Sale of The Century (U.S. Game Show)

Sale Of The Century (U.S. Game Show)

Sale of the Century is an American television game show which debuted in the United States on September 29, 1969, on NBC daytime. It was one of three NBC game shows to premiere on that date, the other two being the short-lived Letters to Laugh-In and Name Droppers. The series aired until July 13, 1973, and then aired in a weekly syndicated version for one additional year. Jack Kelly hosted the series from 1969–1971, then Joe Garagiola, Sr. took over for Kelly, who returned to acting.

The rights to Sale of the Century were purchased in 1980 by Australian TV mogul Reg Grundy, who turned the show into a huge hit in Australia (see Sale of the Century (Australian game show)), and eventually succeeded in selling NBC a new version of the format in 1983. The new version aired weekday mornings from January 3, 1983 to March 24, 1989. Again, it was one of three NBC game shows premiering on the same date, along with Hit Man and Just Men! (which both lasted only 13 weeks). This version of Sale originally aired at 10:30/9:30 AM Central and later moved to 10:00/9:00 Central. A concurrent daily syndicated version ran from January 7, 1985, to September 1986. The 1980s versions were hosted by Jim Perry.

Al Howard was the executive producer of the initial 1969–1973 version, and for a short time was co-executive producer of the 1980s version with Robert Noah.

A new version of the series entitled Temptation, like the recent Australian revival, debuted in syndication on September 10, 2007, following a September 7 preview on MyNetworkTV. This series ran for one year.