Here’s some Monday fun, a video with the very first edition of Card Sharks in the US, which is pretty slick, and the very first edition of Play Your Cards Right from 1980, which feels like it could topple over at any time. Brucie hasn’t quite got his patter down yet, nor his card turning technique (not helped by having a broken right wrist) but despite everything just about keeps everything under control, if not error free. That desk looks pretty awful.
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It’s worth noting that Play Your Cards Right had a slightly difficult birth in the UK, as the IBA flat out refused the Card Sharks format being copied wholesale due to a perceived lack of a skill element, so I’m not surprised it’s still a little hesitant at this stage.
When you realise it was this and Family Feud/Fortunes that came over at the same time (and the apparent attempt at horsetrading over them), you can see where the germ of the “we asked 100 X” questions came from to try to invoke something to allow them to perceive getting a turn as a skill based task.
My favourite thing about the first ep of Family Fortunes is Bob pointing out how skill-based it was roughly every fifteen seconds.
Nice to see another episode of the first series of Play Your Cards Right in addition to the one that’s done the rounds of the tape trading circuit for about twenty years. On both there is huge audience laughter when he says “it could be a big night if you Play Your Cards Right!”. Maybe it was just the way he said it.
Brucie said in his autobiography that he broke his wrist falling over on stage in cabaret, but he still carried on the show, including playing the piano, the trouper. He also says they were obliged to use single contestants for the first series for contractual reasons but they always intended to use couples for the second, which was Brucie’s idea.