Game Time: Junior Almost Anything Goes (1976)

Well before there were "reality" games like Survivor and The Amazing Race, ABC had introduced a similar night-time game show, Almost Anything Goes, as a mid-season replacement in the mid-70's, and borrowed sportscaster Charlie Jones from rival NBC to call the action. Almost proved to be popular enough to warrant a spin-off for the Saturday morning crowd, and so producer Bob Banner (who'd later help get the syndicated Solid Gold off the ground) was commissioned to create Junior Almost Anything Goes, a lunch hour entry on ABC's 1976-77 schedule. Unfortunately, the local ABC affiliate at the time chose to black out the show in favor of more profitable syndicated programming. A pity, since it was the first network series for iconic funnyman Soupy Sales, who served as the series host. Just as unfortunate is the fact that there is only a network promo, uploaded by 70skidvid to YouTube, to mark the existence of the series, which lasted just the one season:



I actually watched some episodes of the parent Almost Anything Goes, which pitted teams representing small towns against each other in contests that you'd might find either at the county fair or on Beat the Clock. The kids' version is pretty much the same thing, but since I never saw an episode, I cannot give a fair rating.