Game shows a bonus for Vegas

Perhaps because his show is "Wheel of Fortune," Harry Friedman doesn't pretend to have a definitive answer to the $64,000 question:

Why aren't TV game shows a permanent part of the Las Vegas landscape?

"Wheel" edged a step closer with its recent visit. The game show taped a whopping 30 episodes, which will air a week or two at a time September through February. The Venetian gets imbedded advertising, and "Wheel" gets what executive producer Friedman calls "a thread of that Vegas feel, that Vegas touch, throughout the season."

The set made it look like the game filmed on the casino floor. Prize autos were shown off next to The Venetian canals. Audiences were herded into a massive staging area to wait in "VIP" or "standby" bays. The only oversight seemed to be the failure to move in slot machines to "help" bide the time.

Afternoon performers on the Strip might not like the audience drain for free tapings. But game shows are a new frontier for keeping the city's profile a step ahead of the tribal casinos.

But after one season at the Tropicana, the relaunched "Let's Make a Deal" now tapes in Hollywood. No one explained how the hotel could lose such an asset. But it seems in line with questionable decisions of late, ranging from Wayne Newton to remodeling the casino into a blinding white, Miami-tacky version of Pacino's "Scarface" pad.

Friedman helmed a crew of 200 people, some of whom used bicycles and golf carts to get around the sprawling convention center setup. But the producer also was onboard for "Caesars Challenge," a short-lived 1993 game show that compactly fit into Caesars Palace's old showroom, filming by day.

"That actually worked out very well for us and it worked out for the hotel," he says. So why didn't it become the norm in the past 17 years?

One thing the casinos might not like is a game show's part-time nature. "You can't come in and tape one show a day and do it economically," Friedman says.

"Part of the economy of doing a game show is we can knock out five episodes in a day. At home we do six in a day. If you really wanted to put the pedal to the metal, you could do an entire season of shows in 13 weeks of taping. Thirteen weeks is not a year-round attraction that I think any hotel-casino would want. That's the contradictory business model between game shows and live shows."

Even if a showroom just sits there in the daytime? Oh well. This is a summer when Las Vegas should consider any play a bonus round. "I don't think we could be lured away on a permanent basis," Friedman says. That said, "we like it here, they're good to us. We just hope we don't overstay our welcome."

That's as doubtful as not picking an "E" first.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.