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Post by Flowgli on Mar 25, 2016 12:00:20 GMT -5
Hello, neighbors! 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. In the game show world, Regis Philbin is best known for hosting the ABC primetime version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Six years after that version of the show was cancelled--while the syndicated version was going on and still is to this day--Regis hosted another game show with $1,000,000 as the top cash prize, and that game show is called Million Dollar Password. In 2009, the same year that Million Dollar Password had its second and final season aired, Regis hosted a revival of the primetime version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, which was produced to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the existence of the show in the US overall. But before Regis even made it big with these two game shows--particularly the ABC primetime version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?--he hosted a short-lived game show that also aired on ABC, and that game show is called The Neighbors. The Neighbors is one of the many game shows that lasted only one season consisting of 65 episodes. It was the first game show that Regis Philbin hosted. It aired on ABC from December 29, 1975 to April 9, 1976. It was co-hosted by Jane Nelson, announced by Joe Seiter, produced by Bill Carruthers--who produced a more popular game show called Press Your Luck seven years after the run of this show ended--and distributed by Warner Bros. Television. This show features five women, all of whom are neighbors. Two of the neighbors are contestants, while the other three are panelists. The game is played in three rounds, and in each round, the neighbors are asked gossip questions about each other. In round one, four questions are asked about the two contestants. As soon as a question is asked, each neighbor of the panel--who are all seated behind the contestants--holds up a card of the name of either contestant who she thinks pertains to that question. Then, each contestant has to correctly predict whether the majority of the panel has chosen her or the other contestant. Each correct prediction is worth $25. Beginning in round two, the two contestants face the neighbors of the panel. In this round, four pieces of gossip are given, two to each contestant. After a piece of gossip is read, each neighbor of the panel is heard from about that piece of gossip, and based on what she heard from the panel, the contestant in turn has to guess which one of them said that about her. Each correct guess is worth $100. Whether she has said a piece of gossip about a contestant or not, the chosen neighbor of the panel receives $50. Round three is the third and final round of the entire game, and in this round, four more statements about the two contestants are given. Each statement is something that all three neighbors of the panel agree on. On each statement, a contestant has to buzz in and guess if that statement pertains to her or the other contestant. After a contestant's guess, the three neighbors of the panel hold up cards of the name of the contestant they all have said applies to that statement. The statements are worth $50, $100, $200, and $300, in that order. If a contestant buzzes in with a correct guess, she scores the money; but if she buzzes in with an incorrect guess, the other contestant scores the money. After the three rounds, the contestant with the most money wins the game and receives a bonus prize. Both contestants keep the money they have scored. Well, that's The Neighbors. My thoughts on it? Well, this show is just plain bad. Basically, this show is a sloppily-put-together ripoff of The Newlywed Game with five women who all live in the same neighborhood revealing secrets or saying untrue things about each other. We've had enough clones of The Newlywed Game as it is. We've had Three's A Crowd and I'm Telling, both of which I already talked about in the previous year. We've had Perfect Match from 1986, The Family Game, Family Secrets, and more game shows like these that I haven't covered yet. The set is one of the cheapest-looking game show sets I've ever seen. It looks like a set for an elementary school play that would have its entire cast consisting of little girls age eight and under. The theme music is bland and awful. There are actually two pieces of theme music. The theme music in the pilot episode is different from the one used in the series. The theme music for the series was done by Stan Worth, and the theme music for the pilot called "Pick A Little, Talk A Little" was done by Hermione Gingold & The Biddys. Yeah, they used a song from The Music Man, a musical film from 1962 based on the Broadway musical of the same name from 1957 by Meredith Wilson, for the pilot of this show. Speaking of the pilot, there are a couple of differences there from the series gameplay-wise. One is in round two, where a correct prediction is worth only $50, and a chosen neighbor of the panel receives only $25. The other is in round three, where five statements about the two contestants are given, and they are worth $50, $100, $150, $200, and $300, in that order. Out of all the episodes of this show, only the pilot episode and two episodes in the series are known to still exist, and they all have been uploaded on YouTube. The rest of the episodes are believed to have been wiped. Before producing this show, Bill Carruthers produced another short-lived game show that was played only by women. It's called Give-N-Take. I'll talk about Give-N-Take in next week's edition. Keep an eye out 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 Apr 1, 2016 12:00:20 GMT -5
