Pyramid (game show) broadcast history

The television game show "Pyramid" has been seen on several different networks and in syndication since it first premiered in 1973.

"Pyramid" was created by Bob Stewart. It went through several name changes over the years, with the title originally reflecting the top prize that contestants could win in that particular version.

Basic broadcast rundown

The $10,000 and $20,000 Pyramids: 1973-1980

The show debuted as "The $10,000 Pyramid" on March 26, 1973 on CBS at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time/9:30 a.m. Central, which actually caused a scheduling shuffle that had the smash hit "The Price Is Right" replacing the cancelled soap opera "Love is a Many Splendored Thing", and moving into the 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time/2:00 p.m. Central time slot. The long-running soap opera "The Young and the Restless" debuted the same day, as did the short-lived "Hollywood's Talking" with Geoff Edwards (who later hosted and guested on a number of Stewart shows). "Pyramid" marked the second Stewart series to air on CBS since the short-lived "The Face is Familiar" in 1966. It ran there for a year, the first nine months of which facing NBC's "Baffle", winning the ratings handily.

However, in January 1974, NBC placed the decade-old game "Jeopardy!" against it (after a lengthy run at 12:00 Noon/11:00 a.m. Central), and some of that legendary quiz's enthusiasts followed it there, causing "Pyramid" to slip (ABC did not begin daytime programming until 11:30 a.m./10:30 a.m., and therefore was not a factor). According to Stewart in an interview [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8460490245223299616&q=%22Archive+of+American+Television+Interview+with+Bob+Stewart%22&total=20&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0] , CBS reacted with panic upon "Pyramid's" drop below a 30 share in the Nielsen ratings during a two-week period. Impatient, the network dropped the show on March 29, 1974, replacing it on the following Monday with a new Goodson-Todman game, "Now You See It."

As per CBS custom at the time with celebrity game shows, three weeks of episodes for "The $10,000 Pyramid" were taped in Hollywood; the "Pyramid" series would not return to California until 1982.

However, unlike most games of that era that networks cancelled, "Pyramid" would experience a happier fate. According to Stewart [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8460490245223299616&q=%22Archive+of+American+Television+Interview+with+Bob+Stewart%22&total=20&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0] , CBS daytime head Bud Grant, who disagreed with network programming chief Fred Silverman's cancellation decision, referred him immediately to the syndicator Viacom, which had been founded as a division of CBS some years earlier. That firm bought the rights to stage a weekly version during the 1974-75 season; this became "The $25,000 Pyramid" (see below).

Meanwhile, ABC, looking to bolster its assortment of daytime games, saw the show as a potential performer. With Dick Clark's built-in name recognition for his many years at the helm of that network's "American Bandstand," the network took advantage of CBS' misstep by acquiring the daytime rights to "Pyramid" almost instantly (making it the first Stewart game show to air on ABC), bringing the show back on May 6, 1974, just five weeks after CBS aired it for the last time. ABC's action on "Pyramid" was similar to its acquisition of "Let's Make a Deal" from NBC five and a half years earlier.

Further, much like "Password" (another Bob Stewart creation) three years earlier, ABC assigned it to 4:00 p.m./3:00 p.m. (replacing half-hour edited reruns of the comedy anthology "Love, American Style"), where it made headway, not just in ratings but in affiliate clearances, against "Tattletales" on CBS and the soap "Somerset" on NBC. However, the show aired in varied morning timeslots on ABC affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, as it had on CBS, enabling it to compete against the other two networks' games quite well, an unusual occurrence for shows airing outside their intended network schedules.

The day before Christmas Eve, ABC relocated "Pyramid" to the old timeslot of "The Newlywed Game", 2:00 p.m./1:00 p.m., and there it would become, for three consecutive seasons, the third highest-rated game show on network daytime television (behind "Hollywood Squares" and "Match Game"). This was a remarkable achievement, given the strength of the competition: NBC's "Days of Our Lives" and CBS' "Guiding Light" and later "As the World Turns," all three of which were highly popular serials. A new game, "Money Maze," replaced "Pyramid" at 4:00 p.m./3:00 p.m. but did nowhere as well in the ratings; eventually, ABC would place another acquisition from CBS, the floundering soap "The Edge of Night," in that slot from December 1975 until handing it back to local stations in December 1984.

