TVSquad

My knowledge of law and patents never got past reruns of L.A. Law, so I have no idea if this guy from New Jersey has a case or not.

The gentleman claims that he approached reps from Merv Griffin's company back in 2001 and pitched them the idea for a game show based on crossword puzzles. He says he even came up with the idea of the game's "twist" where you can take the other person's spot. He also patented the game. Now he has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court that says Merv's company took his idea and made the syndicated game show Merv Griffin's Crosswords (a show that I've tried and tried to get into but haven't been able to - though "Ty Treadway" is one of the great game show names of all-time though).

I remember reading an interview with Griffin where he said that he had been working on the idea for a crossword puzzle game show for years. Griffin, as you know, created Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!

He's an actor, a pin-up hunk, he's tried Dancing With the Stars, and now he'll see what it's like to be a Jim Lange or Wink Martindale. Cameron Mathison has been tapped to host TLC's new game show Your Place or Mine? Looking at those eyes, I'd let him redecorate my abode!

"I'm thrilled to be a part of TLC's first game show, and extremely excited about the fun concept," said Mathison. "I think both men and women, of all ages, are really going to enjoy the show because there's a little something in it for everyone." Yeah, TLC is pitching this as a family show. Hmm...we'll see. If it can capture the Trading Spaces vibe, they may be on the right track.

Game show titles have a way of telling you exactly what you can expect if you tune in to them. The Price Is Right is about guessing prices, Card Sharks was a game that involved a deck of cards, and Match Game was about matching your word with the word picked by a celebrity. Of course, the whole list of examples breaks down a bit when you consider Jeopardy!, which could be about anything, really.

But add to the list Hurl, the new game show coming this summer to G4. To quote from the network, it's a show that "combines speed-eating with intense physical challenges." Yes, you read that right.

When we opened TV Squad's mail bag today, we found this question from Robyn S.: "Am I losing it or am I seeing subliminal messages on ABC like "The Mole is watching you" and "The Mole is coming"? Quick, 2-3 second flashes after commercials. Is The Mole coming back this summer?"

Robyn, you'll be happy to know that you are not losing it, ABC's The Mole is indeed coming back to TV this summer.

Just when you thought awards shows couldn't get any longer, The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced that reality show hosts are eligible to receive Emmys. This year's 60th Annual Emmy Awards will include a category called Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program.

The academy named popular hosts like Ryan Seacrest, Tom Bergeron, Samantha Harris, and Howie Mandel as possible nominees. Ty Pennington, Tyra Banks, and Jeff Foxworthy are also eligible. I'm not surprised that reality hosts are getting this opportunity. The Emmys have had categories for Outstanding Reality Program and Reality-Competition Program since 2001 and 2003, respectively.

In an announcement that most who remember the older versions of Password would consider a no-brainer, it has been revealed that Betty White will be returning as a guest panelist on CBS' new Million Dollar Password series. And, really, if she wasn't even being considered would it even be Password?

White, who is 86-years-young, was a staple of the original version of Password when it started back in 1961 as well as the revived 70s and 80s versions of the show. Much of that connection came from her marriage to original Password host Allen Ludden. White and Ludden were married in 1963 and remained together until his death from stomach cancer in 1981.

If anyone thought Bob Barker was going to miss being on stage at The Price is Right, then they'd be wrong. At least if you listen to Bob; he not only thinks he left "at just the right time," but is keeping himself extremely busy.

Barker spoke to the Long Beach, CA Press-Telegram recently, and he explained that "I enjoyed the show right up to the last minute of the last show. But, I don't miss it so much that I want to go back and do it again. I think I'm going to be very happy in retirement." He's currently working with various animal-rights organizations and is writing an autobiography, which he expects to be out late this year (ah, the publishing world moves quickly when they have to, know what I mean?).

Like many of its network companions, CBS is using the lazy days of summer to roll out a schedule light on original scripted fare and heavy on unscripted programming. Unlike many of its network companions, CBS is going a different route with some of its original material.

Out of the two original dramas Swingtown is probably the one readers of TV Squad will remember as it was introduced to us during the network's upfronts last year. The show will cover the social and sexual revolutions of the 1970s -- a time when gas was in short supply, inflation was skyrocketing, and the world was in political upheaval. You know, nothing like it is now in the 2000s. The other scripted show will be Flashpoint. This cop drama will follow the adventures of SRU, a task force that is sent out to diffuse emergency situations.