Hello, ladies...as well as gentlemen. 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. Last week, I talked about a game show called The Neighbors. It was played only by women, it was produced by Bill Carruthers--the same guy who went on to produce Press Your Luck years later--and it was bad. At the end of last week's edition, I mentioned that Bill Carruthers produced another game show that is also played only by women, and that I will talk about in this edition. So, here it is. The game show is Give-N-Take. Give-N-Take aired on CBS from September 8, 1975 to November 28 on that same year. This show is another one of the several game shows hosted by Jim Lange, and it was announced by Johnny Jacobs. Also, just like the series of The Neighbors, the theme music was done by Stan Worth. Four women play the game. Most of the time, one of the women is a returning champion. The contestants each sit in one space of an eight-spaced daisy-shaped board, with each of the four empty spaces between two of the contestants. The empty spaces on the board are referred to as the " Give-N-Take advantage areas". Each contestant is started off with a bank with one prize in it. After each contestant's starting prize is announced and described by Johnny, the game starts with Johnny describing the first prize up for grabs, but that prize's value is not revealed. Then, Jim asks a question, and the contestants have to buzz in and answer that question. Whoever buzzes in with the correct answer gets control of the "advantage areas", all of which light up, and so does the space that the contestant in control is sitting in. The board also has a red arrow spinning clockwise in the center, and what the contestant in control has to do is make the arrow stop spinning by hitting her buzzer. The contestant in control takes control of her own space and the advantage areas, while the other three contestants each take control of only the space she sits in. The arrow ends up pointing at one of the eight spaces after it is stopped. The contestant who has a space of hers pointed at by the arrow is given the option to keep the prize up for grabs or pass it to one of the other contestants. Either way, the contestant also has the option to keep any of the other prizes in her bank or pass any of those banked prizes to any of her opponents. The aim for each of the contestants is to build a bank of prizes with a total value as close as $5,000 without going over. After a prize is kept or chosen, either a bell or a buzzer is heard. If a bell is heard, that means a contestant's bank value is under $5,000. But if a buzzer is heard, that means a contestant's bank value is over $5,000, and that contestant is "frozen", and she won't be able to have any prizes passed to her from her opponents. Also, that contestant has to buzz in with a correct answer to a question, have the arrow ending up pointing at one of spaces she has control of, and pass one of the prizes in her bank to one of her opponents to lower the value of her own bank. At any point in the game, a contestant whose bank value is under $5,000 has the option to freeze if she thinks her bank value is closest to the $5,000 limit. If that contestant makes the option to freeze, she sits out the rest of the game, and she does not receive any other prizes passed to her by her opponents. If the arrow ends up pointing at a space that a "frozen" contestant has control of, that prize is out of play for the rest of the game and automatically added to the bonus round. During the game, the total prize values of the contestants' banks are never revealed until after the game ends, and the game ends after seven prizes up for grabs have been played. Also, with two of those seven prizes left, the home viewers are revealed the total prize values of the contestants' banks by Johnny whispering those to them, just like the announcers of some of the versions of Password would whisper the passwords to the home viewers when the passwords first come into play. The contestant whose bank value is closest to $5,000 without going over wins the game, keeps the prizes in her bank, and advances to the bonus round. At the start of the bonus round, all of the remaining prizes and their values are announced by Jim. Afterwards, the winning contestant chooses one of the eight spaces on the board and stops the arrow one more time. If the arrow ends up pointing at the space selected, the contestant wins all of the remaining prizes on top of all of the prizes she won in the main game. Regardless of the outcome of the bonus round, the contestant gets to come back on the next episode and play against three new challengers, and she gets to keep doing so on every episode she has won the game in until she is defeated, or until she has reached the point of retiring undefeated by either winning five games or reaching the limit of $25,000 that CBS had at the time. And that's Give-N-Take. Out of all the game shows covered here that have only women as contestants, I think this one is a lot better than The Neighbors, and I think it's almost as good as Just Men! This is a game of strategy and luck, and having an element of blackjack and the contestants