CNN's older is better guy

A faux tweet pointed to CNN staffer James Dinan's post on the network's web site about his lifelong love for game shows. Dinan recounts how he tried out for eleven shows and made it to three of them: Millionaire, Two-Minute Drill and 1 vs. 100.

There's a lot to like about the post, especially Dinan's fond memories of classic shows from decades ago. He says a relative once told him that his first complete sentence was "X gets the square," though he dismisses this as family legend.

He has also attended Game Show Congress, an oldies fest in California that honors classic shows and hosts. But towards the end of his post Dinan launches the same complaint we've all heard a zillion times:

As for me, I don't know what my future in game shows holds, as I haven't been impressed with the programs that have aired in recent years. Most of them seem to follow the rules of so-called "reality" shows -- larger-than-life contestants, silly conflicts and manufactured drama. A few shows stay true to the form I grew up with, but those series are few and far between.

Yikes, the same older-is-better whine I've seen on game show boards throughout the Interwebs. I'm not sure why so many game show fans (at least among Internet posters) feel compelled to trash virtually all modern-day shows. Nowadays they're making some good game shows, some bad ones, and some in-between ones. Just like they always did. Just like they did in the good old days.

Maybe it's only resentment of reality TV, which has borrowed competition formats from traditional game shows and slotted them into exotic locales and peopled them with bitchy contestants. But that's no reason to dump on just about all current game shows as inferior to the (supposedly) golden era of the genre.