I had no plans to watch CBS' Secret Talents of the Stars last night. When I heard about this competition show, I thought it would be tacky. George Takei singing country music? Come on! I may be a Trekkie but I can admit this match up is a tad weird (more on him later). Plus, 10 p.m. on Tuesdays for me right now is devoted to watching the Dancing with the Stars results show (I tape it and fast forward through it) and then Hell's Kitchen (I tape it as well). So why did I end up watching it? Simple, I watch Big Brother at 9 p.m. and was waiting for 10:05 because DwtS always finishes late. I didn't want to flip channels so not to hear who was voted off the dance competition, so I ended up watching the beginning of STotS where figure skater Sasha Cohen admitted her secret: she's highly flexible and wanted to do a contortionist routine. Since curiosity got the best of me, I decided to watch the entire segment and ended up being impressed.

Back in December, I wrote about my reactions after watching the premiere of ABC's new game show, Duel. Back then, I was entertained by the show but had concerns about the host. When I heard the show was getting a second season, I hoped that ABC read my column and your comments so that Mike Greenberg would stop holding that pen and would say something different than "Screen up!" and "You're watching Duel on ABC!", that the suspense music and pause would be toned down, and that we would actually get more than one question answered before we go to a commercial break!

Because I liked the difficulty of the questions, the one-on-one face offs, the sudden death, the picking of your opponent, etc., and because the ads for this new crop of episodes promised me changes, I decided to give season 2 of Duel a chance. Did it meet my expectations this time around?

Al Roker is in final negotiations to host the NBC celebrity edition of Family Feud, the one that we wrote about recently as a summer series on the Peacock.

Roker, currently the main weatherman and easy-going interviewer on Today (the first three hours at least!), would seem a perfect fit for this job. He's friendly, funny, personable and has a high recognizability/likability rating. He's also busy on the dial with Food Network shows, both producing and hosting. In fact, in 2006 his production company put out Celebrity Food Fights, about competing celebs -- not unlike Family Feud concept -- for Food Network.

If you love America's Funniest Home Videos -- and I know a lot of you do because the show's been running since 1989 -- you're the likely target audience for something new from the network. ABC plans to produce Wipe Out, a new reality competition from producer Matt Kunitz (Fear Factor).

The idea for the show is to create -- rather than collect a la AFHV -- spills, splats, crashes and wipe outs ever seen on TV. Endemol USA (Big Brother, Deal or No Deal, 1 vs. 100) is producing the show for ABC.

The summer schedule on NBC won't be filled with just reruns, apparently. The network wants to up their game quotient. That said, American Idol's producer, FremantleMedia North America and NBC are planning a celebrity version of Family Feud. Although there have been multiple variations of the Feud -- daytime, syndication, board game, internet edition, et. al -- this will be the very first time the game show will air as a regularly-scheduled primetime network show. John O'Hurley, who is the current host on the syndicated Family Feud, could be anchoring NBC's primetime celeb affair, but that has not been announced as yet.

Shark will swim again -- at least for the rest of this season. The future, however, remains unclear. CBS today announced that Shark will return on April 29 in a new timeslot. The network is switching the L.A. legal drama from Sundays at nine to Tuesdays at nine, where it may benefit from the strong lead-in of NCIS. Chances are that if Shark holds NCIS's ratings -- or improves on them -- that could mean more Shark for fall. If the show stumbles, CBS will likely pull the plug.

Fans of Shark may need to get more militant if they want to keep the show on the air. In a recent story we did about CBS renewals, there was fervent outcries for bringing back Moonlight and The Unit, even Cane. Out of 40 comments, only two came to Shark's defense. It may be a small sample, but still...

Back in January we reported that the still popular 70's game show Match Game was ready to be revived once again by Fremantle Media, which pretty much owns rights to every single game show on the planet. In that report we mentioned that Fremantle was talking to a number of cable networks about this project, but no permanent home was established yet.

That problem may have rectified itself in the last few days, though, as a pilot has been commissioned by...Ah, you thought I was going to say GSN, didn't you? That would seem the most logical place since reruns of the 1973-82 version of Match Game have had a successful run for years on that network. Unfortunately, that is not the case. This time around the cable network requesting the pilot is TBS (as Bob mentioned earlier this month in a post about Turner's new shows).