BREAKING (AND EXCITING) NEWS: “Sale of The Century” Comes To GSN!

No, this is not a typo nor is it an early April Fool’s prank. You read right! GSN has acquired the rights to rerun 65 episodes of the 1988-89 season of NBC’s Sale of The Century. The Reg Grundy produced game show, hosted by famed Card Sharks host Jim Perry, will return to television airways on April 1 at 9:30am EST on GSN. For those of you who are not familiar with the show, Sale of the Century has three contestants engaged in a fast-paced trivia competition, while deciding whether or not to purchase “Instant Bargain” prizes worth thousands for only tens of dollars. The contestant who fares the best on each show becomes the day’s winner and has a chance to win over $100,000 in cash and prizes during their reign as champion.

Sale of the Century first aired in 1969 on NBC with host Jack Kelly. Since then, the show’s format has been seen all across the globe from Australia to the U.K. As die-hard game show fans may already know, the U.S. tried to recreate the excitement and magic that made the original series as great as it was with the premiere of Temptation in 2007 with host Rossi Morreale. Sadly, the short-lived revival only lasted for one season due to poor ratings. In fact, a vast majority of Temptation episodes had never risen above a 0.5 rating during the 2007-08 season, making it the least-watched game show of the season.

At any rate, the newly acquired episodes of Sale of The Century will become a part of GSN’s new daytime schedule in April. Joining Sale of The Century will be Press Your Luck (57 new-to-GSN episodes from 1983-84 season), Super Password (150 episodes from 1986-87 season), Password Plus (66 episodes from 1981-82 season with Tom Kennedy), and Match Game (1975-77 seasons). In all my years of watching Game Show Network, I never imagined that this show would ever see the light of day again outside of avid viewers trading tapes and game show fans posting episodes on YouTube. With this being said, Sale of The Century’s debut on GSN raises a question: Because this show is also a Reg Grundy Production, will we ever see Scrabble added to GSN’s schedule? Only time will tell. In the meantime, check out GSN’s Sale of The Century promo in the clip below and don’t forget to mark your calendars. 

Source: GSN Press Release