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Post by Flowgli on Nov 2, 2018 12:00:14 GMT -5
Hey, there, music lovers! This is Flo, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Wink Martindale is a veteran game show host, and he hosted a great number of game shows. It’s not as much as a couple of others like Bill Cullen, but he did host a lot of game shows. The game show he’s most well-known for hosting was Tic Tac Dough from 1978 to 1985 when he left that show to host a game show that he created called Headline Chasers. I covered some of the game shows he hosted here, and they were Debt back in year one and Trivial Pursuit, Boggle: The Interactive Game, Shuffle: The Interactive Game, and Jumble: The Interactive Game in the previous year. In this week’s edition, though, I’m gonna cover the very first game show he ever hosted. That game show is a music game show called What’s This Song?What’s This Song? aired on NBC from October 26, 1964 to September 24, 1965. It was the first national game show that Wink Martindale hosted, though he was credited on this show as Win Martindale. And just so you know, his real name is Winston Conrad Martindale. For one week, Let’s Make A Deal co-creator and original host Monty Hall sub-hosted this show. This show was also announced by Steve Dunne and packaged by Stuart Phelps-Jack Reeves-Jesse Martin Productions. The game is played by two teams, each one consisting of a contestant and a celebrity, with the contestant on one team being a returning champion. Music from many songs are played, and on each song, a team has to guess the title of that song, with a correct guess scoring that team 20 points and giving that team a chance to score another 20 points by singing the first few lines of lyrics in that song. On the first song only, the teams buzz in to guess the title. On every song, if a team makes an incorrect guess on the title, the other team gets a chance to guess the title. The team who correctly guesses the title of the song in play will have one member of it specified by Wink sing the first few lines of lyrics in that song. As a member of that team makes an attempt to sing the correct lyrics, the lyrics needed to be sung for that team to score more points are shown to the home viewers. The member of that team has to sing all the words in the lines of lyrics correctly in order to score the 20 additional points. After that member of that team has had their chance to sing the lyrics, the opposing team has the option propose a challenge if they think the lyrics are sung incorrectly. After the choice of whether or not to propose a challenge is made, Wink will reveal whether the lyrics are sung correctly or incorrectly by the team in turn. If a challenge is proposed, and the lyrics are revealed to have been sung incorrectly, a specified member of the opposing team has to sing those lyrics; doing so correctly at that point scores the opposing team 20 points, while doing so incorrectly at that point deducts 20 points from the opposing team’s score. Scores can go into the negatives. After a team makes the last guess on a song, whether it’s on a title or the first few lines of lyrics—challenge proposed or not—the other team gets the first shot at guessing the title of the next song. The game is played until one team reaches 100 points, with the first team to do so winning the game and advancing to the bonus round called Minute Medley. The contestant on the winning team also receives $100. In the Minute Medley, the winning team listens to parts of ten songs whose titles all begin with the same letter. The songs begin playing after the initial letter of all ten song titles is revealed, and the team has 60 seconds to correctly guess as many of the song titles as possible. The contestant on the winning team has to make the guesses, though they can talk the songs over with their celebrity teammate. If the team gets stuck on a song, they can pass on it by hitting their buzzer. Regardless of the outcome of this round, the contestant receives $20 for each song title correctly guessed. If the contestant correctly guesses all ten song titles before time runs out, not only do they receive the full $200, but they also win a trip to anywhere in North America. After the Minute Medley is played, the contestant plays the next game with the other celebrity. Also, contestants stay on the show until they lose twice. And that’s What’s This Song? This show is a good music game show that involves teams guessing song titles and singing the correct lyrics to those songs in order to score points. Proposing challenges when a team believes that the other team has sung lyrics incorrectly is a good element in the gameplay, as well. I don’t know why only the first song is a toss-up and the teams take turns on all the songs after that until the game is over. Why can’t they just have one or the other for the entire game. How about the teams take turns going first in guessing song titles, with the team with the challenger in it going first on the first song? Better yet, how about all the songs be toss-ups that both teams can buzz in on? Also, the point values of the song titles and lyrics seem to be a bit too heavy. Everything is worth 20 points. Couldn’t there be some variety in the point values? The Minute Medley bonus round is great. I like the idea of guessing ten song titles that all begin with the same letter within 60 seconds and winning money and a trip to anywhere in North America for it. And even though this show aired back in the early to mid-1960s, I feel that more than up to $200 should be played for in the Minute Medley, even though this show has returning champions who stay on this show until they lose twice, and a trip to anywhere in North America sounds something very big and valuable. Why can’t each song title in that round be worth $50, for a maximum of $500 rather than $20 each, for a maximum of $200? In fact, what is it with this show and the number 20? What’s This Song? did get revived in 1968 as Win With The Stars, hosted by Password host Allen Ludden. Even though there are articles that explain in some detail how the game is played and other bits of information about that show, there isn’t an episode of that show to prove that all the information provided is accurate, so I can’t cover that show. But then again, the more I say this about obscure game shows that have plenty of information about them provided and no episodes of them to be found anywhere on the Internet, the more I remember having covered The Reel Game in the previous year. I covered that show when there was enough information about it to work with and no episodes of it were ever found anywhere on the Internet. Well, maybe I’ll later change my mind and cover Win With The Stars in the future, even if there’s still not a single episode of that show to be found anywhere on the Internet. So, we’ll see. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Nov 9, 2018 13:03:34 GMT -5
Hi, people! Flo here, welcoming you to another edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Next Thursday, it will be nine years ago that Ken Ober died. Ken Ober was best known for hosting the very first game show on MTV and the very first non-musical show on that channel called Remote Control. He also hosted the first format of the Comedy Central run of Make Me Laugh, Perfect Match—the game show that aired on ESPN in 1994, not that stupid relationship game show that aired in syndication in 1986—and the game show that I will be covering today called Smush. Smush aired on USA Network from December 3, 2001 to June 21, 2002. Not only was it hosted by Ken Ober, but it was also co-hosted by Lisa Dergan and packaged by Diplomatic Productions, Greengrass Productions, and Jellyvision. The game is started off with four contestants, with contestant one playing as red, contestant two playing as blue, contestant three playing as yellow, and contestant four playing as green. The contestants are seated at a table with Ken, while Lisa is at a bar, placing numbers on the contestants’ names as a way of keeping score in the game. In this game, the contestants are given sets of clues, and on each set of clues, contestants have to buzz in and not only give the answers in the order the clues are given, but also smush all the answers to make it one whole answer. These whole answers to the sets of clues are referred to as “smushes”. For example, if a set of clues is “Actor who played Tom Hagen in The Godfather + Sport that made Gabrielle Reece and Karch Kiraly famous”, the correct smush will be “Robert Duvallyball”, a smush consisting of “Robert Duvall” for the first clue and “volleyball” for the second clue. Each time a contestant buzzes in with the correct smush to a set of clues, they score points; but if they buzz in with an incorrect smush, their opponents get to buzz in and answer that set of clues. At the end of each round, the contestant with the lowest score is eliminated. If there’s a tie at the end of a round, one more set of clues in that round is played, with the tied contestant buzzing in with the correct smush advancing to the next round. In round one, there are two clues in each set, and each correct smush is worth one point. The final part of the round is the lightning round, and in this part of the round, a monitor is brought in, and the sets of clues are shown in the form of images instead of words, with the contestants having to identify the pictures and smushing the answers together. In round two, there are three clues in each set, and each correct smush is worth two points. There’s also one set of clues referred to as “ Smush Cinema”, where a couple of “actors” give a set of clues to movie titles, and a contestant has to buzz in and smush the movie titles together. For the final set of clues, however, there are four clues in it, and the correct smush there is worth three points. This set of clues is referred to as a “Quad Smush”. In round three, the two remaining contestants play at the bar. There are seven clues in this round, with each one given individually rather than all in the same set. On the first clue, simply the correct answer is needed. On each clue thereafter, a smush chain has to be made, starting with the correct answer to the first clue and going all the way up to the correct answer to the current clue. The clues in this round are worth one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven points, in that order. A contestant scores points for buzzing in and correctly making a smush chain from the correct answer to the first clue and going all the way up to the correct answer to the current clue, but if they buzz in and make a mistake along the way, the other contestant gets a chance to make that chain and score the points. An example of a smush chain will be “Tread Dawn Of The Dead Endless Loverboy Scouts”, which will be made up of the following answers: tread, Red Dawn, Dawn Of The Dead, dead end, “Endless Love”, Loverboy, and Boy Scouts. After round three, the remaining contestant wins the game and advances to the bonus round called the Money Round. In the Money Round, Lisa writes a compound word or a multi-word phrase on the top edge of a mirror in lipstick, and the contestant is given five clues whose correct answers smush to the front or end of the written word or phrase. An example of a written word or phrase will be “Rollergirl”, and examples of smushes using that written word or phrase will be “Rollergirl Scouts” and “Steamrollergirl”. If the contestant gets stuck on a clue, they can pass on it and return to it if there’s still time left on the clock. The contestant has 45 seconds to answer all five clues correctly. Each correct smush wins the contestant $1,000, but if all five clues are answered correctly before time runs out, the contestant’s total winnings are increased to $8,000. And that’s Smush. It really is a tough, challenging, and fun word game. It’s really clever to have multiple clues on each set and combine all the correct answers in that set into one. I like how they increase the number of clues in each set as the game progresses and consistently increase the point values of the sets of clues. Though, I do find the lightning round in round one pointless, because that’s just played exactly as before, except with pictures. Round three is very hard but fun, having to remember all the answers and smushing them together in a chain on each clue up to the correct answer to the current clue. The bonus round is good, as well; it’s a fast-paced round that has the winning contestant give answers that each have the same given word or phrase smushed with it at either the front or the end. The biggest problems I have with the show are the set and the top cash prize. The set does have actual game show buzzers, but other than that, it looks nothing like a game show set. It has a basement atmosphere like the other game show that Ken hosted, Remote Control. I’ll give it this: the set of this show is at least something, unlike the set of Shopper’s Casino, a game show that I already covered back in year three, as the set of that show is nothing. But with the set of Smush, the show looks more like a televised get-together than it does a game show, as it’s got a bar, a table where Ken and the contestants sit at, a small monitor being brought on stage for the lightning round, numbers placed on top of the contestants’ names by Lisa as a way of keeping score, and a mirror with words or phrases written on it in lipstick by Lisa. Even the graphics of the squares and rectangles in many different colors in the show’s opening led me to believe that this show would have a set that looks in some way like the one of Funny You Should Ask—the game show that premiered last year, not the game show from the 1960s that I already covered back in year one. Now, about the top cash prize, $8,000 is very random for a top cash prize on a game show. The top cash prize on this show could’ve been $10,000. However, since this show is an original of USA Network, a cable channel, it would’ve been okay for the top cash prize to be $5,000. They could’ve taken some money out of the cash prize so that they could use more of the money in their budget to make an actual game show set for this show. This show also used the sound effect for the clue reveal in “Final Jeopardy!” from Jeopardy! as the sound effect for each correct answer in the Money Round here. Speaking of Jeopardy!, former Jeopardy! contestant Bob Harris was a contestant on this show. That’s it for Smush. Next week, I’ll be covering a game show from 1958 where contestants play a game of Battleship, but with animals in Africa instead of ships. It’s the very first game show hosted by Tom Kennedy, and it’s called Big Game. This is gonna be interesting. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Nov 16, 2018 13:00:09 GMT -5
