Sixteen months between tape and air

[COINBOYNYC]

In the "Match Game '17: how times have changed..." thread, I noted that the episode taped 11/2/06 was finally aired tonight, 2/21/18.  That's a gap of almost sixteen months between tape and air.

Is that the longest gap between taping and airing of a game show?

[mechamind]

16 months? In the United States possibly, but not worldwide. There would have been a gap of 18 months (or more) for Australian Wheel of Fortune's "Welcome Back to 2005" business.

[pannoni1]

ABC To Tell The Truth episodes from last year were over a year from tape to air I believe.

Family Feud's episodes that air in May in the Harvey era are usually taped the previous August, and normally, I think of that as the reasonable limit for some shows that tape the entire season in the summer and air throughout the following season. 

[JayC]

The Million Dollar Spectacular that aired during season 34 was taped with the ones that aired during the previous season, so that had a long delay between tape and air also. Probably not as big of a delay as this past Match Game episode though.

[GSNSmashFan3]

We’d be going into cable here, but there was a Hawaiian-themed week of GSN’s Lingo that was taped in July 2005, but didn’t air until January 2007.

Speaking of GSN, they’ve aired a handful of previously unaired episodes of game shows over the years, the most recent example being the final two episodes of Power of 10 in 2011, over three years after they were taped. As far as possible records are concerned, I imagine that the final few weeks of Match Game ‘79 that had been shelved by CBS would be a serious contender.

[JayC]

Ah yes, good point about previously unaired episodes that GSN's shown. GSN as well as the PAX (now Ion) network also aired episodes of the Anne Robinson hosted Weakest Link that NBC did not air.

[dmaingame]

Sixteen months is quite a lag between recording date and air date.  The biggest gap I remember in TPIR history was for the shows taped in mid 1991.  IIRC episodes aired between September 9th and December 6th of that year were actually recorded between late April and mid July. One clue of this is that the last episodes to have the original piano music for Switcheroo and Race Game as well as Pink Panther's Theme for Safe Crackers aired during that first week of December.  By around Christmas, but definitely before New Year's 1992, Race Game was using the William Tell Overture (previously played during Hurdles) and Switcheroo was using the alternate music cue that was on the Tom Kennedy version of TPIR.  Safe Crackers also was using a cue from the Kennedy version by this point. (which actually was the Safecrackers theme song for three more years)  This leads me to believe that these were the first episodes taped after the summer taping break between Seasons 19 and 20. 

[Flerbert419]

Million Dollar Mind Game was taped in the summer of 2010 and the last episode aired on November 27, 2011, so that might have it beat.

[goldroadfanatic]

Speaking of GSN, they’ve aired a handful of previously unaired episodes of game shows over the years, the most recent example being the final two episodes of Power of 10 in 2011, over three years after they were taped. As far as possible records are concerned, I imagine that the final few weeks of Match Game ‘79 that had been shelved by CBS would be a serious contender.

A similar example is the Password Plus episode that features George Peppard's rant against NBC. It was taped in 1979, but it wasn't aired until 1995 or so on GSN, so that's a 16-year gap.