What Might've Been: Musical Chairs (1975)

In recent years, when classic game shows have been revived for the modern era, producers have hired African-Americans to host the shows. To wit:

Steve Harvey (Family Feud)

Wayne Brady (Let's Make a Deal)

Sherri Shepherd (The Newlywed Game)

Anthony Anderson (To Tell The Truth)
Aisha Tyler (Whose Line Is It Anyway?)
Michael Strahan (The $100,000 Pyramid)
Snoop Dogg (TBS' forthcoming Joker's Wild revival)

None of this would be happening if it wasn't for Adam Wade.

Wade, a singer by trade, was the first African-American game show host, hired to helm the short-lived CBS series, Musical Chairs, which ran for 4 1/2 months in 1975 (June-October).

What Musical Chairs was, really, was CBS' attempt to duplicate the success, albeit in a quiz show format, of Name That Tune, which had been revived at the time by NBC, and, later, in syndication. The problem was, Chairs was slotted in a late afternoon berth on CBS. And, yes, it did air in the home district, at a time before local affiliates realized the full value of syndicated afternoon programming.

In this sample episode, the guest stars are Mary Stuart (Search For Tomorrow), The Spinners, and Irene Cara, who, at the time, was a member of the Short Circus (The Electric Company).

Wade's only other television series credit of note was an animated cartoon. He was cast in NBC's Super Globetrotters 4 years after Chairs. I'd imagine he'd been on Soul Train during the course of his career.

Rating: B.