Hello, fellow hunters. I’m Flo, your guide, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Today, we are going on an African Safari and watch the animals in Africa being used by contestants as part of a game show based on the Milton-Bradley board game Battleship. So, come along with me as I cover Big Game. Big Game is a primetime game show that aired on NBC from June 13, 1958 to September 19 on that same year. It aired in black and white, even though it’s been said to be aired “in living color”, meaning that it can be seen in either black and white or color depending on what television is seen on at the time by the home viewers. It was the first game show hosted by Tom Kennedy. It was also announced originally by Wendell Niles and later by Johnny Jacobs, and it was produced by Jackson Stanley Productions in association with the NBC Television Network and taped at NBC Studio 4 in Burbank, California. There was also a pilot episode from January 8, 1958, with Bill Goodwin as the host. The game is played by two contestants, one of which is a returning champion. Each contestant has a board with 25 light pegs on it that are arranged in a 5x5 grid form. Each contestant’s board is placed in a way that it can’t be seen by their opponent. Each contestant also has a chute where pegs earned slide down, a podium with a pegboard on it that has 25 peg holes that are arranged in a 5x5 grid form, and three magnetic African animals to place on their board. The three animals that each contestant has are a hippopotamus, a tiger, and an alligator. Each animal has a different length of light pegs; the hippo is two light pegs long, the tiger is three light pegs long, and the alligator is four light pegs long. At the start of the game, each contestant places their animals in different spots on their board. The animals can be placed vertically, horizontally, and—unlike in Battleship—diagonally. Also, this game has a straddling format, so a game will be interrupted when time for that day’s episode runs out, and that game will continue where it has left off; when that happens, the contestants get to see each other’s boards before the game continues, but they have to rearrange the animals on their own boards after that, and each contestant’s animals each have to have the same number of “shots” as they have had at the time the game has been interrupted at the end of the previous episode. Then, the game continues from there. The contestants play as many rounds as they need to until one contestant successfully “knocks out” all three of the other contestant’s animals. In each round, each contestant gets a chance to earn pegs and use them to take shots at their opponent’s animals by answering questions. In most rounds, each contestant is asked two questions, with each correct answer worth three pegs, for a possible six pegs. Questions in some rounds are played the same way, except each question answered correctly is worth four pegs instead of three, for a possible eight pegs for a contestant. In some rounds, each contestant is asked one multiple-choice question with three answers to choose from and has up to two chances to answer it, with a correct answer on the first chance worth five pegs and a correct answer worth two pegs. In some rounds, each contestant is played bits of three songs and have to correctly identify the title of each song, with each correct song title worth three pegs, for a possible nine pegs. In some rounds, each contestant is a list of items and has to guess what they all have in common, with a correct guess worth four pegs, and they get another list to work with for three pegs if they fail to answer correctly on their first list. And in some rounds, each contestant is given ten seconds to give alternate answers to two categories, with each correct pair of answers worth two pegs and one incorrect answer automatically ending their turn in giving answers. After a contestant has gotten their chance in a round to earn pegs, all the pegs they have earned in that round—if any—come down from that contestant’s chute, and that contestant takes those pegs and use them to take shots at their opponent’s animals by sticking each peg into one of the peg holes on their own podium. Each time a contestant sticks a peg into a peg hole on their podium, the light peg whose position corresponds to that of that peg hole lights up on their opponent’s board. If the light peg lit up on a contestant’s board has an animal on it, it’s a direct hit; but if not, it’s a miss. If a contestant’s animal has all the light pegs on it lit up, that animal is knocked out, and that contestant removes that animal from their board. The first contestant to knock out all three of their opponent’s animals wins the game, becomes or remains the champion, and plays another game against a new challenger. On each game, $2,000 in total is played for. The winner of a game receives a large share of the money or all of it depending on how many of their own animals they have remaining on their board at the time that game is over. If they have all three of their animals remaining, they win the entire $2,000 cash prize. If they have two of their animals remaining, they win $1,900, while the losing contestant wins $100. If they have one of their animals remaining, they win $1,500, while the losing contestant wins $500. That’s Big Game. The gameplay is all good, but it’s way ahead of its time. It could’ve been saved for an actual game show adaptation of Battleship decades later. I like that they have contestants earn shots to take at each other’s animals by giving answers to questions and categories, though I would’ve liked for it to be consistent and not have a number of different ways to give answers with details on how to do so not focused on that much. How about at each turn, a contestant is asked five questions that increase in difficulty, with each question answered correctly worth two shots? That would’ve been more simple. Also, the contestants shouldn’t be allowed to see each other’s boards at the start of an episode after a game has been interrupted at the end of the previous episode. Why can’t they just simply continue the game where they left off? Finally, the cash prize of $2,000 is good for 1958. There were other game shows in the 1950s that had thousands of dollars in cash played for by contestants until after the quiz show scandals of that decade. This game show, though, was not involved in the scandals. Instead of the $2,000 being divided by the two contestants when the losing contestant has either knocked out one or two of their opponent’s animals, the winning contestant should’ve been awarded a specific cash prize depending on how many of their animals they still have remaining when the game is over, like $500 for having one animal remaining, $1,000 for having two animals remaining, and $2,000 for having all three animals remaining. That’s it for Big Game. Next week, I’ll be covering another game show from the 1950s that aired in black and white. That game show is Two For The Money. See ya. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Nov 23, 2018 13:00:14 GMT -5
Hey, people. This is Flo, and welcome to another edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Remember when I covered a game show in the previous year called 3 For The Money? Well, this week, I’m gonna be covering a game show whose title is almost the same as that of that show, except the number in the title of this game show is one less. Yeah, the game show being covered here today is Two For The Money. Two For The Money premiered on NBC, both as a radio show and a primetime show, with the primetime run actually a simulcast of the radio run, on September 30, 1952, with the primetime run ending on August 11, 1953 and the radio run ending on September 22 on that same year. It also aired on CBS with two primetime runs and a radio run. The two primetime runs lasted from August 15, 1953 to September 22, 1956 and from March 23, 1957 to September 7 on that same year. This show was hosted by humorist Herb Shriner until 1956, at which point it was hosted by Sam Levenson, who substituted for Herb in 1955. Walter O’Keefe also substituted for Herb in 1953. Fred Allen, who hosted the pilot episode on June 5, 1952, also substituted for Herb. There were also five announcers, with the main announcer originally being Kenny Williams—who later went on to announce on many game shows produced by Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley—and later being Ed McMahon in his television debut—who later became best known as the announcer of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and the host of the original run of Star Search—and Dennis James and Bob Shepperd being pitchmen—with Dennis James pitching Old Gold cigarettes, which this show was sponsored by. Ralph Paul and Carl King were also announcers or pitchmen at some point in this show. It is a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production in association with CBS Television Network, with Mark Goodson having gotten the idea for this show after the success of the game show that aired on NBC at the time, You Bet Your Life, which has a format that is as much a showcase for the host, Groucho Marx, as it is a game. There was also a judge on this show, Mason Welch Gross, a professor from Rutgers University, with Walter Cronkite substituting for him for a short time. Finally, this show was taped in New York City, New York, originally at International Theater from 1952 to 1953, later at Studio 52, CBS from 1953 to 1956, and finally at Biltmore Theater in 1957. Man, that was a lot to get through there! It must’ve been as much as when I provided information like this when I was covering Break The Bank back in year two. But you know what? It actually gets easier from here for me. Each episode has more than one game played in it, and each game is played by one team of two members. A team has friends and family members with them, the entire group is interviewed by the host, and the game begins. The game is played in three rounds, and in each round round, the team is given a category and told in what specific way they have to give answers in that category. The team is given 15 seconds to give as many answers that fit into that category as possible, with the two team members taking turns giving answers. After time runs out, that category is over. However, that category can immediately end before time runs out if a team member makes a mistake, such as giving an answer that doesn’t fit into that category or repeating an answer already given. Each correct answer in the first category is worth $5, and at the end of that category, the amount of money accumulated there becomes the value of each correct answer in the second category. At the end of the second category, the amount of money accumulated there becomes the value of each correct answer in the third category. At the end of the third category, the team leaves with all the money accumulated there. After a game is finished, another team with friends and family members of their own are brought in for the next game. That’s Two For The Money. It’s a really simple game with the challenge of giving as many correct answers as possible in 15 seconds without making a mistake, with more correct answers meaning more money. It’s actually so good that it not only lasted for five years, but also had two board games based on it, both of which were released by Ideal. Also, this show received Emmy nominations for Best Audience Participation Program in 1953 and 1954. Even though this show is great the way it is, I would’ve liked for it to have a bit more to the gameplay. There could’ve been two teams each playing their own game and play against each other in a third game, with one member in each team playing a category, the team members switching places after each category for the next one, and the first team to win two categories winning the game and all the money accumulated by both teams. But the game is still just fine. Actually, this game show is so good that it can’t be considered a turkey at all. Yeah, you probably forgot that today, this Friday, is the day after Thanksgiving, did you? Well, next week, we’ll be sitting down to a big ass show that could treat people after having a big ass Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah, the show that I’ll be covering next week is Bobcat’s Big Ass Show. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Nov 30, 2018 13:00:30 GMT -5
