WHAT HAPPENED IN VEGAS: THE TV SHOW THEY SHOT HERE
By Howard T. Brody
Usually, right around this time of year, we start to see trailers for the new TV season which traditionally begins in September.
However, like the summer movie release openings that got pushed back thanks to the global pandemic known as Covid-19, so does the upcoming TV season. Instead of September, shows will roll out on the networks and on-demand platforms as they are made available with many simply waiting until January 2021 as they won’t start production until they get the all-clear.
But, never fear, for as long as there are services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, Disney+, HBO MAX, Vimeo, Daily Motion and countless other video platforms, not to mention the fact that virtually every cable TV provider offers an on-demand service, there are hundreds of TV shows you can binge any time you want.
So, as a companion piece to last month’s feature on the movies that were made here in Sin City, we’ll take a look at some of television’s most Las Vegas-centric TV programs. Some were long-lasting and notable, some were here and gone in the blink of an eye and entirely forgettable. But, they all have one thing in common: They were all about Las Vegas.
With so many shows featuring episodes where the main characters visited Las Vegas – Friends immediately comes to mind when a drunken Ross and Rachel got married – we’re going to ignore all those shows and instead focus on the series in which Las Vegas plays a role, whether as part of the show’s title, as a key element to the plot, or simply serves as a backdrop for the series.
Talk Shows, Variety Shows, Game Shows and Competitions Before scripted TV shows featured Sin City, early television showcased Las Vegas in glorious black and white, starting with the syndicated variety series The Liberace Show. The program, which began in 1952, ran until 1969 and in its first two years alone, earned Liberace about $7 million ($67.3 million in 2020 dollars), helping to solidify him as a Vegas icon.
In 1967 the upstart United Television Network selected comedian Bill Dana, perhaps best known for playing the character José Jiménez on The Steve Allen Show, to host The Las Vegas Show, a daily talk and variety program. Boasting that it was transmitted from the “New Color TV Theater in the Hacienda Hotel” with the tagline, “You’ll ‘Nevada’ want to leave home!” the show, and the network, were spectacular failures, lasting all but a month.
Between 1974 and 1984, 54 episodes of The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast aired on NBC in which celebrities would get together at the MGM Grand Hotel’s Ziegfeld Room to celebrate the “Man of the Hour” or “Woman of the Hour.” With Dean serving as the host, roastees included a cavalcade of Hollywood elites from Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope to Lucille Ball and George Burns. Although the shows that aired on TV were always edited for content and remained clean (for the most part), those who were in attendance have told stories about how dirty the roasts could get as many of the celebrities worked blue. Because of the infamous MGM fire, the show did not air from ’80 to ’83.
Throughout the years, there have been a number of shows that called Vegas home, and they all had varying degrees of accomplishments and disappointments, including:
• Caesars Challenge ran from June 1993 to January 1994. Originating from iconic Caesars Palace, the show was hosted by former Minnesota Vikings’ football player and sports commentator Ahmad Rashad. It featured three competitors vying for prizes and would be the last daytime game show to air on NBC.
• Drew Carey’s Improv-A-Ganza, which had a 10-week, 40 episode run on GSN (Game Show Network) in 2011. Originating from the Hollywood Theatre at the MGM Grand, the show featured Whose Line Is It Anyway? alumni Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie as well as a number of guests like Wayne Brady, Brad Sherwood, Charlie Sheen and others.
• High Stakes Poker aired 98 episodes on GSN between 2006 and 2011, originating from different locations for each of its seven seasons, including the Golden Nugget, The Palms, South Point Casino and the Bellagio. Hosted at various times by A.J. Benza, Gabe Kaplan, Kara Scott and Norm Macdonald, the show featured professional poker players. They paid anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 to buy into the games that had prizes in the millions.
From 2005 to 2010, Criss Angel Mindfreak had success with 96 episodes on A&E, where the famous Vegas magician primarily does street illusions throughout the city, “freaking out” tourists and residents alike. In 2013 Criss returned to TV on Spike (now the Paramount Network) with Criss Angel BeLIEve. While the show only lasted nine episodes, it was like Mindfreak, except it showed the creative process behind the illusions and provided demonstrations from conception to execution.
Penn & Teller: Fool Us, which currently airs on the CW network and is quite successful in its seventh season, originates from the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio. The premise of the show has magicians from all over the world coming to Las Vegas to perform in front of the duo in an attempt to stump them on how the magic trick or illusion is done.
