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COVER STORY ARCHIVES Analysis: Drew Carey as host of The Price Is Right Bob Barker on his career 2007 Jeopardy! college champ Cliff Galiher Tribute to Tom Poston More Tributes to Tom Poston Part 1 with Art James GSN executive Kevin Belinkoff on Lingo Kitty Angel of GSN's Cat-Minster $250,000 WWTBAM winner Jeff Jones 2007 Jeopardy! teen champ David Walter Country singer Julie Roberts, Wheel of Fortune Michael Davies, executive producer, WWTBAM Leigh Hampton, executive producer, WWTBAM $100,000 WWTBAM winner Molly Ball Barry Lander of 1 vs. 100 Michele Falco, Player of the Year Scott St. John, Executive of the Year Richard Hayes of All About Faces Ira Skutch, producer of Match Game Natalie Hlavenka of Wheel of Fortune Show Me the Money executive producer Mike Nichols Miguel Ferrer of Celebrity Jeopardy! Tribute to Bud Collyer Geoff Edwards of Treasure Hunt and Jackpot Bob Harris, author of "Prisoner of Trebekistan" Johnny Gilbert, Jeopardy! announcer Bob Goen of That's the Question Ken Jennings, author of "Brainiac" Howie Mandel of Deal or No Deal Pilar Laster of Deal or No Deal Claudia Jordan of Deal or No Deal $1.86 million WWTBAM winner Ed Toutant Network TV's top winner Dr. Kevin Olmstead Kathy Garver of Family Affair Tribute to Mike Douglas Burton Richardson of Family Feud Dylan Lane of Chain Reaction Pat Kiernan of World Series of Pop Culture Author Wesley Hyatt on Emmy-winning game shows Laird MacIntosh of Treasure Hunters Teresa Strasser of How to Get the Guy Ricki Lake of Game Show Marathon Michael Falk, Jeopardy! 2006 Tournament of Champions Winner Is Survivor Slipping? Vanna White of Wheel of Fortune Bob Juch of Millionaire Sheetal Shetty of Deal or No Deal Wink Martindale Did Richard Karn Get the Shaft on Family Feud? Bob Boden, Laura Chambers on Peter Tomarken Bil Dwyer of I've Got a Secret Don Knotts: a TV Legend Leaves Us Robert Purdum: $132,000 Wheel Winner Adam Wade of Musical Chairs Michael Davies: His New Sony Deal Nipsey & Adam: They Were the Pioneers Peter Marshall: 40th anniverary of Hollywood Squares 2005 Player of the Year: Brad Rutter Lin Bolen Betty White Jeopardy! college champion Nico Martinez Deal or No Deal's Scott St. John Harry Friedman, Wheel and Jeopardy! executive producer |
 RUTTER RUNS RINGS AROUND KELLY ON GRAND SLAM The NBA analogies went by the boards as former Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions king Pawlowicz decisively defeated fourth-seeded Toutant in an opening round match of GSN's Grand Slam. In the opener Sunday evening, television's all-time top cash winner and Ultimate Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions victor Brad Rutter blitzed 16th-seeded Lingo champion Amy Kelly. Toutant vs. Pawlowicz: The 49-year-old Pawlowicz, one of two Grand Slam contenders profiled in a much-remembered 2001 edition of ABC's 20/20, rolled up a 19-second lead in the opening round of the against-the-clock quiz. He experienced his only two outright misses in the general knowledge round (passing on only one other, in the final showdown).  Rutter fulfilled prophecies, including TVgameshows.net's prediction, of a runaway win. He dominated all four rounds against Kelly, raising questions about whether any Lingo contestant should have been inserted in such a heavily question-answer oriented game.Rutter vs. Kelly: Because of Kelly's extensive misses (she was only 8 of 22 in the first three rounds), Rutter only needed to answer 10 questions (out of 13 tries) to pile up a huge clock lead.Pawlowicz and Rutter would be on a collision course for a championship matchup if both win their next two bouts. Pawlowicz takes on the winner of next weekend's battle between Twenty One $1.765 million champ David Legler and Jeopardy! legend Frank Spangenberg. Rutter will meet the survivor between TV's only female quiz millionaire Nancy Christy and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire half-millionaire Ogi Ogas. FINAL NOTES ON THE FIRST WEEKEND: In our view, this is the