Hey, you big ass game show fans! I’m Flo, your big ass host, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Let’s talk about Bobcat Goldthwait. Don’t know who he is? He’s a comedian in black comedy, an actor, a writer and director for films and TV shows, and the voice of Muggle in the animated Fox show Capitol Critters and Pain in the animated Disney film Hercules and the show based on that film. At one point, though, he hosted a game show, and it turned out to be a big ass flop. This show only lasted for some time in 1998. So, here we go. This is Bobcat’s Big Ass Show. Bobcat’s Big Ass Show—known simply as Bobcat’s Big Show on TV guides and similar magazines due to the actual title having what is said to be a bad word in it—aired on FX in 1998, with the premiere and finale dates unknown. Not only was this show hosted by Bobcat Goldthwait, but it was also announced and created by Eric Waddell—who also produced it with Kathy Sutula, Anthony Ross, Jamie Hammons, and Deborah Dupree—and packaged by Stone & Company Entertainment, known at the time as Stone Stanley Productions. There were also a pair of co-hosts on the show referred to as “Wing” and “Ding” and another assistant on the show referred to as “Tony”. The game is played by six contestants, who play two at a time. The contestants are chosen from the studio audience by Wing and Ding and brought up on stage by them for a “Truth Or Dare?”-based game. After two contestants have been chosen and brought up on stage, they are given a game to play, and they play it one at a time, with the contestant playing second wearing a large metal helmet that keeps them from seeing or hearing what’s going on while the contestant playing first is having their turn. Examples of games in this show are “Wing Ding Pajama Party”, where contestants have to pay close attention to a cheer and dance performed by Wing and Ding and repeat after them; “Bobkitty’s Bachelorette Party, where contestants strip for a “bride” played by Tony; and “When Animals Attack”, where contestants use plush animals like they’re being attacked by them. At the end of each game, the studio audience vote for which contestant they think has made the better performance in that game by giving cheers and applause. The contestant with the bigger cheers and applause wins that game and returns later in the show in an area called “Bobcat’s Big Ass Lounge”, while the losing contestant in that game is referred to as a “big ass loser” by the studio audience and taken backstage where they are being humiliated by Tony. After the three games, each winner of their game is given six seconds to plead to the studio audience that they should get the grand prize, which is always a vacation referred to as a “Big Ass Insert-Vacation-Location-In-The-Form-Of-An-Adjective-Here Getaway”, such as a “Big Ass Hawaiian Getaway” or a “Big Ass Jamaican Getaway”. After all three of the contestants’ pleas are heard, the studio audience vote for which contestant they think has pleaded the best by giving cheers and applause like before. The contestant with the biggest cheers and applause wins the game overall, receives a prize, and gets a chance to win the grand prize vacation in the bonus round called “Guess My Secret!” To start the bonus round off, each of the five losing contestants give three secrets about themselves, one of which is true, and Bobcat and the studio audience guess each losing contestant’s true secret, always arriving to the true secret eventually. There’s a disclaimer in the end credits that states that Bobcat has been given the contestants’ secrets before the show. While all this is going on, the winning contestant is backstage, wearing the same helmet as before that keeps them from seeing or hearing anything. Afterwards, the helmet is removed, and the contestant is brought back on stage to play this round. The five losing contestants are lined up in a specific order, and Bobcat reads to the winning contestant three secrets about the losing contestant at the front of the line. After the three secrets are read out loud, the winning contestant has to choose which secret is the true one. If the contestant chooses an untrue secret, they must hear Bobcat read the remaining unchosen secrets before choosing one of them. Eventually, the winning contestant will get to the true secret, and when they do, the losing contestant at the front of the line makes way for the losing contestant next in line. The winning contestant has 60 seconds to choose all five of the losing contestants’ true secrets, with the clock shown to the home viewers in the form of a graphic of a pink wine glass that tilts side to side like a pendulum. If the winning contestant chooses all five true secrets before time runs out, they win the grand prize vacation; but if they don’t, each losing contestant wins a small prize. That’s Bobcat’s Big Ass Show, and with the way this show was structured, it can be big ass fun. It’s very simple to follow: play a “Truth Or Dare?”-based game, get the bigger cheers and applause from the studio audience, plead to the studio audience for six seconds that you should get the grand prize vacation, get the biggest cheers and applause from the studio audience, and choose the true secrets of the five losing contestants within 60 seconds. The games can be funny and entertaining sometimes, though that’s not what they are in some cases. Six seconds seems a bit random for how much time a contestant has to plead to the studio audience. I like the bonus round the best. It’s a quick-paced round that’s like bonus rounds from other game shows before and after it. Also, because there are only five sets of secrets, and all five true secrets have to be chosen before time runs out, it makes a lot of sense to have some time in this round to be eaten up by having the winning contestant listen to the remaining secrets of each losing contestant, even if there’s only one secret of that losing contestant left, in order to make it more difficult for the winning contestant to win this round. Why, though, didn’t they make it so that a losing contestant at the front of the line goes to the back of it whenever the winning contestant chooses an untrue secret of that losing contestant, and that losing contestant returns to the front of the line if there’s still time left on the clock? I know that wouldn’t make that much of a difference in the way the bonus round is played, but I believe it makes more sense to have the losing contestants do that than to have them stay at the front of the line until their true secrets are chosen by the winning contestant. Of course, with the format that this show has, it’s pretty obvious that this show wasn’t gonna last any longer than months. So, it’s no surprise that a show like this would be so short-lived. I’ll keep covering game shows that are unsurprisingly short lived, especially when we go into December in next week’s edition. See you guys next week. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Dec 7, 2018 13:00:08 GMT -5
Hello, movie fans, especially those of movies from the early 1950s. This is Flo, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. I have covered some trivia game shows that are solely about movies. I covered The Hollywood Game back in year one, and I covered The Reel Game, The Reel To Reel Picture Show, and Contraption in the previous year. Today, I’m gonna be covering another movie trivia game show, and it’s another one of the many game shows hosted by Bill Cullen. This show is Bank On The Stars. Bank On The Stars is a primetime game show that aired in black and white and had two runs. The first run aired on CBS from June 20, 1953 to August 8 on that same year, and it was hosted by Jack Paar and announced by Olin Tice. The second run aired on NBC from May 15, 1954 to August 21 on that same year, and it was hosted by Bill Cullen until somewhere in July when he got replaced by Jimmy Nelson for the rest of that run and announced by Bill McCord. Both runs aired on Saturday nights and were packaged by Masterson-Reddy-Nelson Productions. The game is played by three teams, each one consisting of two members. The three teams play one at a time. Each team is brought on stage and introduced by a co-host who is only identified as Cynthia. On each team’s time on stage, a clip of a then-recent movie is shown, and that team is asked three questions about that clip. On each question, one member of the team gives an answer, and the other member of that team chooses whether to agree on the given answer or disagree and give an answer of their own. Each team member who answers a question correctly wins $50 for their team, so up to $100 can be won on each question, for a possible $300. If both team members answer incorrectly on a question, that team’s time on stage in the main game is over, and each team member reaches a hand into a barrel full of silver dollars and grabs a handful of them if this happens on the first question. In later episodes, each question is worth $25 for each team member who has answered correctly, up to $50, for a possible $150, and all three questions are played, even if a question is missed by both team members. After all three teams have played, the team with the most money wins the game and advances to the bonus round called Bank Night Bonus. In Bank Night Bonus, one more movie clip is played, but the winning team can only hear the clip and not see it, as they are to have their backs facing the screen the whole time the clip is played. After the clip, the team is asked one question about it. This question is of high difficulty, and both members of the team have to come to an agreement on an answer. If the team answers the question correctly, they win a jackpot that starts originally at $500 and later at $250 and increases by $250 either way each time it’s not won. That’s Bank On The Stars. The gameplay is good and simple to follow, the difficulty of the questions is fair, and the cash prizes are good for the early 1950s. The way the scoring is done is good, except for when a team is made to stop playing their turn if they have missed a question completely in the earlier episodes. It’s a good thing they changed the rules for the later episodes so that each team plays their turn in its entirety. It’s a shame that at that point, the dollar values of the questions and the starting amount of the jackpot in Bank Night Bonus are cut in half. Speaking of Bank Night Bonus, that round is done well, with the winning team having to only listen to a clip and not see it, not to mention that they are asked one question in that round, and that question is of high difficulty. That really makes for a good, challenging round. In fact, the entire game is challenging, because it’s a trivia game show solely about movies, and not everyone knows a lot about movies, which is important if a contestant wants to win in a game show like this. Not only is this a trivia game show that’s solely about movies, but it’s also a trivia game show that’s solely about movies that were brand new at the time, which makes the game even more challenging for people who didn’t get to catch the latest movies, even before becoming contestants on this show. Speaking of the latest movies, one of the latest movies at the time of this release is Ralph Breaks The Internet, the sequel to the 2012 animated Disney film Wreck-It Ralph, and as you all know, the main character of both of these movies is a character in an arcade game. Not a real one, though; just one that only exists in these movies. Why am I saying all this? Because the next game show that I will be covering is all about contestants playing arcade games. So, join me next week when I cover Starcade. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Dec 14, 2018 13:00:23 GMT -5
Hello, gamers! Flo here, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. This week, we’re gonna get our game on, because the game show that I’m gonna be covering is an arcade game show. And not just any arcade game show, but the very first arcade game show ever. So, here we go. This is Starcade. Starcade aired on a weekly basis originally on TBS—known back then as WTBS—from December 27, 1982 to an unknown day in August 1983 and later in syndication from an unknown day in September 1983 to an unknown day in September 1984. It was created, developed, and executive produced by James Caruso and Mavis Arthur. It was hosted originally by Mark Richards and later by veteran game show host Geoff Edwards. There are also four pilot episodes, with the first one hosted by Olympic hockey player Mike Eruzione and the other three hosted by Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. The show was also taped at Bridge Studios in San Francisco, California, announced by Kevin McMahon, produced by JM Productions, and distributed by Turner Program Services. The game is played by two contestants, each of which is either an adult or a child. The contestants are seen warming up for the show by playing arcade games in the opening. Also, in some episodes, the game is played by two teams rather than individual contestants. The two contestants play three rounds, and in each round, a toss-up dual-choice question related to video arcade games is asked, with the contestant who buzzes in with the correct answer choosing one of five arcade games for both contestants to play in that round and that contestant playing that game first. However, if the contestant buzzes in with the incorrect answer, the other contestant wins the question and the right to choose an arcade game and play that arcade game first by default. After a game is chosen, each contestant plays that game within a time limit. In round one, each contestant plays a game within originally 40 seconds, later 60 seconds, and even later 50 seconds. In round two, each contestant plays a game within originally 40 seconds and later 50 seconds. And in round three, each contestant plays a game within originally 30 seconds and later 40 seconds. After a contestant’s time on a game runs out, whatever points that contestant scores in that game is added to their overall score on the show. One of the five games is dubbed the “mystery game”. If the “mystery game” is chosen, the contestant who has chosen it instantly wins a prize. At the end of round two—and also round three in earlier episodes—the contestant with the highest overall score plays a bonus game called “Name The Game”. In “Name The Game”, the contestant playing it is shown screenshots or pieces of footage of four video arcade games on monitors, one at a time. On each screenshot or piece of footage, the contestant is given titles of two video arcade games to choose from, and they have to choose the title of which game what’s shown in that screenshot or piece of footage can be found in. If the contestant answers correctly on at least three screenshots or pieces of footage, they win a prize, with a more valuable prize won if the contestant answers correctly on all four screenshots or pieces of footage. After three rounds, the contestant with the highest overall score wins the game and advances to the bonus round. Before the bonus round, the winning contestant is told by the host the average score of each of the remaining two arcade games based on the scores set by twenty other people who have played that game, and that contestant chooses which one of those games they want to play in the bonus round. In the bonus round, the winning contestant plays the remaining arcade game of their choice and must reach or exceed the average score of that game based on the scores set by twenty other people who have played that game within 30 seconds. If the contestant succeeds, they win the grand prize, which is their very own arcade game machine. That’s Starcade. Before I get to my thoughts on this show, I have to talk about a few things. I’ll start with the pilots. The pilots hosted by Alex Trebek are pretty much like the series, while the pilot hosted by Mike Eruzione is a lot different. In the Mike Eruzione-hosted pilot, the game is started off with twenty-four contestants in three rows. Each row has a different arcade game for the eight contestants in that row to play, and each contestant in that row has their own separate arcade game machine. In this case, the contestants on the first row play Defender, the contestants on the second row play Centipede, and the contestants on the third row play Pac-Man. On each game, each contestant has 30 seconds to play their game and try to score as high as possible, and the contestant with the highest score on that game plays against the two highest-scoring contestants from the other two games on another game, which, in this case, is Berzerk. The winner of that game wins an Asteroids Deluxe arcade game machine and an Apple II computer. The winner of that pilot, David Dyche, plays a brand new game at the time, Donkey