last one, skip about 30 seconds in for the madness):

5. Bink Loses It – Right off the bat, Bink demonstrates he’s not a patient man.

4. Bink’s Secret – Bink’s only crime isn’t being devastatingly handsome.

3. Double-header – This is two kinds of weird. Bink on food.

2. Mad Bink – Dawsondale makes a Mad Max reference…a little too well.

1. Ask an Expert – This is where Bink loses it. Watch him consult an old friend and then catch a quick workout.

After reading Smart Money’s “10 Things Game Shows Won’t Tell You”, I was even further demoralized. They claim that taping a game show is about as exciting as jury duty, where they “cram up to six 40-minute show tapings per day” and bathroom escorts keep you from talking to the audience or host.

So after all that work to get on, it’s like full-time job just recording the thing?

And then it happened. Now there’s no need for time consuming auditions, giant piles of legal paperwork, or excruciating tax bills. Thanks to the magic of internet GAME SHOW TECHNOLOGY, some genius has devised a way for us to experience game show contestanthood in its purest form. Prepare for your office chair to become the hot seat as you play for ONE MILLION fake DOLLARS! Press play to begin:

Stage 1: Irritation

Any game show host gets their share of obnoxious contestants. The stupidity starts at 3:04. Here Bob comments, and then moves on. Well played.

Stage 2: Impatience

Then there’s this girl. Were I Bob Barker, I’d have strapped her to the mountain climber and bid a million bucks. Bob stays classy, but if this had gone on another minute, he’d have stabbed her with the marker for sure.

Stage 3: Indignation

Bob can put up with stupidity, but he will not tolerate ingratitude. Look at how fast this guy takes back what he said when he sees the fire in Bob’s eyes.

Stage 4: Violence

We all remember this scene. Bob’s still getting air time on the WWE because of it. While this is fiction, don’t pretend for a second that there aren’t blooper reels full of black-eyed contestants in a vault somewhere. Why haven’t we heard about it? Bob can be very persuasive. That and excellent lawyers…

Stage 5: Resignation

Sometimes it’s all too much. When Bob really loses his cool, he does the thing that brings him true joy: he gives away a sweet prize. He’s just a big softy after all.

There you have it: the dark side of Bob Barker. Being a world-class host can take it’s toll on anyone. Remember that these incidents were exceedingly rare, tiny specks in an epic career. Bob Barker made his living making people happy, and continues doing the same in retirement. What a guy. Now go spay and neuter your pets…or else.

3. Ray Combs (1988-1994)

Maybe I’m biased since I grew up with his Feud, but Ray Combs is what I think of when I think of a game show host. Even though he was a comedian, he didn’t steal the show with jokes; he let the show do its thing. He knew how to handle winners and losers without a hint of hesitation. He was smooth, but warm at the same time. I miss this guy:

2. Steve Harvey (2010-present)

I had no idea what to expect when Steve Harvey took over hosting duties from John O’Hurley. So far, and with no sign of slowing down, Steve Harvey is showing some serious hosting mojo in his new position. He’s already set himself up as the absolute reigning master of the pregnant pause. Watch the man work:

1. Richard Dawson (1976-1985, 1994-1995)

Well, he did it the longest, so he should probably be the best, but come on…he’s the BEST. He was definitely the smoothest (did you ever see a woman step on to his stage without getting a kiss?); he was definitely the classiest (the man wore a pinky ring). But if the best thing about game shows is laughing at stupid answers, Richard Dawson was the king of making people feel even stupider. Classic:

If this post has got you feeling nostalgic, remember you can relive three decades of the Feud with Family Feud Decades on Wii.

6. Richard Karn (2002-2006)

When it comes to that beaming bearded buddy from Home Improvement, we have one of the most unlikely game show hosts of all time, Richard Karn. He seems like such a nice guy; it’s impossible to say anything mean about him. I like to think of him as the Al Gore of game shows: lovable, a little dry, and not particularly funny. Often it seemed like he didn’t quite know what to say. Watch this awesomely awkward snippet:

5. Louie Anderson (1999-2002)

Louie Anderson was often funny, but I always got the feeling he was one stupid answer away from snapping on the contestants. And then a little too often, like in this clip, he would drop uncomfortable hints about his family life. Game show hosting as therapy?

4. John O’Hurley (2006-2010)

Good old J. Peterman himself is definitely the classiest host since Richard Dawson. Of course he had impossibly cool hair and he managed to whip up some hilarious moments, but let’s be honest: The best thing about O’Hurley was his velvety-smooth, grandma-charming, college-professor voice that added that little bit of extra sting to a stupid answer. Here’s the man at his best:

Check in next week for our look at the crème de la crème of Feud hosts.