The Newlywed Game
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| The Newlywed Game | |
|---|---|
 The Newlywed Game title logo |
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| Format | Game Show |
| Starring | Bob Eubanks (1966-2000), Jim Lange (1984), Paul Rodriguez (1988-1989), Gary Kroeger (1996-1997) |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 Minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC (1966-1974, 1984) Syndication (1977-1980, 1985-1989, 1996-2000) |
| Original run | 1966 – 2000 |
The Newlywed Game was an American television game show where newly-married couples answered questions to find out how well the husband and wife knew each other. Produced by Chuck Barris, the show became famous for some of the arguments that couples had over incorrect answers and even led to some divorces [1].
When the show (created by Nick Nicholson and Roger Muir) premiered, it was scheduled against CBS' Password. On the day of first episode, CBS pre-empted Password for coverage of Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara's press conference on the Vietnam War. Many viewers expecting to see Password instead changed the channel to ABC, which had decided go ahead with the premiere of The Newlywed Game instead of the press conference; many of those viewers kept watching Newlywed instead of Password, and as a result, Password was cancelled a year later.
The Newlywed Game is one of the first TV shows to have offensive language bleeped out.
Two ice hockey franchises in Macon, Georgia, both named the "Macon Whoopee", attribute their names to the sexual slang phrase popularized by The Newlywed Game.
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[edit] Hosts
Bob Eubanks is the host that is most often associated with The Newlywed Game. Eubanks was, at the time the show signed on in 1966, the youngest emcee to host a game show at age 28. He hosted all versions except the 1984 ABC version, which Jim Lange hosted; the last season of the 1980s version, which Paul Rodriguez hosted; and the first season of the 1990s version, which Gary Kroeger hosted. The 1997 revival featured a different format than the best known format of the show; after one season of disappointing ratings, Eubanks was brought back to the show as host and co-executive producer and the classic format was revived.
Johnny Jacobs was the voice of The Newlywed Game during its entire 1966-74 and 1977-80 runs, however, Tony McClay subbed for Jacobs on occasion. (A recent discovery of a long lost black and white kinescope episode of The Newlywed Game from July 26, 1966 reveals that before Johnny Jacobs, the announcer who served briefly on this show was Scott Beach, who was Barris' original choice for host of the show, prior to Eubanks' audition.) Jacobs died in 1982, and when the 1980s version surfaced and renamed The All-New Newlywed Game, Rod Roddy was the announcer on the Jim Lange version, Bob Hilton announced from 1985 to 1987, then Charlie O'Donnell, who worked with Eubanks at Los Angeles radio station KRLA in the 1960s, took over from 1987 until its cancellation in 1989. John Cramer announced in the '90s.
[edit] Rules of the game
For the first round, the wives were taken off the stage while the husbands were asked three questions. (Many of The Newlywed Game's questions dealt with "making whoopee", the euphemism that producers used for sexual intercourse in order to get around network censors. However, it became such a catchphrase of the show that Eubanks continued to use the word throughout the show's many runs, even in the 1980s and 1990s episodes, when he could easily have said "make love" or "have sex" without censorship.) The wives were then brought back on stage and were asked for their answers for the same three questions. Once the wife gave her answer, the husband revealed the answer that he previously gave, which was written on a blue card. A match for that question was worth 5 points for the couple.
(Originally, in the first year of the first ABC version, the husbands went off-stage first while the wives had to predict what their husbands would say. Each correct match was worth 5 points. Then the wives would go off-stage as the husbands would be asked 10-point questions with a bonus question worth 25 points (which usually decided the game). The maximum possible score was 70 points.
The fun was, of course, when the couples didn't match. Often, couples got into huge arguments over their answer, and the audience loved it. Eubanks of course played right along, often using one spouse's words against the other or "taking sides".
The roles were reversed in the second round, where the husbands were taken off the stage and the wives were asked four questions before the husbands were brought back on stage to give their answers. The first three questions in this round were worth 10 points each, and the final question was worth 25 points.