Kong, against a celebrity just for fun. The celebrity in this case is Larry Wilcox, who is best known for his role as Jon Baker on the NBC crime drama show CHiPs. Next, I’ll talk about the episodes that each have only one game played for the entire show. In episodes like those, the same game is played in all four rounds, and that includes the bonus round. Games featured in episodes like those are Cliff Hanger, Dragon’s Lair, and the 1983 Star Wars game. There are also invitational episodes, where prior winning contestants return and play in a tournament-style format for a home robot, a jukebox, or a trip to Hawaii rather than an arcade game machine. In those episodes each, four contestants play, two at a time, and the contestants are chosen at random. Also, in those episodes, a variant of the “Name The Game” bonus game is played as a way of earning the right to choose a game and play that game first rather than just a dual-choice question. The way the “Name The Game” portion is played in those episodes, though, is that only one screenshot or piece of footage is shown on all four monitors, and two video arcade game titles to choose from are given five seconds after the reveal. Then, like with the toss-up questions in the regular episodes, the first contestant to buzz in must choose the title of which game what’s shown in that screenshot or piece of footage can be found in, with a correct guess giving them the right to choose a game and play it first and an incorrect guess giving the other contestant the right to choose a game and play it first by default. Two games are played in the first heat, and one game is played in the second heat. At the end of each heat, the contestant with the highest overall score moves on to the finals, where they play against the winner of the other heat, which is played like the second heat, but each contestant plays one game for 60 seconds, with the contestant with the highest score at that point winning the game overall and receiving the prize up for grabs. Finally, the episodes that have teams playing the game are basically played the same way as the regular episodes with individual contestants, with the differences being that on each game, only one member in each team plays it, while the other member in each team cheers their teammate on, and in “Name The Game”, each member of the team playing it gets to guess on two screenshots or pieces of footage, and they take turns making their guesses. Now, I can give my thoughts on this show. It’s a very fantastic game show that’s all about arcade games, and as I watched the episodes of this show that I found on the Internet, it reminded me of how much I really like playing games in an arcade and playing those games on video game consoles and mobile devices. I know I said the same thing about the game shows that I covered recently, but the gameplay in this show is simple to follow. Not only that, but it does work very well. It’s an arcade game show that knows very well what to focus on, and that’s arcade games. Of course, having contestants just play arcade games for the entire show is not enough to make it a good game show, which is why they changed the format from the Mike Eruzione-hosted pilot, so they added toss-up questions and the “Name The Game” bonus game in order for the show to actually be more like a game show. These elements of gameplay combined do not override the arcade element of gameplay, and that makes this show a great arcade game show. What also makes this show a great arcade game show is that the contestants are children and adults, which makes sense, since arcade games are games made to be played by children and adults. All the prizes played for in this game are video game-related, which definitely fits the theme of the game, well, except for a couple of prizes played for in the bonus round on the invitational episodes. That’s all really cool, particularly with the grand prize on the show, again, except on the invitational episodes, being an arcade game machine! What other game show would have an arcade game machine as a grand prize, or even a prize at all? Actually, there are other game shows that have an arcade game machine as a prize. An example of this is The Video Game, the next game show that JM Productions did shortly after the run of Starcade ended. I’ll save The Video Game for later as one of the game shows to cover here, but right now, what I really want to say here is that Starcade left a mark in the game show world big enough for more arcade game shows to come by, such as Video Power, Nick Arcade, and Arena. Also, since January last year, there have been plans to revive Starcade, with JM Productions being involved again and working with Shout! Factory, which acquired the rights of the show from Caruso and Arthur. If the revival of the show actually comes through, then this would make the show the first game show covered here to be revived afterwards. Every game show covered here so far are those that have little to no chance of getting revived. Well, let’s hope that Starcade actually does get revived, because it was a great arcade game show. And going back to my overall thoughts, the way the bonus round is played is not only simple, but it’s also sweet and straightforward; I like the idea of a winning contestant playing one more arcade game and having to reach or exceed the average score of that game based on the scores set by twenty other people who have played that game within 30 seconds in order to win the grand prize. Finally, the invitational episodes are nice tournament episodes where prior winners compete for other prizes besides an arcade game machine, but I feel that the first heat having two games played and the second heat having one game played makes the overall game in those episodes lopsided. They could’ve done what Jeopardy! does and have each heat have only one game played and the finals have two games played. It would’ve made more sense if they’ve done that. The hosts did well on the show. Though, it has been revealed that Mark was uncomfortable on camera and not interested in video games according to Ted Turner. Geoff Edwards, however, did a much better job, as he had a lot of experience in hosting game shows under his belt before he started hosting this show, and he became a fan of video games as soon as he got the job as the host of this show, since he never played video games before that point. He studied the games in the show’s rotation and read gaming magazines. After he got to know a lot about video games, he gave hints of his own to contestants on what to do that would help them score more points in the games being played within the time limits, and he played and beaten Sinistar, a game that’s notorious for its high difficulty, one time in a segment of the show called “ Starcade Hotline”. Yes, that was a thing. He would continue to be a fan of video games until his death in 2014. This show has two different themes. The first theme is just an 8-bit piece of music that sounds like what can be heard in various arcade games at the time, and that doesn’t sound good enough to be a theme for a game show. The second theme is an actual theme composed by Mindseed, who also composed music for arcade games by Exidy like Venture and Mouse Trap. Of the two themes used in this show, the second one is a lot better. One more thing about this show is that it aired in reruns on a gaming channel called G4--known at the time as G4techTV—from 2002 to 2004 when that channel merged with TechTV. Okay, I believe that’s all I have to say about Starcade. I seem to have said all there is about that show. For next week’s edition, I’ll be covering a GSN original that ceased production eleven years and almost two weeks ago. Will you join me then to see what I have to say about it? That’s the question. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Dec 21, 2018 13:00:38 GMT -5
Hi, I’m Flo, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Bob Goen is a veteran game show host who hosted a handful of short-lived game shows, most of which have been covered here. Scott Sternberg is a producer who produced not-so-good game shows, some of which have been covered here, but worked on better game shows for GSN later on. Today, I’ll be covering a game show that was both hosted by Bob Goen and produced by Scott Sternberg. That game show is That’s The Question. That’s The Question is a US adaptation of the Dutch game show of the same name. It ran for two seasons on GSN from October 2, 2006 to December 1, 2007, with season one taped at the Dutch version’s set and season two taped at a set of its own in the US. This was also the case for the Chuck Woolery-hosted run of Lingo, another GSN original; that show’s first season was taped at the set of the Dutch version of it, and its later five seasons were taped at three different sets of its own in the US. This show, of course, was hosted by Bob Goen and produced by Scott Sternberg in his production company Scott Sternberg Productions. The game is played by two contestants. Two rounds are played, but before that, a toss-up word puzzle comes into play to determine which contestant will go first in round one. The toss-up puzzle is a hangman-style word puzzle that’s in the form of a question, with the correct answer to that question shown in season one and also as a word puzzle in season two. Letters appear in the question—and also the answer in season two—one group of the same letter at a time until a contestant hits their plunger to signal in, at which point the letter reveal stops, and that contestant has to solve the question and originally read the answer in season one and solve it in season two. The contestant who signals in with the correct solve wins the right to go first in round one. In round one, three questions like the toss-up puzzle are played. On each question in this round, the correct answer to that question is revealed, and the contestants take turns selecting spaces in that question at random by hitting their plungers. After a contestant randomly selects a series of spaces in that question, a row of letters is shown above that question, and a general-knowledge question is asked. All the letters in that row make up the correct answer to that general-knowledge question in the form of a scramble with an extra letter mixed in, and the contestant answers that general-knowledge question by unscrambling the correct answer and omitting the extra letter. After each general-knowledge question, whether answered correctly or not, the correct answer to it is unscrambled, and the extra letter is shown in parentheses. Then, the extra letter is placed into the randomly-selected spaces in the question. Each time a contestant answers a general-knowledge question correctly, they score 1 point for each appearance of letter in the question and the right to solve the question if they think they know it. To solve the question, the contestant who has answered a general-knowledge question correctly has to say that they know the question before the randomizer starts again. To be credited for the question, the contestant solving it not only has to solve it, but also has to read the correct answer to it. A correct solve on a question scores a contestant an additional 5 points. After a question is correctly solved, another one comes into play, and the contestant who hasn’t solved the previous question gets to go first on the new question. The round ends after three questions have been solved. Round two is played the same way with some differences. The point values are doubled to 2 points for each appearance of letter in a question and 10 points for each correct solve on a question. Also, the answer to each question in this round is not shown but needs to be solved, with letters placed into that answer whenever necessary, but no points are scored for letters placed there. And instead of taking turns, a contestant keeps control of the round by answering general-knowledge questions correctly, and they relinquish control by missing a general-knowledge question or making a correct or incorrect solve on a question. The round ends after three questions have been solved or time runs out while a question is still in play. In the case of the latter, the remainder of that question is played like the toss-up question at the beginning of the game, with the round ending after that question is solved. After round two, the contestant with the most points wins the game, receives $500, and advances to the bonus round. If the game ends in a tie, another toss-up question is played. Whoever signals in with the correct solve wins the game, but if they signal in with an incorrect solve, their opponent automatically wins the game. In the bonus round, the winning contestant is shown one more question, with both it and its correct answer needed to be solved. The contestant’s winning score is converted to seconds, and that’s how much time they have to fill in as many letters to the question as possible. For example, if the contestant wins the game with 78 points, they will have 78 seconds to fill in as many letters to the question as possible. The contestant’s time begins counting down as soon as they stop the randomizer, which, this time, activates again only if they answer a general-knowledge question correctly. If a contestant misses or passes on a general-knowledge question, no letters are placed into the question, and the contestant is immediately asked another general-knowledge question. During the contestant’s accumulated time, letters are placed into the question but not the answer. After the contestant’s accumulated time runs out, they have 10 seconds to solve the question and give the correct answer to that question in order to win the round. If time runs out while the contestant is solving the question, the contestant is allowed to finish solving it without hesitation. But if the contestant makes a mistake while solving the question or gives an incorrect answer to that question, the automatically lose the round. Winning the round increases the winning contestant’s money to the top cash prize of $5,000, while failing to do so does nothing to the contestant’s money. That’s the question, and that’s the show. What are the thoughts of mine on this show. It is actually a great and challenging game show that is a word game and a trivia game. The gameplay has more meat on its bones than that of the shows that I’ve covered recently, but as soon as people watch how the game is played, they’ll catch on very quickly. There are two different kinds of questions in the game: the questions that are word puzzles, and the questions that are general-knowledge asked to the contestants by Bob. With the questions done this way, people playing