Gameshow Marathon

OPENING SPIEL FROM THE PREMIERE EPISODE:

''"Rich: Six celebrities face off on the greatest game shows of all time. Movie Star Leslie Neilsen, Trading Spaces Paige Davis, N*SYNC's Lance Bass, Actress Kathy Najimy, Saturday Night Live's Tim Meadows and Baywatch babe Brande Roderick all on Gameshow Marathon. Over the next seven episodes, the stars compete in seven classic game shows. In the finale, our celebrity grand champion will win $100,000 for their favorite charity, plus there are over $1,000,000 in cash and prizes at stake and you at home can WIN...IT...ALL!!! Tonight, we kick off our tournament with the classic game show The Price is Right! and for one night only, host Ricki Lake will step into the shoes of the legendary Bob Barker! Ricki: Bob, I hope to do you proud! Get ready, this is Gameshow Marathon! (montage of openings and clips from classic game shows) Rich: From CBS Television City in Hollywood, This is GAMESHOW MARATHON!!!! And now here's your host, RICKI LAKE!"''

Gameshow Marathon is a series of seven episodes each modeled after classic American game shows with celebrities playing to earn money for their charity as well as prizes for players at home.

Format
The players competed in four preliminary rounds, the winners of those rounds sat in what's called "Finalist's Row" and moved on to the semifinals. The four winners played semifinal rounds to determine finalists, who face off for a possible $100,000 for the charity of their choice.

In addition, those who entered at CBS.com were eligible to win all cash & prizes earned during each game. A total of $329,352 was awarded to home viewers, out of total offerings of $987,165.48.

Celebrities
The celebrities who competed were:

PAIGE DAVIS, playing for Donate Life

KATHY NAJIMY, playing for Girls Best Friend

TIM MEADOWS, playing for The Chris Farley Foundation

LANCE BASS, playing for Habitat For Humanity's Katrina Relief

BRANDE RODERICK, playing for City of Hope

LESLIE NIELSEN, playing for "a society in Phoenix for blind children"

Games
Here are the game shows used with more info located at the pages of the main games.

The Price is Right
While the basic structure of the game remained intact (including Rich announcing at the time), only three pricing games (Hole in One (or Two), Plinko [for $100,000], Race Game) were played. In addition, the top two scorers at the Big Wheel went to the Showcase. Unfortunately, during the Showcase Showdown, none of the celebrities gave any shout-outs.

While not needed, the Double Showcase rule was in play, and in the event of a Double Overbid, the players were instructed to bid again, until there was a winner. Only the Showcase winner's grand total was awarded to a home viewer.

In addition, Hole in One's second putt was edited out for time, and due to a correct guess, every non-celebrity audience member earned Plinko's fourth small prize, an MP3 player.

Brande Roderick was the winner of this round, earning $54,336 in prizes for a home viewer.

To view the full footage watch the video clips seen below.

Let's Make a Deal
There were no major alterations to the format, one deal featuring two civilian contestants competing.

Gilbert Gottfried guest stars as a Zonk, but his charity is never revealed.

No one claimed the Big Deal, worth $87,044.99, so Lance Bass was the winner of this round, earning for a home viewer a $50,990 Lincoln Navigator 4X2.

The format was based on the original Monty Hall version.

To view the full footage, watch the video clips seen below.

Beat the Clock
This was based on the 1950's version. Each player brought along a teammate to assist. Also, all the contestants were kept sequestered backstage so they didn't know what stunt they would play until they played it.

Two teams would face the same stunt which was used in the original, those doing it in the fastest times won a prize package and faced off in a Head-To-Head stunt to determine a winner. That person won another prize package (that winner's prizes went to a home viewer), and they then played a Bonus Stunt for a car.

Paige Davis won this round, and a total of $67,603 in prizes for a home viewer, including a Chrysler Crossfire SRT-6 Roadster.

Note: Kathy tried to take the seat in Finalist's Row away from Paige.

To view the full footage, watch the video clips seen below.

Press Your Luck
This was an elimination round; the two losers of this game would be eliminated.

