Bob Stewart - Archive Interview Part 5 of 7

This is one part of a 7-segment oral history interview. Visit channel playlists for more segments or click on http://emmytvlegends.org for all interview links.

In the full interview, game show creator Bob Stewart speaks about his transition from radio to television, and his first television show, "Songs for Sale." In 1955, Stewart began his association with producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman (Goodson-Todman). He talks about creating "To Tell the Truth," "The Price is Right" and "Password." He discusses the quiz show scandals and its impact on future game shows. Stewart continued his success with his show "The $10,000 Pyramid," which was later re-titled "The $100,000 Pyramid." He discusses the importance of game show host selection, the qualities of a perfect contestant, and the key to creating a fun and successful game show.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• archive
• american
• television
• interview
• emmy
• tv
• legends
• history

[Noveltooner]

Bob Stewart, the REAL "Mr. Price is Right," "Mr. Password," "Mr. To Tell the Truth," and "Mr. Pyramid." The first three may have carried Mark Goodson and Bill Todman's tag, but they were all Mr. Stewart's babies. He was dead-on about Goodson; the successes of "Eye Guess", "Three on a Match", and especially "The $10,000 Pyramid" (and its succesors) infuriated Goodson. So many of Goodson's staff from "The Price is Right" were loyal to Mr. Stewart, and they left to join Stewart's company.

[artytoons]

Mark Goodson was quoted in a book on the reason why rival game show producers don't like each other. "They are all jealous separatists."

Bob Stewart retorted that "Goodson was a jealous separatist. I don't care about him and he doesn't care about me."

When asked if he watched Goodson's shows, Stewart said "No...I have no interest."

The competition did make for better game shows.

[gameshowluvr86]

God bless Mr. $25,000 Pyramid, Bob Stewart!!

[TalkingOrangutan]

Didn't he mean Bob Cobert and not Clayton?

[gamshwfan]

Continuing the good interview. When it came time to the 1970's Bob started too have big hits & become an emmy magnet. His relationships with celebrity guests could only be shared by a handful of producers. His expanations of how game shows came to be show us the the biggest hits can come from simple ideas. It's a good thing they changed the winners circle to 6 topics otherwise we would have had a lemon. Interesting pyramid anecdotes there; they are now for the ages on youtube.