Thursday, April 17, 2014

On The Air: Let's Make a Deal (1963)

Let's Make a Deal marked 50 years on the air back in December, but there wasn't much mass media to-do over the occasion, and perhaps, it's just as well. It's been like the Little Engine That Could, chugging along on and off over the course of time, and airing on 4 different networks, technically, as well as syndication.

Deal made Monty Hall a cultural icon, and today, the torch has been passed to entertainer Wayne Brady, who's currently pulling double duty with CW's revived Whose Line is it Anyway? taking to the air once more as a mid-season replacement. The show marked its 40th anniversary on its original network, NBC, with Billy Bush, currently on Access Hollywood, trying to fill Hall's shoes, but it failed to score. The charismatic, gifted Brady has had Deal rolling along for 5 seasons and counting, and it doesn't look like the fun's going to stop any time soon. Sure, there've been some tweaks over the years, but the core of the game remains the same.

Let's take a look back at a syndicated episode from the Hall era:



And from the Brady era, a guest appearance by Monty:



Good, clean fun.

Rating: A.

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