Reflecting the doubling of the top Winner's Circle award, on January 19, 1976, the show was renamed "The $20,000 Pyramid". After being displaced by the expansion of the soap "One Life to Live" to a full hour (2:00-3:00/1:00-2:00 p.m.), the show moved to 12:00 Noon/11 a.m. (Central & Pacific) on January 16, 1978 for the rest of its ABC run, replacing Goodson-Todman's "The Better Sex."

By 1980, "The $20,000 Pyramid" was the last remaining network daytime game show among the three commercial broadcast networks then to be produced and videotaped in New York City. It was ABC's last game show to be recorded there until 1999, when that network introduced "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" onto its primetime schedule. ABC's daytime version, which had faced increasingly hard competition from the soap "The Young and the Restless" (which coincidentally debuted on the same day as "Pyramid" in 1973 and is also owned by Sony currently) on CBS, ended its run on June 27, 1980; "Family Feud" took over the timeslot the following Monday. A total of 1,808 episodes aired on both CBS and ABC during "Pyramid's" first seven years.

The $25,000 Pyramid: 1974-1979

A weekly nighttime syndicated version called "The $25,000 Pyramid", hosted by Bill Cullen, ran from September 9, 1974 to September 9, 1979. This edition was originally sold and distributed by Viacom (as described above), and aired on individual stations in various markets, on different days of the week (known in the trade as "bicycling" videotapes). In New York City, the show was first seen on CBS' flagship station, WCBS-TV, on Thursday, September 12, 1974, with an episode featuring Anne Meara and William Shatner. In that market, the show moved to WNBC-TV toward the end of its run.

In most of the U.S., a majority of stations carried the syndicated "The $25,000 Pyramid" as one of a variety of different programs every night of the week in one of the available timeslots created by the 1971 FCC Prime Time Access Rule. Usually, the slots were one of two half-hour slots between 7:00-8:00 p.m. in the Eastern and Pacific time zones or the single one at 6:30-7:00 p.m. in the Central Time Zone (Mountain Time Zone stations' practices varied).

Junior Pyramids: 1979

A special week of five shows with celebrity adult-children contestant teams, featuring Susan Richardson and Jimmy Baio, aired between Monday, July 9 and Friday, July 13, 1979 on ABC under the title "The Junior Pyramid." A network primetime celebrity half hour special, "The All-Star Junior Pyramid," aired on ABC on Sunday, September 2, 1979 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. It featured Susan Richardson and Tony Danza playing the game for charity with young actors/actresses from the new ABC shows debuting in the fall of that year (including Rob Lowe).

That broadcast's ratings success led to the daytime version briefly adopting a full-time "Junior Partner Pyramid" format featuring civilian adult-children teams between Monday, October 1 and Friday, November 9, 1979; this was the only time in "Pyramid's" history that no celebrities were featured. A special "Celebrity Junior Pyramid" week followed afterward with celebrity guests Susan Richardson, LeVar Burton and Michael McKean, but beginning with the Monday, November 19, 1979 telecast, the daytime show reverted to the original celebrity-adult contestant format.

The $50,000 Pyramid: 1981

CPM, Inc., a Chicago-based syndicator, distributed a short-lived syndicated revival known as "The $50,000 Pyramid", which employed a complicated tournament format, and aired in daily syndication from January 26 to September 4, 1981, with Clark hosting. Afterward, episodes from that version were acquired by the CBN Cable channel, currently known as ABC Family, and aired as repeats during 1982.

