Supermarket Sweep/Trivia

• Hey, It's That Voice!: Everybody.
  • Wally King was one of many who guested on the American version of That Was The Week That Was (1964). He later narrated the documentary Blue Water, White Death (1971), then moved to the United Kingdom and spent some time (1981-84) as floor manager on a few shows.
  • Richard Hayes hosted ABC's Baby Game (1968), a 26-week revival of Name That Tune (1970-71), and All About Faces (1971-72).
  • Johnny Olson and Gene Wood were longtime announcers for various Mark Goodson productions. Incidentally, series producer Jerome Schnur also previously worked for Mark Goodson himself as a director on Beat the Clock and The Name's the Same, as did series director Lloyd Gross, who worked as a director on Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth, What's My Line, and I've Got a Secret.
  • Johnny Gilbert has held the position of Jeopardy! announcer since 1984 and announced on the ABC version of The Price Is Right from 1963-65. Incidentally, series creator and executive producer Al Howard previously worked for ABC himself as an account executive and advertising copywriter.
  • Randy West has worked as announcer on a variety of games, and in more recent years wrote a biography of Johnny Olson.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Only seven ABC episodes are known to exist, all viewable at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago. One full episode (March 28, 1967) and two minutes from another (1966) are known to circulate.
  • The Lifetime/PAX version hasn't been seen since 2004, although finding episodes really isn't a problem unless you're looking for 1990-93 shows (which are pretty scarce).
• Old Shame: Subverted; while virtually no clips of the ABC era were seen on the Lifetime/PAX run, the rights to the ABC footage are not held by Al Howard Productions...but by HBO through their ownership of the Talent Associates library. Yes, the cable channel that brought us The Sopranos owns the original Supermarket Sweep.
• Producer Backlash: Despite the fact that the ABC version saved the production company, Talent Associates, from bankruptcy, company founder and president David Susskind refused to acknowledge that he was involved with the show because he hated game shows in general, believing them to be of lower quality than other programs (particularly dramas). When Al Howard, his agent from Ashley-Famous, Sy Fischer, and Jerome Schnur were pitching the concept to ABC's vice president of daytime programming, Ed Vane, Susskind was absent. ABC president Tom Moore, on the other hand, liked the show from the beginning when test showings were done in theaters...and in fact held the opposite attitude of Susskind when it came to game shows — indeed, when he first hired Vane at ABC, Moore had something to say:

Moore: Now, remember, boy, in daytime we ain't improving the breed. Don't you bother your little head about quality or Peabody Awards. Just go get the money, kid.

• • Amusingly, Susskind appears to have changed his tune at some point — he produced Personality for Bob Stewart and appeared on this episode of He Said, She Said with wife Joyce Davidson.
• Uncanceled: PAX revived the show on April 3, 2000 following nearly four solid years of repeats (Lifetime from 1995-98, PAX from 1999-2000). The show ran three more years in first-run, followed by another year of repeats before being removed entirely on March 26, 2004.