toughest format we've ever seen on a television quiz because of the rapid-fire element of the questions and the dual clock competition. It's not the toughest material, though significantly harder than a lot of content, but the challenge of answering is enormous because of standing face-to-face with your opponent and dealing with the pressure of the clock....The real star, other than the contestants, of Grand Slam is the man whose face you do not see: Pat Kiernan, host of World Series of Pop Culture and formerly of The WB's unsuccessful Studio 7. Kiernan is one of the best questioners I have seen in years and keeps his calm, even-keel delivery even when contestants are rushing the clock. If Davies could ever get the rights to bring back College Bowl, Pat is the guy. Better yet, if Alex Trebek decides to retire after his next contract expires, Harry Friedman should be looking Kiernan's way......It's difficult to determine an alternative to seeding by money winnings but you're going to see some matchups that may have been better as later-round games simply because of the inflated money in the last eight years.....The production staff did attempt to find Curtis Warren, the wild hair guy who won more than $1.4 million on Greed, but Curtis has opted for a lower profile since his rich victory. Same for Lauren Griswold, who won more than $800,000 as part of Phyllis Harris's Greed team.....If this show gets a second shot, one man who ought to be here is Robin Grover, who won that History IQ tournament in 2001.  JENNINGS ADVANCES IN SLAM OPENERS Kitt, seemingly left for dead at the halfway point of the tense, against-the-clock quiz, rallied in the word/vocabulary round. In the final round, Kitt watched as Olmstead---$2.18 million winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2001---missed or passed on four of his last five questions and frittered away what was once nearly a half-minute clock advantage. A 32-year-old Virginia instructional designer, Kitt advances to the quarterfinals against the winner of next Saturday's showdown between the first WWTBAM millionaire John Carpenter and Tic Tac Dough legend Thom McKee. Olmstead vs. Kitt: The tense part of Grand Slam is in its against-the-dual clock format. Contestants not only are vying for correct answers but are attempting to nail them as quickly as possible in order to save extra seconds for the finale. Olmstead, a master competitor/moderator/coach off-air in national trivia and quiz bowl competitions, was so far ahead after the first two rounds that even host Dennis Miller was virtually declaring Kitt toast. Olmstead notched 10 of his first 15 questions to an 8-for-18 first half for Kitt and saved 29.66 seconds for the end game to none for the former competitive bodybuilder.In Saturday night's opener, Jeopardy! 74-game champion and tri-millionaire Ken Jennings was given a real scare in the first three rounds by World Series of Pop Culture co-champion Victor Lee before prevailaing. Jennings lost the opening general knowledge round but rallied to take the advantage in the math competition. Lee picked up another 8.28 seconds in the word/vocabulary contest to trail Jennings by only 14.64 seconds going into the final match. However, the former computer engineer won going away in the finale to earn a quarterfinal berth against next weekend's Rahim Olberholzer (Twenty One)-Phyllis Harris (Greed, WWTBAM) winner. Jennings vs. Lee: As forecast, Lee was a far more formidable competitor for Jennings, even at the #15 seed, because of his success last year in the fast-track World Series of Pop Culture. His denouement: math. Lee only nailed 3-of-8 in the all-math second round. While Jennings was only 4-of-7, he zeroed in on his answers much faster which caused Lee to use up valuable time pondering his misses.For this week's Cover Story interview with executive producer Davies, follow the link below.   Miss Francis' gowns by Bonwit Teller © Copyright 2007 TVgameshows.net. All Rights Reserved. |
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