TVSquad

If the endless reruns of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air just aren't providing your recommended daily allowance of Carlton, then I have some good news for you. Alfonso Ribeiro will soon be back on our televisions in an all new project. He's set to host a new show for GSN called Catch 21, starting on July 21st.

The show combines the card game 21 with pop-culture trivia questions and will feature three contestants facing off against each other. Forty episodes have been ordered and they will air weeknights at 7:30PM. It is created by Merrill Heatter and executive produced by Scott Sternberg (Hey Paula). Fans of GSN may also recognize that the show is also based on the game of the same name on the GSN website. I'll give it a go. If they can keep the speed of the questions up (Beat The Geeks), instead of endlessly stalling for dramatic effect (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire), it could be a fun prelude to prime time.

[ via Cynopsis ]

Father's Day has always been a weird holiday for me. I never knew my father, as he died when I was only a year old in the '60s, so to me Father's Day has never been anything more than just another day to me. I sometimes wonder how I would be if I had known my father growing up.

(Wait, did I just get serious there for a moment? Quick, say something snarky! Moment of Truth sucks! OK, back to the post.)

This Sunday, June 15, GSN will celebrate Father's Day with a poker-filled marathon. Actually, the celebrating starts tomorrow, Friday, at noon. World Poker Tour host Vince Van Patten will join his father Dick on an episode of GSN Live, which will be followed by episodes of game shows that the elder Van Patten appeared in. Then on Sunday at 3pm, the network will have a six hour marathon of classic World Poker Tour matches, followed by the two hour premiere of the 5th Annual Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure tournament, hosted by A.J. Benza and Daniel Negreanu.

I'll be the first to agree that at some point after Chris Moneymaker's World Series win, poker on TV got a little bit out of hand. For a while it seemed that you couldn't turn on the TV without stumbling over some new poker-based show. Things have settled down somewhat lately, with a few survivors remaining. For my poker watching vote, there remains a big three. The World Series, despite ESPN's screwed up scheduling, World Poker Tour, and the newcomer, High Stakes Poker.

Now it looks like two of the three could be in trouble. It seems that the expected dates for the renewals of WPT and High Stakes over at GSN have come and gone. The speculation is that the new CEO at GSN, David Goldhill, wants to move away from the interest in poker that the former CEO, Rich Cronin, brought to the network. Goldhill would instead like to get back to more traditional game shows.

I used to watch both The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game when I was a kid, and it wasn't until years later that I realized how filthy both of them were. Both would have all of these double entendres and suggestive questions, and the answers from the contestants were often something you wouldn't even say to a friend in private. Example from The Newlywed Game:

Bob Eubanks: "Where's the weirdest place that you and your husband have made whoopee?"
Woman: "In the a**?"

Now, this wasn't shown on TV until Eubanks showed the clip on an episode of NBC's Most Outrageous Moments a few years ago (the original answer was never shown on TV and the woman was given a chance to give another answer, and another contestant gave a similar answer years earlier), but many of the questions and answers were suggestive in that way.

When I first heard that Dennis Miller was going to host a game show, I thought to myself "yeah, I covered that already." But I didn't know that the show I had written about had already ended and this was a new game show he was going to host.

The previous one was Grand Slam, the GSN show that pitted former game show champs (like Ken Jennings) against each other. Looks like that show only lasted one season (hopefully I can catch the reruns), but Miller isn't through with game shows yet. He's going to host the new NBC show Amnesia, which will premiere on NBC in the 1 vs. 100 slot when that show ends its season.

GSN has announced the pickup of a new gameshow called How Much is Enough hosted by actor Corbin Bernsen.

The show, which is produced by BBC Worldwide America, is a contest to see which contestant can win the most money without being the greediest. The game begins with five "Money Clocks" ranging in value from $1,000 to $5,000. In each round players secretly buzz in as the amount of money is shown on the clock in an attempt to capture the second-highest amount of money each time. Whoever rings in last, and scores the highest amount of cash goes home empty handed.

The Game Show Network will have a special tribute to Merv Griffin, who died earlier this week of cancer at age 82.

On Saturday and Sunday, August 18 and 19, GSN will run two different Griffin marathons, from 10am to 3pm. The shows included in the marathons will include a Chuck Woolery-hosted episode of Wheel Of Fortune and the first episode that featured Vanna White. We'll also see the first NYC-based episode of Wheel (not sure why this is so special, but I guess I'll wait and see) and a Jeopardy Masters Tournament of Champions. On Sunday night we'll see a 1960 episode of Play Your Hunch, a game show Griffin hosted, and then at 3:30am we'll see a To Tell The Truth episode that Griffin guest hosted.