This marked the final national television game show to be recorded in New York City for 18 years. "Pyramid" first taped in 1973-1974 at the Ed Sullivan Theater (CBS-TV Studio 50), moving to the Elysee Theatre (ABC TV-15) when the show switched networks. The only exception was a few weeks in fall 1973, when CBS taped episodes at its Television City studios in Los Angeles. With "Pyramid" and "To Tell the Truth" gone after 1981, only cable networks produced game shows (such as MTV's "Remote Control") in New York, until "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" debuted in 1999.

The (New) $25,000 Pyramid: 1982-1988

Even though "The $50,000 Pyramid" did not catch on the previous year, CBS decided to rectify what had been an egregious mistake eight years earlier, bringing the show back onto its morning schedule in first-run production with new episodes as "The $25,000 Pyramid" on September 20, 1982. Beginning with this version, "Pyramid" would take place in Los Angeles from this point forward. Once again, Dick Clark took the reins.

CBS placed the show at 10:00 a.m. Eastern/9:00 a.m. Central, replacing reruns of the sitcom "One Day At A Time." Within a few weeks of its return, CBS and Stewart retitled the show "The" New "$25,000 Pyramid" for (as host Clark explained on-air once) the benefit of viewers who thought the new series was actually reruns of an earlier one (despite the new set, music, etc). Further, it served to separate this version from reruns of the Cullen version still airing on some independent stations three years after ceasing production. The "New" was eventually dropped from the title on the January 28, 1985 episode (#609).

The show was the first successful accompaniment (along with "Child's Play", "Press Your Luck", and "Card Sharks") to "The Price Is Right" since "Gambit" was cancelled in 1976. The CBS daytime version remained at 10:00 a.m./9:00 a.m. throughout its six-year run, except for a three-month hiatus in early 1988. Not only did "Pyramid" easily defeat sitcom reruns on NBC (the network only attempted two short-lived games against it, both in 1985; one was in fact packaged by Stewart's son Sande, "Your Number's Up"), but it brought some CBS affiliates back into the fold who had been preempting the 10:00-11:00/9:00-10:00 a.m. hour for syndicated talk shows such as "Donahue" for the past several years.

The updated "Pyramid" ran on CBS until December 31 (New Year's Eve), 1987, but viewer demand prompted CBS to bring the show back to its daytime schedule on April 4, 1988, after the game show "Blackout" failed in "Pyramid's" time slot. "Pyramid" only lasted until July 1, 1988, however, giving way to the new version of "Family Feud" the following Monday (marking the second time in daytime network television history "Family Feud" has replaced a cancelled "Pyramid")

The $100,000 Pyramid: 1985-1988

and hosted by Clark. The gameplay was identical to the daytime version, except the three players achieving the fastest winning times in the Winner's Circle returned to play in a tournament, which took place about every six to eight weeks, for an additional $100,000.

This version was originally distributed by 20th Century Fox Television; it managed modest success against a glut of first-run syndicated games at the time. At the conclusion of this version's run, Clark retired from the show and did not appear again on it until the 2002-2004 revival (see below), as a celebrity player.

The (New) $100,000 Pyramid: 1991

"Pyramid" returned to syndication again as a mid-season entry, from January 7, 1991 to December 6, 1991 as "The $100,000 Pyramid," taped on the same Television City set as the 1980s versions, but with John Davidson hosting. Reruns of the Davidson version continued airing into the following year, until March 6, 1992.

This version was at first distributed by Carolco Pictures's distribution arm, Orbis Communications. Midway through the run, Stewart changed syndicators, moving the show to Multimedia Entertainment.

Unlike the previous version of "The $100,000 Pyramid" some years earlier, this latest update faced a programming market where games had gone almost entirely out of favor, except for "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!." Stations that did air it tended to place it in non-peak hours such as mid-afternoons or late nights, and thus gave it little or no promotion.

Pyramid: 2002-2004

After a decade's absence from television screens, in fall 2002 "Pyramid" — without any dollar amount in the title — returned in syndication, with veteran entertainer Donny Osmond hosting. Although the show was reasonably successful (decidedly more so than the Davidson version), Sony Pictures (which bought the format from Stewart upon his retirement) did not renew the show after two seasons.