The couple with the highest score at the end of the second round won a prize that was "chosen just for you" (actually, the contestants had requested a certain prize and competed with other couples that had requested the same prize). In the event of a tie, each couple predicted the total points they would earn on the show. The couple that has the closest guess without going over their actual total, won. If all the tied couples went over, the couple who had the closest guess would win. It is possible to achieve a perfect score of 70 points, and it has happened a few times. However, if the winning couple's guess was on the nose, they win a bigger prize (this has happened a few times).
The grand prize was never a car, but it could include just about anything else: appliances, furniture, home entertainment systems, a trailer or motorcycles, trips (complete with luggage and camera), etc. In the 1997 remake, the grand prize was always a trip (dubbed "a second honeymoon").
For the first half of the 1988-89 season, the scoring system was changed: correct answers paid off in cash ($25 in round one, $50 in round two), and during the final question, the couples could wager any part of their earnings up to that point. This scoring format was dropped, and the old one reinstated, when Paul Rodriguez took over as host in December 1988, although the number of couples competing was then reduced to three.
[edit] Gary Kroeger's version
When Gary Kroeger took over in the fall of 1996, the show was overhauled with a new format. Like the 1988-1989 season of The New Newlywed Game, three couples competed in a series of rounds.
[edit] Round 1
Each spouse was shown a videotape of their mates who gave a statement mostly about their spouse. The tape was paused near the end which gave the spouse in control a chance predict how his/her mate completed the statement. Then the tape played again, and a correct answer earned 10 points. First the husbands tapes were shown & the wives took a guess, then it went the opposite direction.
[edit] Round 2
Host Kroeger, asked the couples a multiple-choice question in which one half of the couples had given answers in advance, and it's up to the other halves to guess what they chose. Again each match earns 10 points. First the wives predicted what their husbands said, then the process was reversed.
[edit] Round 3
In this round before the show, the wives gave some very weird facts about themselves. Host Kroeger gave the facts to the husbands whom were equipped with heart-shaped signs that say "That's My Wife!". If the husband recognized that fact, all he had to do was to raise the sign and yell out, "THAT'S MY WIFE!". If correct, he wins 10 points for his team, but if wrong he loses 10 points for the team. Only the first husband to raise the sign can win or lose.
[edit] Round 4
In this final round of the game, host Kroeger read a series of choices (ex: Candy or Potato Chips, Rocket Scientist or Space Cadet, Ketchup or Mustard etc.), the wives held cards with one of the choices on it. Then the husbands chose one of the two things that most applies to them. Each match earns points, they were seven questions and each question was worth 10 points more than the previous question with the last question worth even more.
- Question 1 - 10 points
- Question 2 - 20 points
- Question 3 - 30 points
- Question 4 - 40 points
- Question 5 - 50 points
- Question 6 - 60 points
- Question 7 - 100 points
The couple with the most points wins the game and wins a second honeymoon trip.
This format was mostly disliked by fans of the original show, so the next year they switched it back to its original format, with original host Bob Eubanks back at the helm.
[edit] "In the butt"
The Newlywed Game was the subject of an urban legend for many years. The story, which had several variations, had Bob Eubanks asking a contestant, "Where is the weirdest place where you have ever made whoopee?" in one episode. The contestant supposedly responded, "In the butt." Eubanks denied the incident for a long time.[2]
The original clip had been presented -- possibly (since it was an outtake belonging to Eubanks) without the foreknowledge or consent of the participants shown -- on a "Newlywed Game Bloopers" television program broadcast in about 1984 on non-network cable TV. It showed an African-American couple who were asked "Where is the most unusual place you've ever made whoopee?" The husband, when asked to predict his wife's response (which was, incidentally, "In the kitchen"), replied, with every attempt at dignity, "That would be up the butt, Bob," to which the audience responded with hysterical laughter. The male contestant, then, unamused and embarrassed, clearly having been displeased about being the object of that laughter in the original incident, may have complained about the clip's being televised without his knowledge, which may have resulted in further embarrasment, and asked that it not be shown again. And that complaint may have been the reason Eubanks for some time publically offered a reward for any copy of this clip which he also said did not exist!
