Picture this apology

An interesting thread at Matt Ottinger's board talks about game show hosts putting down their own shows. Or at least some features of their own shows.

Like Pat Sajak obviously groaning over the "Megaword" category on Wheel of Fortune. Or Richard Dawson publicly disagreeing with some judging decisions on Family Feud. Or Drew Carey reacting sourly to the perfect showcase bid on The Price is Right.

One poster notes what might have been the best example of a host ripping into his own show. In 1961 Jackie Gleason tried a game show called You're in the Picture. The legendary bomb lasted only one episode. Really, it shouldn't have lasted that long.

Gleason appeared next week and apologized to his audience for the disaster. The apology was far more entertaining than the game show, as you can see on YouTube. Of course, Gleason managed to survive the bomb and went on to many more years in prime time.

To my knowledge nobody has ever apologized for GSN's Late Night Liars. Now there's a show that could have used a mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. For non-Catholics, that's "my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault." And Late Night Liars was really grievous.