Game shows have taken over the world — and every network

A few years ago, someone asked me the price of a quart of milk. I replied, “About 27 cents.”

So I was wrong. So sue me.

Truth be told, until I retired in 2019, I never paid attention to prices.

What does salt cost?

What are they charging for underwear these days?

How much is that doggie in the window?

I never knew and never cared. I made a decent salary, my needs were few and I lived alone. If I wanted something, I bought it. If I didn’t, I left it on the shelf.

(Besides, most of the items on most of those shelves didn’t have prices on them, anyway.)

So I had to laugh the other day when someone asked me if I’ve been watching “The Price Is Right at Night,” a relatively new evening version of the daytime game show that began in 1956.

I’m going to assume the show is entertaining. But a show about guessing the price of groceries?

For the record, I never watched “The Biggest Loser,” either. (A show about people losing weight? How bored do you have to be to watch a show like that?)

As you’ve probably noticed — assuming you have a TV — almost everything on network television this fall is a game show, a reality show or some combination of the two.

Part of this has to do with the lengthy writers and actors strikes in Hollywood this year. Part of it has to do with the ongoing competition from more “mature” dramas and sitcoms on cable and streaming services. And part of it has to do with the fact that winning stuff is fun.

Seriously, who doesn’t love winning stuff? Or, better yet, winning the cash to buy stuff?

The grand prize on “Big Brother” is $750,000 this season. On “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race” and the new “Lotería Loca,” you can win $1 million. And on the new “Golden Bachelor…”

Yes! First prize is a 65-year-old woman. Unless you pick the 68-year-old.

(As someone who is 68, I say this with love — although I’d rather go home with cash.)

For weeks, I’ve been giving my nightly TV schedule the once-over and muttering, “What…? Again?”

If you’re not interested in football, football or more football, you’re left with “Celebrity Jeopardy,” “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune,” “Press Your Luck,” “Password,” “The $100,000 Pyramid” and so on, into infinity.

Then there are the singing competition, the masked singing competition, the dancing competition, the cooking competition and half a dozen dating competitions — including a few in which the contestants are completely nude.

One may wonder: Is all of this televised competition, scheming and screaming good for us?

The short answer, believe it or not, is yes. A 2021 study published in the Journal of Psychological Rehabilitation found that mental health improved through watching television game shows, because they are interactive and allow viewers to play along, to involve themselves “emotionally with the joy of winning” and, perhaps, to feel less lonely.

A few of these shows are also nice to look at.

After sitting through the new 90-minute “Survivor,” week before last, I caught up with the new 90-minute “Amazing Race.”

(Not only are there MORE reality/game shows on television these days, but they’re actually getting LONGER.)

I hadn’t seen “The Amazing Race” in about 10 years, but it still features breathless, nonstop action that unfolds in some truly gorgeous locales.

Later that night, in my dreams, I was magically transported to my high school English class — circa 1971 — telling my rapt classmates about the exciting game shows they would be able to watch in 2023.

As I was about to tell them about “The Amazing Race,” I wondered what would fascinate my 1971 friends the most: that the show had 26 contestants; that they were competing for $1 million; or that, in the episode I had just watched, they had played in lush, beautiful…

Hawaii?

No. Vietnam.

The best game show ever? In 2007, TV Guide named “The Price Is Right” as “the greatest game show of all time.”

My own all-time favorite is older than I am. Episodes of “What’s My Line” going back to the early 1950s are available on YouTube and almost every one of them is witty, informative and entertaining — which is one reason that it routinely attracted such high-profile guests as Frank Sinatra, Willie Mays, Eleanor Roosevelt and assorted astronauts, industrialists and world leaders.

In the early ‘90s, I appeared on the Food Network game show “Ready, Set, Cook,” a precursor to “Chopped,” and won some pricey, indestructible All-Clad cookware that, 30 years later, still looks like new.

A couple of years after that, I competed on “Wheel of Fortune.” I lost the game but still went home with $13,650.

Not a fortune. But not bad.

Do you know how many quarts of milk you can buy with $13,650?

No?

Neither do I.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Game shows have taken over the world — and every network