Then there’s Hell’s Kitchen. While the hit FOX show has been around since 2005 and originally was taped in Los Angeles, the last two seasons of the show was filmed at Chef Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen restaurant in Las Vegas.
While not quite real competition, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the original GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling), which we featured in our April “What Happened in Vegas” feature, as it originated from The Riviera Hotel and Casino and had massive success in first-run syndication with 104 episodes from 1986 to 1990, and Ring Warriors pro wrestling which was taped at Sam’s Town Live! and had a 13 episode run on WGN America in late 2018.
Reality Shows While one could argue that game shows, talk shows and competitions are all forms of reality television, by today’s definition, that’s just not the case. When the Writers Guild of America went on strike in 1988, the strike led to the creation of what has become today’s reality television, which did not rise to its current level of popularity until the late ‘90s.
While there have been a barrage of reality shows with Las Vegas playing host, let’s look at four of the most notable.
• King of Cars. From 2006 to 2007, Josh Towbin was the king of reality TV as the show ran for 29 episodes on A&E and centered on his Towbin Dodge car dealership in Henderson. Josh got the nickname “Chop” and gained fame locally by producing an absurd infomercial, The Chopper Show, in which his salesmen dressed up as various characters, while he “chopped” the prices of his cars.
• Pawn Stars. Premiering in 2009 and still going strong, this is by far the most successful Vegas-based reality show with more than 500 episodes. As the highest-rated program on the History Channel, the show features items sold or pawned by the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, a 24-hour Las Vegas family business opened in 1989 and operated by patriarch Richard “Old Man” Harrison (who passed away in 2018), his son Rick Harrison, Rick’s son Corey “Big Hoss” Harrison, and Corey’s childhood friend, Austin “Chumlee” Russell.
• American Restoration premiered in 2010 as the first spin-off of Pawn Stars, and the first six seasons of the show on the History Channel chronicled the activities of Rick Dale and his staff at Rick’s Restorations, a metal works and antique restoration shop.
• Counting Cars premiered in 2012 as the third spin-off of Pawn Stars. The show is still going strong and features “The Count” (Danny Koker) as the owner of Count’s Kustoms, a repair and restoration shop devoted to motorcycles and automobiles. The shop’s name derives from Koker’s time as the part-owner of the local independent station KFBT Channel 33 (now a CW affiliate, KVCW). During this time, he hosted Saturday Fright at the Movies, a weekly B-movie showcase as “Count Cool Rider.”
Other Las Vegas-based reality shows have included: American Casino, Bad Ink, Caesars 24/7, Flipping Vegas, Gigolos, High Stakes Poker, The Hotwives, King of Vegas, Mama Drama, Pawnography (the failed game show spin-off of Pawn Stars), Rehab: Party at the Hard Rock Hotel, Sin City Rules, Sister Wives, Strip ‘N Rip and Tanked.
Perhaps the biggest reality show of all time that took place here was The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, which we cover in next month’s “What Happened in Vegas” feature.
Scripted TV Series Dozens of scripted shows have been written with Las Vegas as their locale, and like the many reality shows made here, most scripted series were downright abysmal while only a select few have been wildly successful.
While we can’t name all of these shows, and trying to rank them from worst to best would be highly subjective, we can do our best to list 20 lucky shows from the fewest number to the most number of episodes that were produced and aired.
Dr. Vegas (2004, CBS, five episodes): Rob Lowe played Dr. Billy Grant, an emergency room doctor who left his job to take a position tending to the guests and staff of a high-end hotel and casino run by general manager Tommy Danko played by Joe Pantoliano. Despite the strong cast that also included Amy Adams, Chazz Palminteri, Tom Sizemore and Hal Sparks, ratings were poor and despite 10 episodes being filmed, only five of them ever aired.
Hearts Are Wild (1992, CBS, eight episodes): Described at the time by critics as a cross between The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, this Aaron Spelling creation set at Caesars Palace chronicled the exploits of fictional hotel owner Jack Thorpe, played by David Beecroft, manager Leon ‘Pepe’ Pepperman, played by Jon Polito, and guest relations director Kyle Hubbard, played by Catherine Mary Stewart. They welcomed vacationers – including those played by Mickey Rooney, Dick Van Patten, Ricardo Montalban and Sally Struthers, among others – who would get into various dramatic situations.
