The Name of the Game (TV series)

The Name of the Game
The Name Of The Game's three "headline" stars, shown here from left to right, were Robert Stack, Gene Barry, and Tony Franciosa.
Created by	Jennings Lang
Starring	Tony Franciosa Gene Barry Robert Stack Peter Falk Robert Culp Robert Wagner Darren McGavin Susan Saint James Mark Miller Ben Murphy Cliff Potts
Theme music composer	Dave Grusin
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	76 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Richard Irving David Victor Leslie Stevens Dean Hargrove
Running time	90 minutes
Distributor	Universal Television NBC Universal Television Distribution
Release
Original network	NBC
Original release	September 20, 1968 – March 19, 1971

The Name of the Game is an American television series starring Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack, airing from 1968 to 1971 on NBC, totaling 76 episodes of 90 minutes each. The show was a pioneering wheel series, setting the stage for The Bold Ones and the NBC Mystery Movie in the 1970s. The program had the largest budget of any television series at that time.

The series was based on the 1966 television movie Fame Is the Name of the Game, which was directed by Stuart Rosenberg and stars Tony Franciosa. The Name of the Game rotated among three characters working at Howard Publications, a large magazine publishing company—Jeffrey "Jeff" Dillon (Franciosa), a crusading reporter with People magazine (before there was a real-life People magazine); Glenn Howard (Gene Barry, taking over for George Macready, who had originated the role in the earlier film), the sophisticated, well-connected publisher; and Daniel "Dan" Farrell (Robert Stack), the editor of Crime magazine. Serving as a common connection was then-newcomer Susan Saint James as Peggy Maxwell, the editorial assistant for each.

The show's opening graphic used each actors name, zoomed out to form a line drawing of the face of each of the primary stars in turn, with the face each time being formed out of repetitions of the star's name, accompanied by a jazzy, pulsating theme by Dave Grusin. This graphic originally put the featured lead first, then the other two as "starring in ...", Franciosa set on pale blue background, Barry on red, and Stack on green. All three leads were thus depicted, although usually only one of them actually appeared. Each episode then carried individual credits with the featured lead name "in" followed by title and guest cast. When the show ran on the Encore Mystery channel between 1996 and 1999, a single "Stack–Barry–Franciosa" opening graphic was shown on nearly every episode (except 'Keep The Doctor Away', 'Goodbye Harry', 'The Takeover', and 'The Tradition' which each retained their original correct rotation order respectively). This single graphic also preceded almost all except those four episodes on re-runs which Cozi TV aired in 2014.