More recently Eubanks said that the incident in question happened in a 1977 episode where he asked a wife named Olga where the weirdest place that she and her husband Hank had the urge to "make whoopee" was. After drawing a blank, and prodded by Eubanks to give an answer, the wife responded, "In the ass" (with "ass" bleeped out). As everyone in the studio laughed uproariously, Eubanks clarified the question, asking for the weirdest location.
Eubanks reluctantly presented the clip on a 2002 NBC special, The Most Outrageous Game Show Moments, which he co-hosted. The clip also appeared (uncensored) in the 2002 film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, about the life of producer Barris. The clip was later requested by fans and aired numerous times in future Outrageous game Show Moments specials, until the 4th epsidoe in which Bob explained the clip is being "retired" and also stated (possibly jokingly) "I hope they bury the sucker."
Hank's original, more pedestrian answer that Olga couldn't match was... "in the car", one that had drawn laughter and applause during the husbands-only segment. (Eubanks: "I'm going to take the side streets hereafter." )
During the same season, Eubanks asked another set of couples what their least favorite place to make love was. One wife quickly said, "Probably I would say the ass" (with that word bleeped out.) causing her husband to groan and sink in his seat. That episode was seen on the "Nutty Newlyweds" retrospective on Game Show Network in 2002.
[edit] Theme songs
The theme music originally started off as a vocal song called "Summertime Guy". The song was written by Chuck Barris for singer Eddie Rambeau, who performed and released the song on a Swan label 45 rpm SP record. Minutes before the song was to be presented on American Bandstand, in 1962, ABC informed Rambeau that he couldn't sing the song (because Chuck Barris was an ABC employee at the time), and a new song was needed.
Not wanting the song to go to waste, Barris commissioned Milton DeLugg, a few years later, to arrange an instrumental version of "Summertime Guy" and used it as the first theme to The Newlywed Game. The theme music was performed by the Trumpets Olé in a style similar to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, and was released as the last track on the LP album "The Trumpets Olé Play Instrumentals".
The theme was re-recorded around 1973 by Frank Jaffe and Michael Stewart. Featured as the third track on the LP album "Chuck Barris Presents Theme From TV Game Shows", it was used on The Newlywed Game beginning with the syndicated version in 1977. Delugg created a new, updated theme based on the existing melody was for The New Newlywed Game in 1985.
When Paul Rodriguez took over in 1988, the theme song was changed to the 1950s doo wop classic, "Book of Love", by the Monotones. The Gary Kroeger-hosted season featured an entirely new theme; when Eubanks returned, a new recording of the classic theme was used for his first two seasons (arranged by Steve Kaplan), but this was dropped in favor of a new theme for the fourth season by Barry Coffing and John Blaylock.
[edit] Episode status
The episode status of the ABC daytime version is unknown, and is presumed to be destroyed, due to a practice used by ABC known as wiping; most episodes are said to be unairable due to color deterioration. The ABC nighttime version's status is also unknown for similar reasons, although a few of the evening shows have been shown on GSN's former block "Game Show Saturday Night".
A handful of the daytime episodes exist, and a few have been shown on GSN, most notably the 1974 finale. The 70's syndicated version exists, and reruns currently air on GSN. The New Newlywed Game also fully exists, and Eubanks-hosted reruns aired on GSN until January 2nd, 2006. The Lange episodes exist and GSN has also aired those in the past. GSN has also rerun the Eubanks-hosted seasons of the 1997-2000 revival. Bob Eubanks- and Jim Lange-hosted episodes have been the only ones aired on GSN.
[edit] See also
- I'm Telling (NBC game show similar to The Newlywed Game, but involving kids/siblings)
- Here Come the Newlyweds (ABC reality program; unrelated to The Newlywed Game, other than the newlywed aspect of the show and the title)
[edit] External links
- Mike's Classic TV Games Site: The Newlywed Game
- Additional info on the urban legend (from snopes.com)
- Funny Newlywed Game answers
