Gameshow Marathon

Gameshow Marathon (stylized as Game$how Marathon) was a seven-part game show tournament series that featured six celebrities playing seven classic game shows for their favorite charities and a home viewer. The series was based on the British series called Ant & Dec's/Vernon Kay's Gameshow Marathon and was produced by FremantleMedia North America (now Fremantle) and Granada America.

Premise
As mentioned above, the seven-part game show tournament featured six celebrity contestants Paige Davis, Kathy Najimy, Tim Meadows, Lance Bass, Brande Roderick and the late Leslie Nelsen played seven classic game shows (The Price is Right {1972 Version}, Let's Make a Deal, Beat the Clock, Press Your Luck, Card Sharks, Match Game, Family Feud) to progress in the tournament. The sets used replicas of each show's original set, or in the case of The Price is Right, actual props from the series currently airing. Each installment began with a narration by Fields of the format of the particular show featured on that episode coupled with montages of clips from each program's history.

NOTE: This article will mainly focus on the five classic Goodson-Todman creations while excluding Let's Make a Deal and Press Your Luck respectively.

The Price is Right (1972 Version)
Originally aired on May 31, 2006. While the basic structure of the game remains intact, only three pricing game were played mainly Hole in One (Or Two), Plinko and Race Game. In addition, the top two scores at the big wheel (or "showcase showdown") went to the showcase.

While not needed, the double showcase rule was in play and in the event of a double overbid, the players were instructed to bid again until their was a winner. Only the showcase winner's grand total was awarded to a home viewer.

In addition to Hole in One (Or Two)'s second putt was edited due to time and for a correct guess every studio audiences member earned Plinko's fourth small prize which was an MP3 Player.

Brande Roderick was the winner of this episode, earning $54,336 in prizes for a home viewer.

Beat the Clock
Originally aired on June 7, 2006. This was based on the original 1950's version. Each player brought along a teammate to assist. Also, all the contestants were kept sequestered backstage so they don't know what stunt they would play until thy played it.

Two teams would face the same stunt which was used in the original, those doing it in the fastest times won a prize package and faced off in a head-to-head stunt to determine a winner. That person won another prize package (that winner's prize went to a home viewer) and they played a bonus stunt for a car.

Paige Davis was the winner of this episode, earning $67,603 in prizes for a home viewer including a Chrysler Crossfire SRT-6 Roadster.

Card Sharks
Originally aired on June 15, 2006. This was the first semi-round where it pitted Brande Roderick and Page Davis against each other. While the game was visually based on the 1978-81 version, elements from the 1986-89/1986-87 version was also used such as the look of the board, an audience poll question and changed cards in the Money Cards bonus round. In addition, the face-card turntables from the original were altered to feature the backs of the card decks themselves and had the boards attached to them so the boards could be revealed and concealed by rotation of the turntables as well as podiums. In addition, eggcrate fonts were used for the main game and Money Cards.

Also for time purposes, the first game was worth $1,000 increasing by $1,000 per game with he high score winning.

In the Money Cards, the winner earned $1,000 for each row for a maximum of $144,000.

The winner also played a car game in which they had to guess if the actual number of people in the audience poll group (more specifically cheerleaders as of this episode) was higher or lower than 5; the correct answer was revealed by use of a card from the blue deck (coin tosses were used to determine who played red and who played blue).

Brande Roderick was the winner of this episode with $10,000 and a $40,445 BMW Z4 Roadster, a grand total of $50,455 in cash for a home viewer.

Match Game
Originally aired on June 22, 2006. This was the second semi-final round where it pitted Kathy Najimy and Lance Bass. The six other celebrities that appeared on this episode were Gorge Foreman, Kathy Griffin, Bruce Vilanch, Adam Carolla, Adrienne Curry and Betty White. The format as based around Match Game PM (three rounds, two audience matches) with the classic head-to-head match played for 50X the winnings, ranging from $5,000 to $50,000.

Kathy Najimy was the winner of this episode along with a $50,000 prize to the home viewer.

Family Feud
Originally aired on June 29, 2006. This was based on the original Dawson version from 1976-85. This was the final round (and episode) where it pitted Brande Roderick and Kathy Najimi against each other in a standard first to 300 points format (i.e. Single-Single-Single-Double-Triple) for $100,000 for their charity along with a shot for $50,000 for the home viewer.

While it used a duplicate of the 1976-85 set, 20/25 instead of 15/20 seconds were offered in the Fast Money round along with the "blip" sound effect being absent just like in the original.

Kathy Najimy was the winner of this episode (and GSM champion) winning $100,000 for her charity along with a $50,000 ash prize to the home viewer.

Video
Full Episodes