Some of the scheduling problems that plagued the Davidson version afflicted the Osmond one, but, more importantly, the proliferation of cable networks and exponentially increasing viewer choices made "Pyramid" by then rather obscure. This was especially so given the fact that stations largely placed it in midday slots, where the traditional broadcast and cable outlets fought for smaller slices of an audience pie than was the case in the game's network heyday.

Not surprisingly, the game failed to gain a foothold in the American consciousness like the earlier versions had. "Pyramid" was the latest in several attempts over the years made by Sony (and predecessor companies) to add another hit show to its tandem of "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy."

The ABC Family cable network aired one episode weekly on Friday mornings only at 9:00am Eastern from October 4, 2002 through September 24, 2004. The i network (formerly PAX) then began airing reruns of the show from October 4, 2004 to February 17, 2006.

Themes and sets

The theme music used on the versions between 1973 and 1981 was "Tuning Up," composed by Ken Aldin. During the first several months on CBS, each episode began with a brief bass-and-synthesizer fanfare (a typical Bob Stewart touch) accompanying a shot of a darkened set with a spotlight shining on the Winner's Circle (if the bonus game was about to be played, the contestant would be seated in it). This segued into the main theme and the celebrities and host Clark entering the set. The show used that intro until sometime in the fall, when the producers replaced it with a taped montage of three to four highlights of past Winner's Circle victories; that intro would be used until the show's 1980 cancellation on ABC.

The original set built for the CBS version, at the time unusually large for a game show, was created by its in-house network scenic designer Jim Ryan, while the replica set made and constructed for the ABC daytime and 1970s syndicated versions (necessitated because of union refusals to grant permission for transport out of the Ed Sullivan Theater), copying much of Ryan's basic design at a cost of approximately $80,000, was co-credited to Dick Bernstein.

In the original 1973 pilot and shortly before production began on the series, the large pyramid behind the Winner's Circle featured 10 boxes. When CBS and Stewart realized that such a feat as providing 10 categories in 60 seconds was practically impossible, they reduced the number to six, but had no time to have another pyramid built. Instead, workers nailed a piece of plywood to cover the bottom row of categories, painting it in order to match the main color of the board in order for it not to show. The participants sitting in the circle during the bonus game helped to conceal it also. Further, the wide-angle shot of the set during the show's intro was zoomed out as far as possible, to make it inconspicuous from that perspective. The reconstruction at ABC solved this problem.

From 1973 to 1975, the set had a mainly orange theme (contestant podiums, main game pyramid) with blue and black accents (winner's circle pyramid box graphics). During the first several months on CBS, the set also featured a vertical wall positioned between the Winner's Circle and the large pyramid and framed between the host's and contestants' sides of the set; this wall would lift upward to reveal the back portion of the stage when the lights were all switched on during the intro of the show. The producers removed the wall when the change was made to the highlights intro (see first paragraph).

In December 1975, the set was revamped to have a mostly blue theme with gray and gold accents. Anything that was colored orange was turned blue, anything blue was turned gray, and anything black was turned gold. (These changes were also evident on the nighttime "$25,000 Pyramid".) Additionally, the host's podium was given the name of show being taped ("The $20,000 Pyramid" for the network version, "The $25,000 Pyramid" for the syndicated nighttime version). However, the area behind the pyramid became blue in early 1978 (it remained orange prior to the change).

In early 1979, however, another set change was made after the cancellation of the syndicated "Pyramid". Aluminum edges around the contestant monitors were removed while the podiums themselves were changed to a darker blue, the main floor was changed to a white tiled floor from the previous gray carpeting, and the raised surface where the contestant podiums were changed to an orange and black "zigzag pattern" carpet. Dick Clark's podium was replaced with a fiberglass "winged" podium that had "The $20,000 Pyramid" in a gray pyramid shape. The main game pyramid was also changed to use trilons instead of the pull cards that were used beforehand to bear more resemblance to the end game pyramid. When "The $50,000 Pyramid" debuted in 1981, the same set was reused without any changes.