the game and watching it should be very quick to understand which questions are to be answered to fill in missing letters and which ones are to be solved. There are also two different kinds of word puzzles: the hangman-style word puzzles, and the word puzzles with scrambled letters. I really like that there’s just the right amount of variety in the way the word puzzles are done here, as well as the questions, as I really like word games a lot. I also really like that even though the questions that have to be solved are solved correctly, they are still questions, and therefore, they still need answers, even though they are shown at the start of each question in round one, as well as the toss-up questions in season one. After all, what are questions without answers? So, it makes sense to have the answers read or solved after the questions are correctly solved. It also makes sense that, as a word game, contestants have to use exactly all but one letter when unscrambling answers and reading all the words exactly as shown when solving the questions and their correct answers, all without adding, omitting, or changing any words or letters. And since this game show is called That’s The Question, it also makes sense that when it comes to filling in the missing letters, contestants score points for only the letters that go into the questions and score no points for the letters that go into the answers, and correct answers to general-knowledge questions in the bonus round drop letters into the question and not into the answer. It’s also good that a contestant’s time to fill in the letters in the question in the bonus round is determined by how many points that contestant has won the game with, since questions to solve in the bonus round vary in size from episode to episode, and that contestant uses all the time they have accumulated to fill in as many letters into the question as possible. The cash prizes are low and flat. I mean, $5,000 for a bonus round win and $500 for a bonus round loss? Couldn’t there be some variety in the cash prizes, and couldn’t the top cash prize for a bonus round win be five figures? There’s a lot of material for the contestants to go through, and winning contestants deserve a five-figure cash amount for making a lot of correct solves, don’t you think? Also, the atmosphere of the show, no matter which set it’s taped at, makes it all so dull and have no energy. Couldn’t they lighten up the mood and give the show some energy? But the low, flat cash prizes and the dull and energy-lacking atmosphere are all not that much of the show’s problems. The one problem that this show really has is the glaring errors in the questions that contestants have to solve. There are grammatical errors like “WHO’S” when it was supposed to be “WHOSE”. There are spelling errors like “TARTER” when it was supposed to be “TARTAR”. And there are factual errors, such as the most abundant element in the Earth’s atmosphere being hydrogen when it’s actually nitrogen, Yahoo! being a web browser when it’s actually a search engine, and the Mario Brothers being first seen in the video game Donkey Kong when only Mario of the brothers was first seen in that game but not Luigi, and it’s actually spelled Mario Bros. and not used to collectively refer to Mario and Luigi as anyway. There’s even one episode where a contestant was ruled incorrect on a general-knowledge question about a quote from the movie Passenger 57, with that quote being “Always bet on black”. The correct answer to that general-knowledge question was presented as “ALWAYS BET ON THE BLACK”, with the word “the” included when it’s not supposed to be. I’ve looked up somewhere as I was putting this edition together that all these errors were made happened in season one. That’s probably understandable, since season one was taped at the set of the Dutch version, and English is not the official language of the Netherlands. But even that, there’s no excuse for these errors, because from what I understand about the Netherlands, English is one of the regional languages spoken there, and a majority of the country’s population does speak English. The people who worked on the word puzzles and the general-knowledge questions should’ve double-checked all that stuff they’ve worked on and done a lot of research to make sure that everything is correct and there are no errors. I don’t know if Scott Sternberg is to blame here, what with him being the producer of this show and therefore having run the whole thing, not to mention that he has a history of producing cheap, not-so-good game shows, such as Everything Goes and the game shows that I covered back in year one, like Wheel 2000, Jep!, and Let’s Go Back. Maybe he is to blame for the glaring errors on That’s The Question, but even if he isn’t, I’m still holding it against him. Not only was there a US adaptation of the Dutch game show, but there was also a UK adaptation hosted by Sarah Cawood. There are probably a few other adaptations of this show, all in other European countries, if I recall. Well, I believe I said enough about That’s The Question. It’s a good game of words and trivia that got the wrong person to produce it. Next time, I’ll be covering another GSN original, and because next Friday will be three days after Christmas, the game show that I’ll be covering in the next edition is part of the same franchise as a Christmas movie is in. You want me to be more specific. Join me on the Friday after Christmas, and I’ll let you know all about it. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Dec 28, 2018 13:01:47 GMT -5
Hello, everybody! Flo here, hoping you’ve had a Merry Christmas like I’ve had and welcoming you to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. One of the most well-known Christmas movies is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I haven’t seen that movie myself, but I’ve heard that it’s a Christmas classic, and it has been labeled as a modern Christmas classic since its theatrical release in 1989. It debuted at #2 at the box office at the box office, right behind Back To The Future Part II, but it later ranked at #1 in its third week and remained a chart-topper in the following week. Not only was this film mostly received positively by many and cited as a Christmas classic by many, but it was also widely regarded as the best sequel in the National Lampoon film series and the only sequel in that film series to have spawned its own direct sequel, that being a television film called National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure. It must’ve actually been that good, huh? Well, while we’re still on the subject of National Lampoon, there were two National Lampoon, one of which was a game show that I will be covering today. So, let’s share this post-Christmas moment together with National Lampoon’s Funny Money. National Lampoon’s Funny Money aired on GSN from June 15, 2003 to October 24 on that same year. It was hosted by stand-up comedian and Never Not Funny host Jimmy Pardo, announced by founder and the original proprietor and emcee of the Improvisation Comedy Club Budd Friedman—who also produced this show with Scott Rubin, Steve Ochs, Skippy from Family Ties AKA stand-up comedian and Teen Win, Lose Or Draw host Marc Price, and host of The Joker’s Wild in the 1990s, original host of Shop ‘Til You Drop, and final host of The Big Spin Pat Finn—and packaged by Budd Friedman Digital, National Lampoon Productions, and In-Finn-Ity Productions, Inc. The game is played by two contestants, who face three stand-up comedians. The three contestants play three rounds, and they have to answer comedy-related questions and choose comedians that will get enough laughs from the studio audience in order to score points, which are referred to on this show as “billions of Funny Money dollars”. In round one, the contestants are asked multiple-choice toss-up questions, each of which has three answers to choose from. Each time a contestant buzzes in with the correct answer to a question, they score 2 billion Funny Money dollars; but if they buzz in with an incorrect answer, the other contestant gets a chance to answer that question. The contestant who answers a question correctly then chooses one of the comedians, and the chosen comedian stands on center stage and does a stand-up performance for 45 seconds. During the performance, a Funny Meter is shown, indicating how big of a laugh that comedian gets from the studio audience. Each time the comedian gets a laugh big enough for the Funny Meter to reach or exceed the pointers on it, the contestant who has chosen that comedian scores 1 billion Funny Money dollars. After the performance, the chosen comedian takes their seat, and another question is asked. Each comedian can be chosen only once, and the round is over after all three comedians each have done a stand-up performance. In round two, the contestants are shown two unusual pictures found on nationallampoon.com by the show’s staff before the show. Also, before the show, the three comedians each have to come up with a caption for each picture. On each picture, the contestants are shown three captions on the screens in front of them on their podiums, and each contestant must lock in which caption the think will get the biggest laugh according to the Funny Meter, which, in this round, has three bars, each of which are in a different color. After the contestants lock in their predictions, the comedians each give out their captions and get a laugh from the studio audience. Then, the contestants reveal their predictions, and each contestant who has locked in with the correct prediction scores 5 billion Funny Money dollars. In round three, which is called “Comedy Recall”, the three comedians each do a stand-up performance, and the contestants have to pay close attention to what’s being said in those performances, because they will be asked questions about them afterwards. Each time a contestant buzzes in with the correct answer to a question, they score 5 billion Funny Money dollars; but if they buzz in with an incorrect answer, the other contestant gets a chance to answer that question. This round is played until time runs out, and the contestant with the most Funny Money dollars at that point wins the game and advances to the bonus round, while the losing contestant receives unannounced consolation prizes and an announced joke prize, such as shampoo testing in the eyes. In the bonus round, the winning contestant chooses a comedian to do a stand-up performance one more time, and that comedian does their performance within a time limit depending on the contestant’s winning score. The time limit for the chosen comedian to do their stand-up is one second for every billion Funny Money dollars scored earlier by the winning contestant, with a minimum of 30 seconds. There’s a Funny Meter in this round, and it’s the same as the one in round one. The chosen comedian has to get as many laughs big enough for the Funny Meter to reach or exceed the pointers on it as possible within the time limit. After time runs out, a screenshot from a comedy movie hidden behind twelve numbered pizza slice-shaped pieces is shown on a screen, and the contestant chooses a numbered piece for each big enough laugh that the chosen comedian has gotten in their performance. The chosen numbered pieces are removed, revealing parts of the screenshot. Then, the contestant has to guess the name of the movie that the screenshot is from, but they are only allowed one guess, so they have five seconds to think about their guess as soon as the chosen parts of the screenshot are revealed before they are called for their guess. If the contestant correctly guesses the exact title of the movie that the screenshot is from, they win a grand prize vacation, which is referred to on this show as a “ National Lampoon vacation”. Regardless of the outcome of this round, the contestant wins $300 for each big enough laugh that the chosen comedian has gotten in their performance. That’s National Lampoon’s Funny Money. Before I can get to my thoughts on this show, I have to talk about the pilot episode and the three special episodes where celebrities play for money to donate to their charities. In the pilot episode, the main game is exactly the same, but the bonus round is different. In the bonus round, the comedians each hold an envelope with a vacation in it that the winning contestant can win, and the contestant chooses which comedian to team up with. The chosen comedian then goes offstage and into a bathroom, and the contestant is equipped with a cell phone and an earpiece that the comedian will communicate through. The contestant has 45 seconds to tell jokes themselves, which are provided to them by the chosen comedian. If the contestant can get four big enough laughs from the studio audience before time runs out, they win the vacation in the chosen comedian’s envelope. Now, in the episodes where contestants play the game for their charities, the game is played exactly the same as in all the regular episodes in the series, but the winning contestant wins $2,000, while the losing contestant wins $1,000, and winning the bonus round doubles all the money they have won, for a possible $11,200. One of these episodes feature Fernwood 2 Night and America 2-Night stars Martin Mull and Fred Willard. Another one of these episodes feature now-retired stage magician Lance Burton and ventriloquist Ronn Lucas and Scorch, his dragon puppet. But the most important of these episodes to know about is the episode that celebrates the 25th anniversary of National Lampoon’s Animal House, and it features Martha Smith and Stephen Furst, who played the roles of Babs and Flounder, respectively, in that movie. Martha won the game in that episode with 28 billion Funny Money dollars, and the comedian she has chosen got two big enough laughs within the 30-second minimum. She didn’t win the bonus round, so she ended up with a total of $2,600 for her charity. Now, I can give my thoughts on this show. It is a great comedy game show that has a great combination of great game show gameplay and stand-up comedy. The bonus round in the pilot episode isn’t all that great. Good thing it was changed to what we got in the series, as all the stand-up comedy performances in the entire show should be left to the comedians and not the contestants. Scoring points, or “billions of Funny Money dollars”, for answering questions and choosing comedians who will get a lot of big enough laughs from the studio audience is a great scoring format for a game show that involves stand-up comedy. I also like that winning contestants get to win real money in the bonus round by chosen comedians doing their stand-up performances within a time limit depending on how much Funny Money those contestants have ended up with. This game show overall is great, though they could’ve done more in round two than just two pictures and made each big enough laugh in the bonus round winning the winning contestant $500 instead of a random amount like $300. Well, that’s it for National Lampoon’s Funny Money. Actually, that’s it for 2018 right here on Game Show Corner. What game show do you think I’ll be covering here next week on the first Friday of 2019? I’ll reveal that when that day comes. See you then. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Jan 4, 2019 13:00:32 GMT -5