Tilt (2005, ESPN, nine episodes): Attempting to cash in on the exploding popularity of Texas hold ‘em and the World Series of Poker at the time, the show was created by Rounders co-writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien. The series followed several high-stake poker players as they try to take down Don “The Matador” Everest, a legendary card cheat, played by Michael Madsen. Each player has a different reason for wanting to hurt him, including Lee Nickel, played by Chris Bauer, who believes that Everest killed his brother. The show features many World Series of Poker players in cameo roles, including T. J. Cloutier, Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu. Tilt was ESPN’s second and final attempt at a scripted dramatic series. However, they did come back in 2007 with the critically acclaimed docudrama miniseries The Bronx is Burning about the 1977 New York Yankees.
The Player (2015, NBC, nine episodes): This action-thriller follows the life of Alex Kane, played by Phillip Winchester, a Las Vegas security expert whose life unravels when his ex-wife is murdered. While trying to track down the killers, Kane crosses paths with Isaiah Johnson, a pit boss played by Wesley Snipes, who runs a unique gambling operation where a “player” is pitted against criminals. Gamblers bet on who’ll gain the advantage over a specific timeframe. Johnson recruits Kane as the latest player in the game. Despite the star power of Snipes who had starred in such films as White Men Can’t Jump, Demolition Man and Waiting to Exhale, the series didn’t even complete a full season.
The Strip (1999, UPN, ten episodes): In this short-lived series Cameron Greene, the billionaire owner of Caesars Palace played by Joe Viterelli, recruited two former Las Vegas Metro detectives – Sean Patrick Flanery as Elvis Ford and Guy Torry as Jesse Weir – to watch over his guests as “troubleshooters.” Unfortunately, the most memorable aspect of this show was that Elvis was an unkempt rebel who not only lived on a rundown sailboat but was a junk food junkie chowing down on fast foods, 7-11 Slurpees and Yoo-hoo chocolate drinks.
GLOW (2017 - Present, Netflix, 30 episodes): While seasons one and two used Los Angeles as the backdrop, the 10 episodes of season three was all about the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling relocating to Las Vegas. Set in the 1980s, this fictionalization of the real GLOW TV show focuses on Alison Brie’s Ruth Wilder character, a struggling actress. She finds her footing as a professional lady wrestler named Zoya the Destroya in a fledgling professional wrestling promotion. The series, created by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, also stars Marc Maron as Sam Sylvia and Betty Gilpin as Debbie “Liberty Belle” Eagan.
The Tortellis (1987, NBC, 13 episodes): As the first spin-off of Cheers, the series starred Dan Hedaya and Jean Kasem as Nick Tortelli, the ex-husband of Carla, and his trophy wife Loretta. Having appeared several times on Cheers, the spin-off followed Nick as he moved from Boston to Las Vegas in an attempt to reconcile with Loretta, promising to change his sleazy, conniving ways. Loretta had left Nick to live with her sister Charlotte and Charlotte’s young son. Nick and Loretta cautiously reunite, and Nick starts a TV repair business, attempting to reform. Nick and Loretta’s teenage son and daughter-in-law follow them to Las Vegas and move in as all six characters live in the house together.
Lucky (2003, FX, 13 episodes): Suspiciously similar to the 1995 film Leaving Las Vegas, this dark comedy focused on a broken, compulsive gambler named Michael “Lucky” Linkletter played by Sex In the City alumni John Corbett. He struggles to get his life together after losing both his wife and million-dollar poker winnings. Although the show only lasted one season, it received an Emmy nomination for its writing and featured actors Billy Gardell, Craig Robinson, Ever Carradine, Andrea Roth and Dan Hedaya.
Nasty Boys (1990, NBC, 13 episodes): When the 1989 TV movie of the same name scored big in the ratings department, the network ordered a 13 episode season from executive producer Dick Wolf. The show was a fictionalization of the North Las Vegas Police Department’s flashy, real-life narcotics unit. Known locally as the NTNB (North Town Narcotics Bureau), the innovative unit was quickly nicknamed the North Town “Nasty Boys” by the local drug dealers due to them wearing all black hooded raid uniforms and for their quick breaching methods of serving search warrants. Starring Don Franklin, Benjamin Bratt, Dennis Franz and Nia Peeples, even though the first six episodes were shot in Sin City, the program became costly. Halfway through the season, the production moved to California, where the quality and excitement of the show seemed to have all but disappeared.
