In 1967, more than 100,000 people dressed in hippie garb descended on San Francisco, ushering in the Summer of Love. But there would be no Summer of Love for game show fans as CBS canceled four long running game shows in a span from April to September.
The cancellations were due to declining ratings and aging demographics. The network was trying to attract younger viewers and the shows skewed toward an older audience. If anyone was responsible for the axing of the shows, it was a young programming executive named Fred Silverman and vice president of programming Michael Dann. Silverman was not a fan of game shows as indicated in Sally Bedell Smith's book Up the Tube when she mentioned that he was at a taping of the hit game show Password and fumed to a producer "Who thinks up this crap?" He also passed on Hollywood Squares after viewing the pilot with host Bert Parks and put on The Face is Familiar which only lasted 18 weeks. Hollywood Squares was picked up by NBC with Peter Marshall as host and ran for 14 years.
As for CBS, the first game show to get the ax was I've Got a Secret. On April 3, the Steve Allen hosted show would air it's final episode, ending a 15 year run. The final guest celebrity was Lynn Redgrave. I've Got a Secret would be replaced the following week by the nighttime version of Password.
The next show that would end its prime time run was To Tell the Truth. The final episode would air on May 22. Also airing its final episode was Password, with Barbara rush and Noel Harrison the guest celebrities. The two classic game shows would be replaced by a short lived drama titled Coronet Blue.
The longest running of the three prime time games What's My Line? , which suffered three years of falling ratings, even after the death of regular panelist Dorothy Kilgallen in 1965 would air for the 876th and final time on September 3. Host John Daly would be the show's final Mystery Guest and there also cameos my Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. What's My Line? would be replaced by CBS's rising suspense show Mission: Impossible.
Silverman, who would become the head of CBS daytime programming would also wield the cancellation ax on the daytime version of Password. The hit word game, hosted by Allen Ludden would give is final Password for Today September 15. The cancellation came due to a couple of factors. The first was a drop in ratings due to ABC's rising hit show The Newlywed Game that debuted July 11, 1966 when CBS preempted Password to air an address from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on the Vietnam War. Disgruntled game show fans switched to ABC and it caused Password's ratings to drop. Also, Silverman and Goodson were at odds on where the show was going to be produced. Silverman wanted Goodson to move the show to CBS Television City in Hollywood, where several weeks of episodes were taped each season in order to book celebrities who couldn't make it to New York but Goodson felt Password should stay in The Big Apple. The Password was cancellation.
In the aftermath of the axings, there would be only one game show on CBS and that would be the daytime version of To Tell the Truth. It would stay on the network until September 6 since Silverman decided to expand the last of the 15 minute soap operas Search for Tomorrow and Guiding Light to a half hour. A year and two days after the CBS daytime version ended, a revival would air in syndication with Garry Moore as host, replacing Bud Collyer who passed away the same day as the show's premiere. To Tell the truth would come following the successful launch of the syndicated version of What's My Line? in September 1968.
There would also be good news for Password fans. Following the end of the CBS run, reruns of the daytime show would air in syndication. In New York, the show would air in prime time on WPIX-TV. It would be the first daytime game show to air syndicated reruns and pave the way for a new daytime version of the classic word game that debuted on ABC April 6, 1971.
The return of Password would prove that game shows would make a comeback after the mass cancellations of 1967.
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