Top 10 Game Shows to Play Along With

I used to love game shows as a kid! Of course there are different types of TV game shows. You have the one’s that are almost stunt shows with all kinds of silly things contestants are forced to do to win prizes. “Double Dare” comes to mind, and you can go all the way to “Beat the Clock” for examples of that. Of course we have Reality Shows which function as game shows, where if you do something realistic you get a prize (singing contract on American Idol, a date on The Love Connection, or getting cash for having America’s funniest home video). Quiz shows which sound exactly like it sounds, questions and answered or puzzles are solved. There are a wide range of these from “Name That Tune” to “Sale of the Century”. And of course there were Panel Shows which involved celebrities trying to participate to win money (either for a contestant or a charity). Think “To Tell the Truth”, “Win Lose or Draw” or “The Gong Show”. These are fun thanks to the celebrities who are in the show. Sometimes the contestants are an after thought.

 

 

The best part of all these types of shows is being able to play along with the contestants. Some game shows, you can’t really. I mean we can laugh at the stunts on “Ellen’s Game of Games” but we can’t play along so much. Pyramid was like this, the audience is given the word so there is no fun in it to play at home. This doesn’t mean these shows aren’t fun to watch, but I like the one’s where you can actually play along and try to see if you can answer the questions or solve the puzzles.

 

 

 

 

 

And so after that long intro, here are the ten best game shows to play along with. Of course, this is all opinion and just for fun.

#10.The Match Game

I’ve said before that I was never a big fan of this show. But it still belongs on the list. There is a panel of celebrities, who kind of dominate the show, and the goal is for the contestants to match the answers that the celebrites had given. While not one of my favotites Richard Dawson, Charles Nelson Riley and Betty White were among the famous panelists.

 

Reviewing Even More Cartoon Openings

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I was going to run down some children’s TV openings, but after two or three I really couldn’t come up with any good examples to discuss. Children’s live action shows take a very different approach than cartoons. So instead, let’s go over cartoons. And maybe I will work in a live action show or two. Since I kind of covered syndicated stuff last time, let’s have some fun by going over some classic Saturday Morning fare.

 

 

Let’s start with one of the more quintisential Saturday Morning cartoons:

Smurfs

It’s amazing how just the first two seconds of this opening makes you realize how awful those live action movies were. Why in the world were The Smurfs in New York?? Anyway, we get this great shot of the world they live in before meeting our characters. The song is awesone, the characters are doing wat they do, and we even get a great intro for our main villain. And wat a dufus he is. This is a nice, quick opening that tells us all we need to know.

 

Top 10 Star Trek TV/Movie Scores

Five years ago I went over the Star Trek movie theme’s. And more recently, I went through all the main theme’s to the various TV series. But there is one other music area I need to discuss. That is the amazing music within the episodes and movies themselves. We all know movies have soundtracks, but did you know some of the episodes had such great music that they have soundtracks from them too? I owned a couple on audio tape. Star Trek always went above and beyond with thier music, with live orchestral melodies in every episode. Usually these were nice, but sometimes they would crank it up to something almost feature film worthy.

 

 

 

Here are my top 10 scores from Trek movies and/or episodes. I had to keep it 10 or we’d be here all day there is so much wonderful music out there.Two big rules here. One, obviously no main titles. It has to be music that takes place in the episode or film. Second, only one score per episode or film. As we’ll discuss there are episodes and movies with so much great music just one could take up the whole list!

 

 

#10.Star Trek-The Motion Picture

This is so high becayse it’s almost a cheat. This music is from the fampous beauty pass of the Enterprise. You know, that scene were Kirk stares at the ship for like six minutes? Jerry Goldsmith set a standard with this amazing music, as I said before one of the positives from that movie, and here we get a beautiful rendition on beautifuly display.

 

Underrated Trek:Children of Time (DS9)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. One of the coolest things about Star Trek is the way it makes you think about an issue. Sometimes, the solution the episode gives doesn’t agree with the way you would choose. Think episodes like “Tuvix” or “Dear Doctor”. There was one from DS9 which pissed me off when I saw it because of the choices made. So much so I never watched the episode since. But today I decided to revisit the episode, and decide if the fact I don’t agree with it means it’s a bad episode. This is…

This is one of Trek’s more unique time travel stories. As we see the effect before the cause!

 

 

 

 

A Look at Back to the Future Spin-Off’s and Homages

I talked a lot about how much I adored the Back to the Future movies. So much that this year, on its 35th anniversary, I wasn’t sure what else to talk about. But while I have discussed the movies there are other spin-off’s and homages in other media which I’ve never (or hardly) mentioned. So to celebrate this amazing movie let’s go over them today. A movie like this has enormous impact, even this many years later!!

 

 

 

The Soundtrack & DVD Releases.

Kind of a no brainer but worth a mention.I used to own a tape of the soundtrack (yes, I am that old). Yeah that music is that awesome to listen to. The Huey Lewis tracks aren’t bad either. There all kinds of extra features on the DVD’s including Doc Brown returning in a short film which was on the 30th anniversary blue ray (which is the only way to see it apparently). Plus There a very old special about the series hosted by Kirk Cameron of all people (I had that on VHS once before it became a bonus feature).

 

Reviewing More Cartoon Openings

So the other day I had fun doing this, but I got bogged down but focusing on Superfriends os much. There are a ton more out there to look at, so let’s do more today. And again, just cartoon’s we’ll get into livr action children’s programs another time. Considering how cory those can be that shou;d be fun. For now, let’s keep animated.

 

Thundercats

While I never watched this show this opening is pretty awesome. The fast animation and we get to see everything we need to see. It’s hard for a show to not have narration over it, but this one doesn’t. Just that awesome music. Ok to be fair the “song”, if I can even call it that, is weak. They couldn’t do more than just repeating the same three words over and over again? No wonder they threw everything into the animation.

 

Reviewing Cartoon Openings

So let’s take our attention away from sitcoms and talk about cartoons. You could argue that openings for cartoons are twice as important. It’s one thing to have to get the attention of an adult that your show is worth watching. Doing it for children is much harder. Which is probably why cartoon openings are usually quick, with lots going on while kickass music plays. People realize that often the best animation for the series is in that opening, which makes sense.

Let’s go through some cartoons and decide not so much if they worked, but how well they worked.

Alvin & The Chipmunks

Yeah kind of a weird one to start off but this opening has always been one of my favorites. That music is great, grabbing you right away. The song explains who they are, and does it in a great way. The franchise had floundered before this little cartoon came along, and that opening theme is what drew me in to learning just who Alvin, Simon and Theodore were.