Three's a Crowd (game show)
| Three's A Crowd | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Chuck Barris |
| Directed by | John Dorsey |
| Presented by |
Jim Peck (1979–1980) Alan Thicke (1999-2000) |
| Narrated by |
Johnny Jacobs (1979–1980) Randy West (1999-2000) |
| Theme music composer | Lee Ringuette |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Production | |
| Running time | approx. 22-26 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
Chuck Barris Productions (1979–1980) The Gurin Company (1999-2000) GSN Originals (1999-2000) |
| Distributor | Firestone Program Syndication (1979-80) Sony Pictures Television |
| Release | |
| Original network | Syndicated (1979–1980) GSN (1999-2000) |
| Original release | September 17, 1979–February 1, 1980 November 29, 1999-2000 |
Three's a Crowd (also known as 3's a Crowd) is an American game show originally packaged by Chuck Barris Productions. The first version aired in syndication from September 17, 1979 to February 1, 1980. The second version ran in 1999 on Game Show Network.
Hosted by Jim Peck, this version's tagline was "Who knows a man better, his wife or his secretary?" It bore many similarities to Barris' The Newlywed Game. Three sets of husband-wife-secretary teams appeared, and the game started with the men answering three pointed questions, usually referencing their wives and secretaries in ways that would lead to potential marital discord.
The secretaries then were brought back to answer the same questions, followed by the wives. Whichever team — wives or secretaries — matched the men's answers more often equally split a $1,000 prize (if both teams were tied, all parties split $500). The men received an announced prize for their participation.
According to Barris in his first autobiography, The Game Show King, the protests against the show—as well as the sometimes-evident lack of fun the contestants seemed to be having on it—prompted him to retreat from television production entirely.
At the time, Barris' company had four other shows on the air: revivals of both The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, the still-running syndicated The Gong Show and its spin-off The $1.98 Beauty Show. Barris wrote that "The public backlash from Three's a Crowd not only caused the program to be canceled, but it took three other TV shows of mine with it. I went to my house in Malibu and stayed there for a year." Indeed, it was largely due to the backlash from Three's a Crowd that ratings for all of his other shows—including the still-popular The Gong Show—plummeted and were removed from the air by the start of the next television season.
The series was replaced on February 4, 1980 by a revival of the 1960s game show Camouflage, also produced by Barris. Unlike its predecessor, Camouflage was a weekly series – something that worked against it, as the weekly syndicated game show had largely gone by the wayside in favor of daily "strips" (the only other game shows not produced by Barris at this time that were still airing weekly were The Nighttime Price Is Right, which was wrapping up its final season, and Match Game PM and Joker! Joker! Joker!, both of which ran until 1981). Three's A Crowd was the last original format Barris tried; the rest of his productions were either revivals of old shows (as Camouflage and a second Barris revival of Treasure Hunt were) or his previous efforts (The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show were all revived during the 1980s).
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