The Watcher (1995, UPN, 13 episodes): In this anthology series, Anthony L. Ray – also known as rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot, best known for his 1992 hit song “Baby Got Back” – played an unnamed omniscient narrator who watched the activities of others throughout the city through an array of surveillance cameras and monitors from his suite at the Riviera Hotel. Bobbie Phillips was also in the show playing the limo driver Lori Danforth. Guest stars included Coolio, Gilbert Gottfried, D.L. Hughley, Kato Kaelin, Max Wright, the band Cheap Trick and former Howard Stern Show regular and sidekick Jackie “The Jokeman” Martling.
Blansky’s Beauties (1977, ABC, 13 episodes): In this ill-fated Happy Days spin-off set in the 1970s, Nancy Walker starred as Howard Cunningham’s cousin, Nancy Blansky. Walker, who previously played Ida Morgenstern, the mother of Valerie Harper’s character Rhoda Morgenstern on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda, and Mildred, the housekeeper on McMillan & Wife, might be best known for her role as Rosie, the waitress in the Bounty paper towel commercials. While Nancy’s role had her tending to the showgirls at the fictional Oasis Hotel, the show also starred Eddie Mekka as Joey DeLuca, the cousin of his Laverne & Shirley character, Carmine Ragusa. It featured Pat Morita as Arnold, reprising his role from Happy Days, and a young Scott Baio as Anthony DeLuca, before he went on to Happy Days fame as Chachi Arcola. For whatever reason, the show also had a card-playing Great Dane named Blackjack.
Who’s Watching the Kids? (1978, NBC, 15 episodes): When Blansky’s Beauty’s failed, Garry Marshall repackaged the series and created a nearly identical show called Legs starring Caren Kaye and Lynda Goodfriend and sold it to NBC. Featuring many of the same actors as Blansky’s, Marshall dropped two of the showgirl characters after the pilot episode aired in favor of Scott Baio and another child actress, Tammy Lauren, and changed the name of the series. With a focus on the two daytime showgirls and how they raised their younger siblings with the help of friends and neighbors, the sitcom suffered the same fate as Blansky’s and was given the old heave-ho. On a positive note, the series marked Jim Belushi’s TV debut, albeit as Bert Gunkel, a clumsy TV news cameraman.
LA to Vegas (2017, FOX, 15 episodes): Following the passengers and crew of a Friday to Sunday weekend gambling junket route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas on the low-budget Jackpot Airlines, the series starred Dylan McDermott, Kim Matula, Ed Weeks, Nathan Lee Graham, Olivia Macklin, and Peter Stormare. While flight attendants dealt with 21st birthdays, bachelor parties and other celebrations, the weekend flights are filled with dreamers hoping to make a big score. One of the main storylines featured an economics professor and regular junket passenger name Colin McCormack, played by Weeks and based in LA, trying to develop a relationship with flight attendant Ronnie Messing, played by Matula and based in Vegas.
Father of the Pride (2004-2005, NBC, 15 episodes): This animated sitcom was created for DreamWorks Animation by Jeffrey Katzenberg and was part of a short-lived trend to create CGI series for prime-time television. The series centers on a family of white lions, the patriarch of which is named Larry and voice by John Goodman, who stars in Siegfried & Roy’s Las Vegas show. Despite a lot of promotion by the network, and a great voice cast that included regulars Cheryl Hines, Orlando Jones and Carl Reiner as well as guests John O’Hurley, Wendie Malick, Dom DeLuise, Jane Lynch and many others, the series was a ratings failure and got canceled. Unfortunately, the on-stage injury to Roy Horn in 2003 affected the delivery of the show and contributed to its cancelation.
The Defenders (2010, CBS, 18 episodes): Unrelated to the 1960s series of the same name that starred E. G. Marshall and Robert Reed, and long before Netflix decided to have Marvel characters Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones join forces, Jim Belushi (playing Nick Morelli) and Jerry O’Connell (playing Pete Kaczmarek) were paired up for this series that was very loosely based on the lives of local attorneys Michael Cristalli and Marc Saggese. The show focused on the two lawyers trying to deal with their often hectic personal lives while going out their way to help their clients. Despite the show having popular stars, including SNL alumni Dan Aykroyd in a recurring role as Judge Maximus Hunter, the ratings tanked as the show failed to connect with viewers.
