Nickelodeon, after the success of Double Dare, began adding other game shows for kids to their schedule.
Finders Keepers debuted on Nick a few weeks after MTV had entered the game show arena with Remote Control. However, Keepers wasn't quite as successful as Double Dare, as the series lasted just 1 year on Nick before moving to syndication. Wesley Eure (Days of Our Lives, ex-Land of the Lost) was tapped to host, but when the series shifted to syndication, and the set relocated from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, Eure was not retained.
The object of the game was to find hidden items inside various pictures, a simple enough game for the kiddo's, augumented with a simple quiz. When the series went into syndication, the producers got cute and decided to use colorforms, which doomed the syndicated version.
Since it's Christmas week, let's check out an episode from Christmas week in 1987.
The mono-monickered Harvey, the show's announcer on Nick, had those same duties on Double Dare. There, of course, he got at least a smidgen of screen time every now and again.
Rating: B.
9 comments:
Finders Keepers certainly had its moments. I never did see the syndicated version, as I remember the Nick version more, and I don't remember if it even aired locally back in '88, probably for the best as that colorforms part sounds very tacky (I think they were using one of those touchscreen pens in the first season, which was much cooler). The final part with them running through the house looking for items was my favorite moments of the show, a later show that followed along the same lines but more like an obstacle course was "Fun House".
I wonder if the producers of Fun House borrowed the idea from Finders Keepers. Seems kind of derivative. Didn't see the syndicated "Keepers" either.
Could be. Fun House felt like a mixture of Double Dare and Finders Keepers they way it was set up.
And didn't have the enduring appeal of Double Dare. Gee, I wonder why......
And yet the UK apparently loved it enough to continue producing their localized version for a decade!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fun_House_(UK_game_show)
Hmm, yes, I remember reading something about that. Not the first time that an American game succeeded better overseas than it did here ("Runaround" comes to mind).
Much like another game show I loved when I saw it in '85 called "Catch Phrase". It barely lasted more than a few months but managed to do extremely well elsewhere.
US (1985 Premiere): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKfrFc36D2w
UK (1986 Premiere): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0RlmLuMP_s
UK (recent show): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br-6sH4xsxQ
Incidentally, here's a pilot to a unsold US version from a decade back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W--Hv2T4_VQ
Catch Phrase will likely turn up over at The Land of Whatever down the line. Thanks again, Chris.
You're welcome!
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