Again, other than an increased budget, the game remained the same save for the lack of Peter Tomarken and Rod Roddy (whom Rich Fields replaced on  Price as well). The cash prizes increased to as much as $10,000, and though not won, the highest prize offered was a Chevy HHR worth $16,990. This episode was in memoriam of Peter, who died in a plane crash with his wife at that point. The Big Board from the original show was reconstructed with new electronics.

Kathy Najimy eliminated Tim Meadows & Leslie Nielsen to win $46,267 in cash & prizes (Meade LX-90 GPS Telescope, Carsons of High Point Dinette Set, Trips to Paris and Juneau, Alaska, plus $25,750 cash) for a home viewer.

To view the full footage, watch the video clips seen below.

Card Sharks
This was the first semifinal round, pitting Brande Roderick against Paige Davis.

While the game was visually based on the 1978-1981 version, elements from the 1986-1989 version were also used, such as the look of the board (main game & Money Cards), an audience poll question, & "Change Cards" in the Money Cards.

Also, for time purposes, The first game was worth $1,000, increasing by $1,000 per game with the high score winning.

In the Money Cards, the winner earned $1,000 for each row, for a maximum of $144,000.

The winner also played a car game, in which they had to guess if the actual number of people in the audience poll group who answered a question is higher or lower than 5.

Brande Roderick won this round, $10,000 & a $40,445 BMW Z4 Roadster, a total of $50,455 in cash & car for a home viewer.

To view the full footage, watch the video clips seen below.

Match Game
This was the other semifinal round, pitting Kathy Najimy against Lance Bass.

Panel
These are the six other celebrities that were featured:

George Foreman

Kathy Griffin

Bruce Vilanch

Adrianne Curry

Adam Carolla

Betty White (the only celebrity from the original)

The game used the Match Game PM format (three rounds, two Audience Matches), with the Head-To-Head Match played for 50 times the winnings, up to $50,000.

Kathy Najimy won this round and indeed won $50,000 for a home viewer.

To view the full footage, watch the video clips seen below.

International Versions
The following is a list of countries that have previously aired their versions of Gameshow Marathon including:
 * France - "Le Marathon des Jeux TV"
 * Germany - "Der Gameshow-Marathon"
 * Hungary - "szuletesnapi kvizmaratont tart"
 * Israel - "Play It Big"
 * Mexico - "TBA"
 * Portugal - "Superconcurso - Jogo de Sempre"
 * Turkey - "Yarisma Maratonu"
 * United Kingdom - "Ant & Dec's/Vernon Kay's Gameshow Marathon" (country that originated the program)

Trivia
This series was considered a run of mini-pilots to test formats to see if they could still work today although two of them were/are still on the air respectively (i.e. The Price is Right & Family Feud); this was also shown in both the UK and Germany in order to pitch ideas for game shows.

In episode four, announcer Rich Fields "mistakenly" said Press Your Luck originally premiered in 1981, when it was in fact 1983.

Gameshow Marathon's Match Game '73 set (minus the "73" sign) was used as a revival for the unsold 2008 pilot of Match Game for TBS with Andy Daly as host.

In October 2009, Fremantle, having bought the rights, relaunched Let's Make a Deal with Wayne Brady.

Gameshow Marathon aired on CTV in Canada despite the fact that it airs in the U.S.

Music
Main (Series) - Unknown

Other show cues by Edd Kalehoff, Sheila Cole, Walt Levinsky, Robert Israel, Ken Bichel and Score Productions.

The theme from Press Your Luck was a re-recording and not the original possibly due to tape deterioration despite many copies of the theme online; the Whammy foghorn was rerecorded as well. Beat the Clock and Let's Make a Deal also had remastered music. The other shows used their original respective music.

Inventor
Based on a format from the United Kingdom entitled Ant and Dec's/Vernon Kay's Gameshow Marathon but with American shows and formats by Mark Goodson, Bill Todman, Bob Stewart, Stefan Hatos, Monty Hall, and Bill Carruthers.

Studio
CBS Television City, Hollywood, California

Link
Official Site