Hello to all of you! This is Flo, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Well, this is the first edition for 2019, the final year of the 2010s. Man, this decade seems to be going by very quickly, doesn’t it? Well, that’s how it feels to me. But whatever the case, it’s good to celebrate the new year with family, which is why I’m gonna be covering a game show played by families today. No, it’s not Family Feud, obviously. The game show that I’m gonna be covering today is Keep It In The Family. Keep It In The Family aired in black and white and on a weekly basis on ABC from October 12, 1957 to February 8, 1958. It was hosted by Bill Nimmo—except for the pilot episode, which was hosted by Keefe Brasselle—announced by Johnny Olson, packaged by Frank Cooper Associates, created by Leonard Stern and Roger Price, produced by Art Stark, directed by Mickey Trenner, and taped at New York City, New York. The game is played by two families, with each family consisting of five members and one family being a set of returning champions. Each family is started off with 200 points. In each round, a prize is shown and described, and a category is given, as well as the opening bid on that category. The two families take turns making bids on that category until one family makes the maximum bid of 100 points or challenges the other family to play that category for the last-bid amount of points. After the bidding comes to an end, the family playing that category is asked a five-part question in that category, with the difficulty of that question based on the last-bid point value; the higher the bid, the more difficult the question. Each member of that family gives an answer of their own without any coaching from any of the other family members, from the most downstage family member to the most upstage family member, generally from the younger child to the older child to the grandparent to the mother to the father. Sometimes, each member of that family will be given a specific part of the question to answer, with the younger members getting the easier parts and the older members getting the more difficult parts. If all five members of that family each have answered their part of the question, that family wins the prize, and the points are added to their score. But if one member of that family fails to answer their part of the question correctly, play of that question ends immediately, the prize is not won, and the points are deducted from that family’s score. The game is played until a family reaches or exceeds 350 points and wins, or until a family falls under 100 points and loses. Both families keep all the prizes they have won, but the winning family stays on the show and plays against another family. Each episode ends when time for a game runs out. If this happens during a bid or a question, the category played is immediately thrown out, and the two families are given a brand new category at the start of the next episode. That’s Keep It In The Family. It’s a good trivia game show that families can get together and play, especially for prizes for the whole family that were good for the time. The bidding mechanic works well here, especially with the bids being in increments of five and the 100-point maximum bid, since not only does it keep a family from winning or losing after they’ve played just one question, but it also determines what question in a category will be asked, with each question in that category having a different level of difficulty. I also like that a family wins a prize each time they answer all five parts of a question correctly and score points for it, and that all prizes won are the families’ to keep, regardless of the outcome of the game. It’s good to see families win something good and not leave the show empty-handed. I find it tacky, though, that Johnny would come on stage to hand the question cards to Bill and let him know that time for an episode ran out. Why couldn’t Bill have packets that contain sets of questions in different categories on stage with him, and why couldn’t there have been a music cue or a sound effect that lets everyone know that time for an episode ran out? Only one episode of this show is known to still exist, and it’s the premiere episode. This episode can be found on YouTube, and I used this episode to have this edition prepared. All the other episodes are believed to have been destroyed due to network practices back then. After the show’s run ended, it got replaced by The Di ck Clark Show, also known as The Di ck Clark Beech-Nut Show or The Di ck Clark Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show. Speaking of D ick Clark, you’re probably thinking that this time around, I’ll be covering another game show hosted by D ick Clark, aren’t you? Well, I’m not doing it this year. Right now, I’m looking for game shows that won’t take too much time to cover, and any remaining game shows hosted by D ick Clark would take too much time for me to cover. And obviously, I’m not gonna cover Pyramid, because not only is there far too much to cover there, therefore making it too time-consuming, but it’s also a very popular game show that keeps getting revived many times for decades since its premiere, and the most recent revival is still in production. So, Pyramid is obviously a game show that’s never gonna be covered here. Now, what I’m gonna be covering next week is another short-lived weekly game show from the 1950s that aired in black and white. That game show is Make The Connection. I’ll see you guys next week. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Jan 11, 2019 13:00:14 GMT -5
Hi, people! It’s me, Flo, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Mark Goodson and Bill Todman created well-known game shows, some of which are panel game shows, such as Match Game, To Tell The Truth, I’ve Got A Secret, and What’s My Line?, with the latter already covered with Patch back in year three. However, some of their panel game shows aren’t so great, and they’re very short-lived because of that. One of those panel game shows from them is Make The Connection. Make The Connection aired in black and white and on a weekly basis on NBC from July 7, 1955 to September 29 on that same year. The host for the first four episodes of this show was Wide World Of Sports host Jim McKay, and the host for the final nine episodes was Match Game host Gene Rayburn, who made his debut as a game show host on this show. Lee Vines and Durward Kirby were announcers on the show. It is a production of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, it was taped at Century Theater in New York City, New York, and it was sponsored by Borden’s. The game features a panel of four celebrities, with regular panelists being Gene Klavan, Gloria DeHaven, Eddie Bracken, and Betty White in one of her earliest appearances in a game show as a panelist. On each episode, three games are played, each of which is played by a team of two contestants—rarely more than two contestants—who have a connection with each other, such as a girl having given her teacher the measles, a university student currently under hypnosis by famous hypnotist Franz Polgar, or even one of the panelists having given an actress at the beginning of her movie career her first screen kiss. The two contestants sit on opposite sides of the host, and both sides of the connection that they have are revealed to the studio audience and the home viewers and even said aloud for only the home viewers to hear, as well. Then, a light in front of one of a panelist is turned on, indicating that that panelist is currently having their turn. The panelist in turn has to figure out the contestants’ connection by asking them yes-or-no questions, with that panelist’s turn lasting 30 seconds. If that panelist runs out of time before they can correctly guess what the connection is, they are stumped, and the team wins $25. Then, the next panelist in line gets their turn to interrogate the team. The game is played until the connection that the contestants have is correctly guessed by a panelist or the panel gets stumped in six turns in total, with the latter happening winning the team $150. The game also ends when the host feels at one point that the panel will not be able to correctly make the connection, thus winning the team the full $150 cash prize. After each game, the team that has just played that game tells the story behind the connection and, if necessary, gives a demonstration of that connection. In some games, a celebrity will appear on the show as a contestant. In this case, they are referred to as Mr. X, Mrs. X, or Ms. X, and figuring out the identity of a celebrity is the most important part when it comes to making the connection that that celebrity has with another contestant. And that’s Make The Connection. The gameplay is okay, but it’s nothing special. It’s just What’s My Line? and I’ve Got A Secret combined with one small new detail added to it, and because What’s My Line? and I’ve Got A Secret were going on for years when this show premiered and continued to go on for many more years after this show got cancelled, people didn’t want another show similar to those shows around while those shows themselves were still around. It really showed in the ratings. The ratings for Make The Connection were so low that it ended up being cancelled after thirteen episodes. As for the connections between the two people on each team themselves, while some of them are okay, many of them are not that interesting. Out of all thirteen of this show’s episodes, only a handful of them are known to still exist. One of those episodes is a Jim McKay-hosted episode, while the others are Gene Rayburn-hosted episodes, one of which features a chimp named J. Fred Muggs from The Today Show, who appeared with his babysitter, Joanne Cottingham. In that particular episode, when the chimp was brought on stage by his co-owner, Buddy Mannella, he runs around all over the set, especially behind it. This went on for a few minutes, and the panel wasn’t able to interrogate Joanne and the chimp’s connection because of that. So, in the end, Gene decided to just end the game right there and award Joanne the full $150 cash prize. This particular episode aired on GSN at some point in its programming block where game shows in black and white aired. In the 1980s, Make The Connection was remade as 3rd Degree!, with a pilot episode hosted by Peter Marshall in 1988 and the series hosted by Bert Convy from 1989 to 1990. 3rd Degree! was the last game show that Bert Convy hosted before he was diagnosed with brain tumor and died from it. There also was a dispute between Peter and Bert regarding this show, but I’ll explain it next week when I cover this show. See you then. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Jan 18, 2019 13:00:20 GMT -5
Hello, everybody! Flo here, and welcome to another edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Last week, I covered a panel game show created and produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman called Make The Connection, which was very short-lived. That show is just a combination of What’s My Line? and I’ve Got A Secret with one little new thing added to it, and it was around the same time those two shows continued to air. Decades have passed after Make The Connection came and went, and that show was remade with enough changes made to it to be its own thing, a host who would have his last game show hosting gig before his death, and a dispute between that host and another host regarding this show. The show being covered here today is 3rd Degree!3rd Degree! aired daily in syndication from September 11, 1989 to June 8, 1990. Not only did Bert Convy host this show, but he also co-created and produced it with Burt Reynolds in their production company Burt & Bert Productions along with Richard S. Kline in his production company Kline & Friends Productions, which all was also the case for the syndicated run of Win, Lose Or Draw. Bob Hilton was the announcer of this show, with Don Morrow and Michael Hanks each sub-announcing briefly at some point. It was also taped at CBS Television City in Hollywood, California, produced in association with Lorimar Television, and distributed by Warner Bros. Television. The game features a panel of four celebrities, who are split in two teams, with one team consisting of two male celebrities and the other team consisting of two female celebrities. On each episode, three games are played, each of which is played by a team of two contestants—rarely more than two contestants—who have a connection with each other, such as two ladies who have cooked for Elvis Presley, a kid who has flown his family on a plane around the world, and a man and a woman who are the fastest guns in the west. Each game is played in two rounds, and in each round, each celebrity team gives the contestants the 3rd degree—in other words, interrogate the contestants to find out what the connection is that the contestants have with each other, often asking yes-or-no questions. At the start of each game, the connection that the contestants have with each other is shown to the studio audience and the home viewers, and Bert tells the home viewers to look away from their television screens if they want to play along as the connection is shown. In each round, each celebrity team asks questions to the contestants within a time limit. The time limit for each celebrity team to interrogate the contestants is one minute in round one and 30 seconds in round two. After time for a celebrity team to interrogate the contestants runs out, that celebrity team is asked by Bert what the connection is, and they make one guess on what that connection is. If that celebrity team correctly guesses what the connection is, the game is over, and the contestants end up with how much they have won up to that point. If that celebrity team doesn’t correctly guess what the connection is, the game continues, with the other celebrity team getting to interrogate the contestants. The contestants win $250 for each time a celebrity team fails to correctly guess