Vegas (2012-2013, CBS, 18 episodes): Set in the 1960s, this series was a fictionalization of Ralph Lamb, the then real-life Clark County sheriff. With Dennis Quaid as Lamb and Michael Chiklis playing his adversary Vincent Savino, a mob associate and manager of the fictional Savoy Hotel, the show focused on the friction between the two as they were constantly at odds over various crimes that took place in and around the Savoy. Also on the show was Carrie-Anne Moss who played Las Vegas assistant district attorney Katherine O’Connell, a character that brought balance between the two. Knowing the show was going to be canceled, the writers got together. They penned a final episode that saw Lamb and Savino team up to take down a mining tycoon named Porter Gainsley, who was responsible for the death of a Savino mob rival and Ralph’s wife.
Crime Story (1986-1988, NBC, 44 episodes): Also set in the 1960s, this show focused on two Chicago rivals who relocated to Sin City and were hell-bent on taking each other down. After being “made,” Ray Luca, a mobster played by Anthony Denison, moves to Las Vegas to run casinos for the syndicate. His rival, a cop named Mike Torello, played by Dennis Farina, follows him to Vegas after being moved to a federal Organized Crime Strike Force. Although the series only lasted for two seasons, it won multiple awards both during and after its run. It is said to be the inspiration for many TV shows and films that came after it, including 24, Wiseguy, The Sopranos and Casino.
Vega$ (1978-1981, ABC, 69 episodes): Starring Robert Urich as Dan Tanna, this show was created by Michael Mann and produced by Aaron Spelling, and centered around the life and times of a Las Vegas private detective who serviced high profile clients including the Desert Inn Hotel & Country Club owner Phillip Roth, aka “Slick,” played by longtime Vegas resident and Tinsel Town legend Tony Curtis. Tanna would take on cases that included locating missing persons, investigating murders, solving casino scams, and anything else his clients would throw his way, all the while driving around Sin City in a 1957 red Ford Thunderbird convertible. Tanna also had an unusual living arrangement where he resided in a theatrical props warehouse owned by Roth next to the Circus Circus Hotel/Casino on the Strip. Many of the large props had been converted for his living quarters, which offered the unique ability for him to park his car in his living room. Tanna also used gadgets that were considered high-tech for the late ‘70s, including a car phone and a telephone answering machine.
Las Vegas (2003-2008, NBC, 106 episodes): In many ways the name says it all as the show focused on the staff of the fictional Montecito Resort and Casino and how they dealt with ongoing issues that arose from their work environment, ranging from restaurant management to valet parking to casino security. The show featured James Caan as an ex-CIA officer named Ed Deline who went from being head of security to being president of casino operations. During its run, the series cast included Josh Duhamel, Marsha Thomason, James Lesure, Molly Sims and Nikki Cox. When Caan left the show after the fourth season, he was replaced by Tom Selleck as A.J. Cooper, the new owner of the Montecito, in an attempt to help boost the falling ratings. But despite a great back story for the Cooper character which included being a cattle rancher from Wyoming with a net worth of about $2 billion and being a black ops Marine in the Vietnam War having been awarded the Bronze Star, the lead change just didn’t connect with the viewers. The network canceled the show before it could have a series finale.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000-2015, CBS, 337 episodes): Given its longevity and the number of episodes this series amassed, CSI is without a doubt the most successful TV show ever to be associated with Las Vegas. For 15 years the show accumulated a worldwide audience of more than 70 million viewers. By the end of its run was the most expensive weekly primetime TV show to advertise on with a 30-second spot costing more than $250,000. Anchored by a theme song from the classic rock band The Who singing “Who Are You,” the show inspired three spin-offs that all fell under the CSI banner. They included: CSI: Miami, CSI: Cyber (Washington, DC) and CSI: NY. The drama focused on the forensic investigations team of the LVPD led by its quirky supervisor, Gil Grissom, played by William Petersen, who examined physical evidence to help solve crimes. In addition to Petersen, who left the show after the ninth season but came back periodically as a guest, the series featured a prominent cast of regulars during its run including Marg Helgenberger, Ted Danson, Laurence Fishburne and Elisabeth Shue.
While we often play off the slogan “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas,” when it comes to the many television shows that made Vegas part of their legacies and were shared with viewers from around the world, we can honestly say this go around that when it comes to all these programs, What Happened in Vegas most definitely did not stay in Vegas.
Now, go online and see if you can find some of these shows to binge-watch. Enjoy!