On-screen graphics also varied from version to version. The CBS version of "The $10,000 Pyramid" used a slower, yet larger split-panel clock, and the on-screen text was colored black, with the exception of some early shows that used an ASCII computer-style font (similar to the ABC version of "Password"). When the show moved to ABC, the on-screen text remained in the Helvetica font, yet was now colored white. The clock was also changed to a smaller, faster flipping split-panel display. It remained that way until 1979, where the graphics stayed the same, yet were now given a black border around the chroma-key. Starting with "The $50,000 Pyramid", chroma-keyed items were limited to the clock displays and the title card, with CGI text replacing the usual on-screen text during main game rounds, credits, and flashing scores during end game wins (in the usual Helvetica font). This continued into the CBS daytime version (although using a new serif font) until 1985, when the title card was adapted into the CGI system.

The new set for the 1982-1992 runs was created by veteran designer Ed Flesh, but the show did list, in its long closing credits, original set designer Ryan, who was responsible for the 1970s New York set. As seen in the photo at the top of this page, the new set featured large light blue pyramids with miniature pyramids etched either going outward or inward. The ones etched inward were semi-translucent and they let the colored backdrop of the studio (usually either blue or red depending on the segment of the game) to shine through. This created an interested effect when the lights dimmed during the Winner's Circle rounds. The bottom of the pyramids had red, orange, and brown lines. The large pyramid at the back of the set used in the Winner's Circle round included six trilons surrounded by red neon bands but no miniature pyramid etchings. The entire pyramid was outlined in clear lightbulbs, as well as two angular bands that ran up the two pyramids in front of it. The Winner's Circle itself featured red and tan carpeting with red chairs and a red railing but clear poles supporting the railing. The teams' tables were orange and were placed above a light blue carpeted platform. The host's podium had an orange top with the show's title enclosed in a pyramid on the front and it had a clear pedestal. The main game's pyramid was similar to the Winner's Circle pyramid, only miniaturized. In the Davidson run, the pyramid for the front games had trilons for a short time, but they were quickly replaced with computerized television monitors shortly after the premiere. The trilons for the main game's pyramid, however, were retained for the Winner's Circle rounds. The music used on these versions was a new version of "Tuning Up," orchestrated by Bob Cobert, who had composed several other themes for Stewart shows.

The 2002-2004 version used a set with the same layout but updated for the 21st century, which featured a sparkling blue or purple backdrop (depending on round of play), steel columns which alluded to angling up to form the shape of a pyramid. Yellow projection lights were placed towards the back of the set. Team tables and the host's podium were all made of dark wood. In the main game, players read the clues from Sony Vaio laptops. In the first season, the scores were displayed only by on-screen graphics, but small flat panel televisions were placed on the front of them in the middle of the first season to display the score. The main game's pyramid was made of Sony flat panel televisions, which allowed for longer, more amusing category titles. The pyramid was shaped by steel lining. The Winner's Circle's railing was also dark wood supported by steel rods. The actual Winner's Circle pyramid was comprised of flat panel televisions even larger than the ones seen on the main game's pyramid, and they faced downward and then rotated up for the Winner's Circle rounds. It, too, was surrounded in steel lining. The music resembled did not resemble any theme used in any of the previous incarnations, and it was more of swooshing sounds than actual music.

Pyramid reruns

Reruns aired on the USA Network from October 17, 1988 to September 8, 1995 before GSN acquired the rights to "Pyramid" reruns in 1997, which it has held since then (though all GSN was allowed to air was one season of "The $100,000 Pyramid," which is not on the schedule as of February 4, 2008). CBS did broadcast two repeat episodes, one each on December 24 (Christmas Eve) and December 31 (New Year's Eve), 1993, originally from January 1983 featuring Lynn Redgrave and Billy Crystal, during the same period as the reruns being shown on the USA Network.