what the connection is. If the connection between the contestants isn’t correctly guessed after two rounds of interrogation, the contestants win a $1,000 bonus for stumping the panel, bringing their total winnings to $2,000. After a game is played, the contestants tell the story behind the connection that they have between themselves. Sometimes, a team of contestants gives a demonstration of that connection on stage, such as performing a sawing in half magic trick on Bert. Sometimes, a video of a team of contestants’ connection being naturally played out is shown. And that’s 3rd Degree! After checking this show out, I found it an improvement over Make The Connection. Though, I wouldn’t have taken a look into these shows had it not been for the video that Robert—or Cyndi, as he’s referring to himself as nowadays—Seidelman of Game Show Garbage did on 3rd Degree! in a series he’s doing called The Games Of ‘90. While it did something that other panel game shows before it did, which was having a panel of four celebrities ask yes-or-no questions to find out something specific about contestants, it also did something that those other panel game shows didn’t do, which was having the panel play in teams of two rather than having them play as individuals. Also, unlike the connections between contestants in Make The Connection, the connections between contestants in 3rd Degree! are actually interesting. With panelists playing in teams and connections between contestants actually being interesting, this show can be very entertaining. Now, I gotta talk about the dispute between Bert Convy and Peter Marshall regarding 3rd Degree! Peter Marshall hosted the pilot in 1988, and he was slated to host the series. However, Bert Convy left his hosting job at the syndicated run of Win, Lose Or Draw, leaving it to be hosted by Robb Weller, so he could take the job as the host of 3rd Degree!, causing Peter to be forced out of the show. This infuriated Peter so much that he sued Bert for $1,000,000. I don’t blame Peter for filing a lawsuit against Bert, since Peter had a legitimate contract to host the series, even though Peter never liked the show, to begin with. The people at TelePictures stopped at Peter’s house and told him that Bert was taking over and didn’t want to come along to tell him that himself. Peter actually wouldn’t mind if Bert came over to tell him that he himself wanted to host the show and offered to pay him off. That was something that he would’ve been fine with. But Bert never contacted Peter about wanting to host the show. He never offered to pay him off. However, sometime after the lawsuit was filed, Peter found out from the public that Bert was diagnosed with brain tumor. Peter knew that Bert had kids, especially a daughter who he himself knew well, and that Bert’s family would be left with no money if Peter had won the lawsuit and had them pay the $1,000,000 that he sued Bert for. So, not wanting Bert’s family to be put in a bad situation, particularly his kids, Peter dropped the lawsuit. Bert having brain tumor was found out on April 1990 after he collapsed while visiting his mother, who was hospitalized for a stroke, and admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. After the run of 3rd Degree! ended, Bert hosted a week’s worth of pilot episodes for the 1990 revival of Match Game, and he was slated to host the series, but because of his brain tumor, he wasn’t able to, so the hosting job went to Ross Shafer. On July 15, 1991, Bert passed away. This was three days after the 1990 revival of Match Game got cancelled and eight days before his 58th birthday. On the year he died, before his death occurred, he went through a divorce with Anne Anderson, and he married Catherine Hills. I don’t understand why Bert would be so quick to get married again in the condition that he was in, especially shortly after he got divorced. His second marriage lasted only five months before he died. Now, after just having mentioned Match Game, I have to go back to Make The Connection and talk a bit about Gene Rayburn. Last week, when I covered Make The Connection, I mentioned that Gene made his debut as a game show host on that show. That was the first game show that he hosted. Sure, he may be best-remembered for hosting Match Game, but I don’t think he would’ve ever hosted Match Game had he not hosted Make The Connection, as he really shined on that show, which was something that Jim McKay failed to do when he was on that show as the original host. So, even though Make The Connection wasn’t that great of a game show, something good came out of it. And since I covered the first game show that Gene Rayburn hosted, I will be covering the last game show that he hosted next week. Join me then when I cover The Movie Masters. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Jan 25, 2019 13:00:20 GMT -5
Hi, people! Flo here, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. After having covered Make The Connection and 3rd Degree! in the last two editions, I’ve made a choice to cover game shows involving game show hosts who were involved in those shows for the next few editions, starting with this one. Since the game show that I covered two weeks ago called Make The Connection was the first game show that Gene Rayburn hosted, what I’m gonna do in this week’s edition is cover the last game show that Gene Rayburn hosted. That game show is called The Movie Masters. The Movie Masters aired as filler programming on a cable network called AMC from August 2, 1989 to January 19, 1990. It was the last game show that Gene Rayburn hosted before he retired in 1998 and died in 1999. It was also announced by Peter Pratt, created by Alan Goodman and Albie Hecht, and packaged by Chauncey Street Productions, Inc. The game is played by a panel of three celebrities, all of whom are the same in every episode. The celebrities playing the game are movie and theater critic Clive Barnes and To Tell The Truth regular panelists Kitty Carlisle and Peggy Cass. At the beginning of each episode, Peter introduces Peggy, who then introduces Clive, who then introduces Kitty, who then introduces Gene, who then is brought on stage by co-host Lori MacPherson. Two games are played in each episode. In each game, the panel is shown a 3x3 grid of nine categories, each of which has two movie-related questions in it. Behind the nine categories is a still image of a scene from a movie. The panelists take turns choosing categories, and on each category, the panelist who has chosen it is asked a question in that category. In some cases, a clip of a movie accompanies a question. If the panelist answers that question correctly, that category is removed, revealing a part of the image, and that panelist removes the frontmost card on the set of cards in front of them, revealing how many questions they have answered correctly up to that point in the game, and gets to guess the title of the movie in which that image can be found in. But if that panelist answers that question incorrectly, the next panelist in line gets to answer that question. If that panelist answers that question incorrectly, as well, the remaining panelist gets to answer that question. And if that panelist also answers that question incorrectly, the correct answer to that question is given, and the category in which that question is in can be chosen one more time in another turn. If that category is chosen again, and all three panelists have failed to answer the second question in that category correctly, a red “X” is placed on that category, meaning that that category is out of play and the part of the image behind that category remains hidden. The first panelist to correctly guess the title of the movie in which the image can be found in wins the game. If the panelist who has earned the right to make this guess is incorrect, the game continues with the next panelist in line to have their turn choosing a category. After the title of the movie in which the image can be found in is correctly guessed, all the categories, including the ones out of play, are removed, revealing the image in its entirety. The panelist who has won the game wins a prize for a home viewer and a bonus prize for every correct answer given by that panelist. The other two panelists each win a consolation prize for a home viewer. And that’s The Movie Masters. The overall gameplay is okay, but it could’ve been done better. I like the idea of answering movie-related questions from nine categories, revealing parts of an image of a scene from a movie, and guessing the title of the movie that the image can be found in. But having the same three celebrities play the game in every episode, only two questions in each category, a cheap game board, a cheap way of keeping score, the celebrities take turns answering a question, and a slow pace keeps the show away from being great and enjoyable. I mean, I know this show is a low-budget cable game show, but maybe it shouldn’t be. It should’ve been made for a network that has a higher budget for its shows. It should’ve been played by three different contestants each episode instead of the same three celebrities. If I were to produce this show, I would not only have three new contestants play the game each episode, but I would also have the contestants buzz in to answer questions and score points for correctly answering questions and correctly guessing titles of movies that the hidden images of scenes can be found in. Also, the game board should be a monitor, and each category should have one question in it and be replaced with a new category if that question is not answered correctly by any of the contestants. And there should be a faster pace to make the game more fun and exciting and possibly add more rounds. Sometime after The Movie Masters got cancelled, the 1990 revival of Match Game went into pilot. Gene expressed interest in returning to Match Game to host that revival, he was turned down by the producers due to his age. This was the case for the planned 1987 revival of Match Game that didn’t get off the ground. As I said last week, Bert Convy hosted a week’s worth of pilot episodes for the 1990 revival of Match Game, and he wasn’t able to host the series due to having been diagnosed with brain tumor. So, the hosting job for that revival of Match Game went to Ross Shafer. That revival of Match Game got cancelled on July 12, 1991, and Bert Convy died from the brain tumor three days later. Speaking of deaths of game show hosts, Gene Rayburn died of congestive heart failure at his daughter’s home in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He was 81 years old at the time of his death. After he died, he was cremated, and his ashes were spread in his daughter’s garden. That’s all I have to say about The Movie Masters. Next time, I’m gonna go back to someone involved with 3rd Degree!, and that is Peter Marshall, even though the game show that I’m gonna be covering then wasn’t hosted by him. This game show that I’m gonna be covering next week was hosted by another veteran game show host, Marc Summers. That show is called Couch Potatoes, which Peter Marshall didn’t work on in any way. So, what does Peter Marshall have to do with Couch Potatoes? Join me next week, and I’ll explain it. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Feb 1, 2019 13:00:21 GMT -5
Hello, television fans! This is Flo, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Marc Summers is best known for hosting the Nickelodeon game show Double Dare. Just last summer, that show got revived with him as the on-stage announcer. An if you have been following this series, you’ll know that he hosted more game shows than just Double Dare. He hosted WinTuition, which I already covered back in year one. He hosted History IQ and Pick Your Brain, both of which I already covered in the previous year. He even hosted the runthrough of Monopoly, which I already covered back in year three. Today, I will be covering another game show that he covered called Couch Potatoes. Couch Potatoes ran during the time Double Dare was still going. This show aired in syndication from January 23, 1989 to June 9 on that same year. Not only was it hosted by Marc Summers, but it was also announced originally by comedian and voice actor Joe Alaskey playing the on-screen role of Marc’s next door neighbor and later by game show host Jim McKrell. It was also taped at Hollywood Center Studios in Hollywood, California, created by Ellen Levy and the show’s writer and coordinating producer David M. Greenfield, produced by Saban Entertainment, and distributed by Group W Productions. The game is played by two teams, each one consisting of three members, and one usually a set of returning champions. Each team has a television-themed team name. The teams play a series of rounds, where they buzz in and answer television-related questions, with correct answers scoring them points, which are referred to on this show as “rating points”. In the first four rounds—later six—a multiple-choice toss-up question with three answers to choose from, which is referred to on this show as a “tune-in”, is asked. Any of the six contestants can buzz in on this question, but only the contestant who buzzes in first gets to answer it. If the contestant who buzzes in chooses the correct answer, they score rating points for their team, and that team gets control of a set of three follow-up questions, which are referred to on this show as “spin-offs”; but if that contestant chooses an incorrect answer, the correct answer is revealed, and the other team gets control of the set of three spin-offs but doesn’t score the rating points. The team in control of the set of spin-offs buzz in to answer them. The spin-offs are all under the subject that’s the same as the just-played tune-in question is in. If a member of that team buzzes in with the correct answer, they score rating points for their team, and that team keeps control of the spin-offs; but if they buzz in with an incorrect answer, a member of the other team gets to buzz in and answer that question, with the correct answer stealing control of the spin-offs and scoring rating points and an incorrect answer having the team in control stay in control. Also, once a contestant has their chance to answer a spin-off, they have to sit out the rest of the spin-offs in that set. In the first two rounds—later three—each question is worth 25 rating points, and in the next two rounds—later three—each question is worth 50 rating points. Also, in one of these rounds, a celebrity guest comes in and ask spin-offs about what show they are in, past or present, or anything to do with their television career. This happens originally in round two and later in round six. For example, if