Merv Griffin's Crosswords/YMMV

---

• Hilarious in Hindsight: Ho, boy.
  • At least one billboard promoted the show as being "from the creator of Monopoly". Because when you think Merv Griffin, you think of that mega-popular game that ran on ABC's Saturday-night schedule for 12 shows in Summer 1990 after being in development for three years!
  • An official video posted on YouTube to promote Crosswords had the staff and crew talking about how great the show was and anticipating a long run; at the end, the narrator stated that "Crosswords is sure to achieve the elite status of Griffin's other two franchises, and become the third jewel of his triple crown!" No, seriously.
    • The video also had Ty saying "the thing that sets Crosswords apart from some of the other game shows is...there is no resting here"; although in context he was referring to the game's lightning-fast pacing (which is debatable) and Spoiler mechanic, it implied that more than just a single week's worth of episodes were taped in a single day. Considering Ty never seemed to improve as host and the whole Out of Order business...
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks: Crosswords never tried any holiday-themed episodes, celebrity specials, tournaments, or themed weeks in at least a feeble attempt to change things up and maybe get slightly better ratings. It did nothing for Sweeps minus the removal of the Getaways on November 1 (a Thursday), and even that didn't stick for very long.
  • Even its partner-in-suck Temptation did two three-day tournaments and two celebrity specials...and the less said about that show in general, the better.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Averted; the many format and aesthetic changes the show went through during its run (when viewed in taping order, if you can figure it out) were all seen as positive — the clue value increases and Edd Hall introducing the Spoilers being prominent examples. Of course, when pretty much everything sucks from the start, then pretty much anything is an improvement.
• They Just Didn't Care: Pretty much everything else on this page and the other tabs, especially the overall No Budget feel and the "format hopscotch" three months in. When your Home Game offers considerably larger payouts, and the viewers (and home games!) come up with better formats than the one you went with, you just fell into this Trope...and technically, if you got here you probably knew the format sucked beforehand.
• What an Idiot!: Again, the staff took what was essentially a half-baked format and made 45 WEEKS from it.
  • From a contestants-and-gameplay standpoint, the "BANANA"/"POOP" and "-$250" episodes.
  • Arguably, the fact that several big-time game show contestants (such as Scott Hostetler, Joe Van Ginkel, Robert Wargo, and several former Jeopardy! players) appeared on the show.