History Main / GameShow

* ''Pictionary'' (1997-98; all-celeb game)

** ''People Puzzler''

* ''The Last Word''

* ''Slime Time''

* ''The Video Game''

Game shows were enormously popular in America during the 1950s when TV became a progressively more viable purchase, until several of the most popular ones [[note]]''Series/TwentyOne'' (the most infamous), ''Series/TicTacDough'' (~75% of the nighttime run), ''[[Series/The64000Question The $64,000 Question]]'' (some contestants were set up to win or lose depending on whether the head of sponsor Revlon liked them), ''The $64,000 Challenge'' ('''children!'''), and ''Series/{{Dotto}}'' (the smoking gun)[[/note]] turned out to be [[ExecutiveMeddling rigged]].

* ''Series/BigBreak''

** ''Series/FriendOrFoe?''

* ''Pictionary'' (1989; Barry-Enright game played by children)

* ''Series/TheChair''

The 1990s brought with it a sense that ideas were running out, as networks and cable stations dropped games left and right (the last Big Three victim being ''Series/CaesarsChallenge'' in January 1994). Only ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'', ''Series/WheelOfFortune'', and ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' remained through the entire decade, with a few other games briefly popping up here and there. More discerning contestants opted to appear on [[https://time2play.com/blog/game-shows-youre-most-likely-to-win/ game shows you're most likely to win]] in order to up their chances at a big prize.[[Creator/{{GSN}} Game Show Network]] launched in December 1994, giving fans a constant home for classic games and new formats; prior to that, they'd had to rely on other cable nets, including Creator/{{Nickelodeon}}, Creator/USANetwork, and [[Creator/{{Freeform}} CBN/The Family Channel]] for their fix. 2015 would bring the launch of a new classic game channel, Buzzr, owned by [[Creator/FremantleMedia Fremantle]] and serving as vault channel for their classic game show library.

* ''Let's Go Back''

* ''Series/CardSharks''

* ''Series/DoubleDare1986'' (1986-93, 2000, 2018-; Nickelodeon children's game show)

** ''Series/PressYourLuck'' (1983-86)

** ''Series/The$100,000FortuneHunt'' (Illinois)

** ''Series/The $100,000 Fortune Hunt'' (Illinois)

** ''The $100,000 Fortune Hunt'' (Illinois)

Game show rigging began in 1954, when an indictment of the FCC against ABC that accused the latter's quiz shows of legally counting as gambling was ruled by the Supreme Court of the United States as not counting as such, and dismissed the case as motivated by prejudice against lottery, [[TheNewRockAndRoll which was a moral panic at the moment]]. Since game shows were not legally lotteries, that meant the laws that governed authorized lotteries didn't apply, and this included the laws that prevented rigging; the producers knew that damn well, and thus they immediately proceeded to rig the hell out of their game shows, sometimes even going as far as decrying honest game shows like the pilot broadcast of ''Series/TwentyOne'' as complete failures[[note]]in the producers' words, it turned out to be a mockery of the format and all it did was showing off how completely ignorant your average Joe was[[/note]]. In one particular instance, the producers of ''Series/The64000Question'' actively tried as hard as possible to block a contestant from winning the top prize, with a side serving of FairForItsDay sexism due to said contestant being a woman blessed with extreme photographic memory and thus having a fair share of knowledge about "manly" pop culture topics such as boxing and horse racing. And then, to top it off, many producers proceeded to cover everything up as hard as possible; ''Series/{{Dotto}}'' was abruptly cancelled as soon as the producers found out that a contestant blew the whistle to the FCC about having seen a notebook in the backstage with all the answers his rival said, and when 150 producers and staff members were summoned to a state grand jury to explain, 100 of them ended up lying to the jury.

* ''Series/FunHouse''