the celebrity guest is drummer and original Mouseketeer on The Mickey Mouse Club Cubby O’Brien, Cubby will ask spin-offs about The Mickey Mouse Club and his career on that show. After all those rounds have been played, one more round in the main game is played. This round is called “Couch-Up”, and in this round, six questions, all under one more subject, are asked. Each question is played by one member of each team, with each pair of contestants playing two questions, and the pairs of contestants taking turns playing their questions. On each question, a randomizer shuffles four rating point values and the phrase “Couch-Up”. The rating point values in this round are 50, 100, 150, and 200 rating points. The randomizer stops on “Couch-Up” or one of the four rating point values when a contestant buzzes in to answer a question. Each time a contestant buzzes in on a rating point value and answers a question correctly, they score those rating points for their team. But if that contestant answers incorrectly, their opponent gets a chance to answer that question for those rating points. If the phrase “Couch-Up” is buzzed in on, answering a question correctly at that point ties the score if this is done by a contestant whose team is trailing and doesn’t change the score if this is done by a contestant whose team is leading. After this round is over, the team with the most points wins the game. If, on the final question of this round, someone buzzes in on a point value that’s not enough for the trailing team to catch up, the team in the lead automatically wins the game without that question being answered. Also, if the game ends in a tie, one more question is played, with the contestant who answers that question correctly winning the game for their team. The winning team becomes the champions or remain champions, and they win $1,000 and advances to the bonus round, while the losing team gets “cancelled”. The bonus round is called “Channel Roulette”, and in this round, the winning team is shown twelve numbered spaces on a 3x4 grid, with the spaces referred to as “channels” and numbered from 2 to 13, just like on a standard VHF setup. On eleven of those channels, each of them has an image of cast members of a TV show, while on the remaining channel, there’s a sign that reads “Pay TV”. The members of the team take turns choosing channels. After a channel with an image is shown, the team member who has chosen it has to correctly identify the name of the TV show that the cast members shown on that channel star in. Each image has a point value attached to it, with the point values ranging from 100 to 1,000 points in increments of 50. The point values of the images are determined by the difficulty of each one; the more difficult an image is, the higher the point value. Each time a member of the team makes a correct guess, they score the points for the team. An image can be passed on and chosen again later if a member of the team gets stuck. If the “Pay TV” channel is chosen, the team loses all the points accumulated in that round up to that point. The team has 30 seconds to accumulate a total of 1,000 points or more; successfully doing so wins the team $5,000, while failing to do so wins the team their final score in that round in cash. For example, if the team ends up with 800 points when time runs out, they win $800. Teams stay on the show until they are defeated or they win five games, meaning that a possible $30,000 can be won by a team. That’s Couch Potatoes. This is a great game show that’s all about television, and it really shows. Not only are all the questions in the game all about television, but terms used for points, questions, and just about everything else are all television-related, and a series of television sets are all set up to make up the game board, not to mention that the team names are television-themed, and stars of TV shows, past or present, come on this show as guests to ask spin-offs about the shows that they star in or about their television careers. The way the rounds in the game are played are done well. I like how a team isn’t awarded any points for winning a tune-in by default, since they haven’t buzzed in and answer it themselves. I also like the “Couch-Up” round. It reminds me of the “Tie The Leader” round in the UK game show Chain Letters. More importantly, though, it gives a trailing team a great chance to catch up with the team in the lead. The “Channel Roulette” bonus round is a great bonus round with a fast pace and images of casts from a variety of TV shows from many different eras. This is a very challenging bonus round, and it’s not just because the fast pace and the variety of shows that the winning team has to identify; it’s also because of the point values of the images based on how difficult said images are, the varying levels of difficulty of said images, and the “Pay TV” space taking away all the points scored up to that point in this round but still allowing the team to continue playing this round if there’s still time left on the clock. This game definitely requires a lot of television knowledge. Teams have to know so much about many different shows from many different eras, and if a team is really good in this game, they can easily win the bonus round just by choosing the image worth 1,000 points and correctly identifying the show there. That has actually happened in one episode, and that episode can be found on YouTube. A team member chose the 1,000-point image on the very first choice of channel and made the correct guess on it, winning the $5,000 for himself and his teammates with 27 seconds still on the clock. I do have to question, though, why a tune-in and three spin-offs are all referred to as a round when it all seems like just one set of questions. That shouldn’t really be the case. In fact, all 25-point questions should make up round one, while all 50-point questions should make up round two. Also, winning the maximum daily total of $6,000 on each episode is doable, but obviously, this doesn’t always happen. I say this because this game is played by teams of three, and a team can win $2,000 for each member if that team wins the bonus round, but if they don’t win the bonus round, they would often end up with a cash total that’s not equally divisible of three. Now, I’ll go over the celebrity guests that appeared on this show. There’s Jay North who starred in Dennis The Menace—the black-and-white live-action sitcom that aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963—as the title character. On Jay’s guest appearance on Couch Potatoes, he was accompanied by two imposters claiming to be Jay North, and the first spin-off pertaining to Jay North asked the team in control which Jay North is the real one. One episode also featured Jack Larson and Noel Neill, known for their roles of Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane, respectively, in the 1950s animated series Adventures Of Superman. Another episode featured Diff’rent Strokes star Gary Coleman, who mentioned to Marc that he was asked to be the youth chairman for the “Just Say No” Foundation. For one week, people best known for their work in game shows made guest appearances on this show. The celebrity guests that appeared on the show that week were veteran game show hosts Bob Eubanks, Jim Lange, Wink Martindale, and Peter Marshall, The Price Is Right “Barker’s Beauties” model Janice Pennington, Jeopardy! announcer Johnny Gilbert, and Letters To Laugh-In host Gary Owens. Now, it’s important that I mention Peter Marshall, because I’m still mentioning 3rd Degree! until I talk in some reasonable length about all the game shows connected to it. In the episode of Couch Potatoes that Peter Marshall appeared in, Peter promoted 3rd Degree! This promotion was made after Peter hosted the pilot episode of that show and before he was forced out of that show when Bert Convy took over as the host of the series. And if you’ve seen the edition from two weeks ago in which I covered that show, then you know how well that went. After the run of Couch Potatoes ended, the show aired in reruns in syndication until September 8, 1989. On the following Monday, September 11, It aired in reruns on USA Network, and it continued until March 23, 1990. Now, I’ve said all there is to say about Couch Potatoes. I have another game show that has connections with 3rd Degree! to cover here, and I’ll cover that show next week. This game show that I’ll be covering next week is a relationship game show, and how appropriate for me to cover a game show like that on a day like that, because we’re currently in February, the month that Valentine’s Day is in. That game show is called Straight To The Heart. See you guys next week for that. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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Post by Flowgli on Feb 8, 2019 13:00:15 GMT -5
Hello, people out there who are looking for love. I’m Flo, your matchmaker, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. I’ve been mentioning 3rd Degree! in the past four editions, and I’ll be mentioning that show one more time before I stop doing it for a while. And what I have to say about 3rd Degree! in this edition is that two game show hosts appeared on an episode as a team, and one panelist recused themselves from that team’s game due to that panelist knowing that team. That team consisted of Michael Burger and David Ruprecht. Now, as many game show fans know, David Ruprecht is best known for hosting the Lifetime and PAX runs of Supermarket Sweep, and the Lifetime run of that show was brand new at the time he appeared on 3rd Degree! as a contestant. Also, Michael Burger, in terms of game shows, is best known for hosting the short-lived syndicated run of Match Game that aired from 1998 to 1999, which is the worst run of that show. However, at the time Michael appeared on 3rd Degree! as a contestant, he was hosting a game show called Straight To The Heart. Straight To The Heart aired in syndication on a daily basis from March 20, 1989 to September 8 on that same year. It was hosted by Michael Burger, co-hosted by Barbara Niven—who was known at the time as Barbara Lee Alexander—produced by Jim Rich & Associates, and distributed by MGM/UA Television. The game is played by six contestants. Three of the contestants are men, the other three contestants are women, and all three contestants of each gender have a common bond, such as the men being stuntmen and the women being Playboy models. Before the show, the three contestants of each sex are asked three intimate questions about themselves. In the show, the two sexes take turns playing the questions. On each question, three answers are revealed, with each one given by a different contestant of the same sex before the show, and each contestant of the opposite sex chooses which of the three answers they prefer the most. After all three contestants of the opposite sex have made their choices of preferences, each contestant of the sex who has originally answered that question reveals which answer they have given. A contestant wins $50 each time they have their answer chosen by a contestant of the opposite sex. However, what’s really important is not how much money a contestant wins, but how often a man and a woman choose each other’s answers; the more often a man and a woman choose each other’s answers, the more compatible those two contestants are with each other. During the show, the people behind it keep track of how often the contestants choose each other’s answers. After all six questions have been played, the results are brought in by Barbara, and Michael reads out loud which man and which woman end up being the most compatible with each other. Those two contestants win the game, become a couple, and advance to the bonus round. All six contestants keep all the money they have won, with the four losing contestants going on a double date arranged for them and each receiving a consolation prize. In the bonus round, the winning contestants are each equipped with a pair of heart-shaped blindfold glasses and cutouts of letters “A” and “B”. They are asked questions about vacationing in a trip being played for. On each question, two possible answers, with one labeled “A” and the other labeled “B”, are given, and each contestant chooses an answer by holding up the letter that that answer is labeled. The object of the bonus round is for the contestants to match each other’s answers on each question, all without seeing each other’s answers. During this round, the studio audience lets the contestants know when they have matched each other’s answers on a question. Each time the contestants match each other’s answers on a question, they win $50. If the contestants match each other’s answers on five questions within 45 seconds, they choose whether they want $500 each or the grand prize trip and a bonus prize each. And that’s Straight To The Heart. The overall gameplay is okay. The main game is played similarly to Night Games, a game show that I already covered in the previous year. These two shows have three men and three women playing for love with the opposite sex, and because of that, there’s always two winners, which are one man and one woman. The bonus round is played more like a game than the main game is, and the way the bonus round is played is fine, but the setup for it is really cheap. I mean, it uses blindfold goggles and letter cutouts. Couldn’t it use handheld signs and a divider, which were used later for one of the games in the Pat Finn-hosted runs of Shop ‘Til You Drop and the “Simpatico” round of Bzzz!, the latter of which I already covered back in year two? Come to think of it, the setup for the entire game is really cheap. The set looks a lot like a talk show set than it looks like a game show set, and what the host and the contestants do on that set makes the show more like a talk show than it looks. It’s nice of all the contestants to receive some money and dates with each other, and the prizes played for are good, but why is it that when the two winning contestants win the bonus round, they have to choose whether to take the money or the grand prize trip and the bonus prize? Why can’t they receive all of those for winning the bonus round? That’s it for Straight To The Heart. Starting next week, I’ll be covering game shows that have no connections with 3rd Degree!, as I’ve stuck with that show for enough editions in a row. Next week is the day after Valentine’s Day anyway. So, next week, I’ll be covering another relationship game show. I’ll let you know what it is next week. So, that does it for this week's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
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