That's a lot better than their tribute to Kitty Carlisle earlier this year, when they ran her game show appearances in the wee hours of the morning and that was it.

GSN has bought the rights to the (very) short-lived ABC game show Show Me The Money, hosted by William Shatner. That's a total of seven episodes, including two that never aired.

Wow, what a get! Seven episodes of a lame TV show that lasted for five episodes. Did GSN get some sort of great deal on this? Are they that hard up for shows? It will run Tuesday night, but maybe it should be a daily show, so they can go through the entire run of the show is a week. Maybe they'll have a week long marathon and show the same seven episodes over and over and over again.

A network buys a short-lived game show but no one is currently running Kate and Allie or The Odd Couple, both of which lasted years. Crazy.

We told you the other day that longtime To Tell The Truth panelist and patron of the arts Kitty Carlisle Hart had died at 96, and one of us here mentioned that GSN will probably air a tribute to her. And in fact, they are going to give her a tribute this weekend.

At 3AM.

I was always a bit uncertain as to just how it was World Poker Tour fit in with the Travel Channel. I understand that the games took place in different places across the globe, but that always seemed like the equivalent of making a show about janitors who work in a hospital and calling it a medical drama.

Okay, maybe that wasn't the best analogy, but the point is that World Poker Tour, after almost five years on the Travel Channel, is heading over to GSN, which seems like a much better fit. World Poker Tour, one of the first popular "poker" shows and the one that made people like me who said "who the hell wants to watch people play poker?" choke on our words, will become part of the network's Friday night "Casino Night" lineup.

The fifth season of World Poker Tour is currently airing on the Travel Channel. It will hit GSN early next year.

If you're an insomniac who loves trivia, GSN has a new late night block you just might be interested in. The new block, named "Playmania" after the live call-in game show of the same name, will feature two new live call-in quiz shows:

The first, called quiznation, is an update of the original Playmania program, featuring trivia and puzzles viewers at home can answer via the Web, text messaging, or by calling in. The first question: why didn't they capitalize the title of the show?

The other series, 100 Winners, lets people call in and answer trivia questions. If they guess correctly, they get to choose one of 100 boxes that each contain a prize. All 100 boxes must be taken by the end of the show. If not, host Mel Peachey is executed via firing squad. Or maybe not.

100 Winners will debut on February 20 at midnight, and quiznation will debut February 23, also at midnight.

Sure, the feud between Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell may be cooling down now that there is another target she's ready to bully (run, Simon, run!), but that doesn't mean we still can't have fun with it. GSN certainly agrees, and that's why they've given us Rosie vs. Trump at GSN.com.

The game features animated versions of Rosie and Trump. During the game they punch, kick and inflict special attacks on each other while insulting their opponent the entire time with actual barbs from statements made in the press. They are cheered on by Miss USA (Trump) and Barbara Walters (Rosie) in the background. Players can also gain extra points and abilities, like invincibility, by collecting objects. The player who wins two out of three rounds wins the game.

I chose Trump in all three games I played and beat Rosie twice. The secret is to punch and kick as much as possible then use your special power to whip Rosie with your hair. Beware though, because Rosie's lashing tongue has quite a reach! Brr, the thought of Rosie's lashing tongue in real life just gave me the chills.

• At 7, CBS has a new 60 Minutes, followed by a repeat of Cold Case, a new Cold Case, then a new Without A Trace.
• ABC has a new America's Funniest Home Videos at 7, followed by new episodes of Extreme Makeover, Desperate Housewives, and Brothers & Sisters.
• NBC has a new Deal Or No Deal at 7, then the premiere of Grease: You're The One That I Want and the season premiere of The Apprentice.
• At 7:30, The CW has a new Reba.
• At 8, FOX has a new Simpsons, followed by a new American Dad and two Family Guy repeats.
• Food Network has a new Emeril Live at 8 (recipes sent in by viewers), then a new Iron Chef America.
• Also at 8: GSN names the top 10 game show hosts on an episode of Game Show Countdown.
• At 9, BBC America has a new Gordon Ramsey's F Word.
• At 10, Showtime has a new ep of The L Word.
• FX repeats the pilot of Dirt at 10.