not knowing the values of the prizes up for grabs is good. Too bad the run of this show was short, not to mention that most of the episodes have been supposedly wiped. So far, I only know one episode to still exist, and it's on YouTube. That episode is known in the description to be "the existing episode". On the first eight weeks of the show's run, it aired in the 10:00 AM timeslot, which was the same time Celebrity Sweepstakes aired back then on NBC. On the last four weeks of the show's run, it moved to the 4:00 PM timeslot, which was the same time a soap opera called Somerset aired back then on NBC and a revival of a game show called You Don't Say! aired back then on ABC. This show replaced a game show called Spin-Off, which, surprisingly, was also hosted by Jim Lange and announced by Johnny Jacobs. However, unlike Give-N-Take and The Neighbors, Spin-Off was not produced by Bill Carruthers, did not have only women as contestants, and did not have a theme music done by Stan Worth. This show has similarities to a game show that aired years before this one, and that game show is called Say When!!, a production of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman hosted by Catchphrase host Art James. I'll get to Say When!! a little later, but I will be covering Spin-Off 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 Apr 8, 2016 12:00:21 GMT -5
Hi, everybody. How's it going? 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. Last week, I talked about a game show called Give-N-Take, hosted by Jim Lange and announced by Johnny Jacobs. At the end of the edition, I mentioned that that show replaced another game show that was also hosted by Jim Lange and announced by Johnny Jacobs. I also promised that I will be talking about it in this week's edition, so here I go. The show is Spin-Off. Spin-Off aired on CBS from June 16, 1975 to September 5 on the same year. Not only was this show hosted by Jim Lange and announced by Johnny Jacobs, but it was also created and produced by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir. The game is played by two couples, each one having a set of five eggcrate displays that each rapidly flash numbers from one to six behind them. These displays are called "spinners", and each couple has two buttons for each spinner, a red button and a green button. One of the couples is usually a pair of returning champions. The game starts off with a question asked to the couples, and each half of each couple has a black button that they use to buzz in. Whoever buzzes in with the correct answer earns that couple the right to stop their spinners. Not only does each couple have a set of five spinners behind them, but each couple also has a set of five spinners on their podium in front of them, where the five red buttons and the five green buttons are, so they can easily see which number is stopped on each spinner. Each spinner is stopped by the couple in control pressing a red button that corresponds to that spinner. After all five spinners are stopped, the couple in control has the option to keep all the numbers shown--or freeze or call, as it is put--or reject any or all of those numbers. What a couple has to do is make the best combination of numbers and win money for it. If the couple in control rejects any numbers, they must earn the right to stop their remaining spinners again by buzzing in with the correct answer to a question and they start the spinners themselves by pressing their corresponding green buttons. A couple has up to three chances to make the best combination of numbers in a round. After a couple has used their third and final chance to make a combination of numbers, they are automatically frozen. Anytime a couple freezes, the other couple has one chance to make a combination of numbers that is better than that of the frozen couple. The couple with the best hand at the end of a round wins that round and wins money according to the combination they won the round with. The combinations and the cash payoffs are as follows: one pair, worth $50; two pair, worth $75; three of a kind, worth $100; straight, worth $125; full house, worth $150; four of a kind, worth $175; and five of a kind, worth $200. Also, each time a couple makes a five of a kind, not only do they win $200 for it, but they also win a bonus prize. The couples play as many rounds as they can until one of them reaches a cash goal. Originally, the cash goal is $250, but it is later changed to $200. The first couple to reach or exceed the cash goal wins the game and advances to the bonus round. The winning couple plays the bonus round called the Super Spin-Off. In this round, the couple has up to three chances to make the best combination of numbers possible. The spinners are activated and worked with, one at a time, and the couple has the option to reject any or all of the numbers. After the couple uses up all three chances, they are automatically frozen. At the end of this round, the couple wins a cash prize according to the combination they ended up with. The combinations and the cash prizes are as follows: one pair, worth $250; two pair, worth $500; three of a kind, worth $1,000; full house, worth $1,500; four of a kind, worth $2,500; five of a kind, worth $5,000; and straight, worth $10,000. In order to win the $10,000, the couple has to make a straight by having five consecutive numbers of the combination displayed in order, either from one to five, from two to six, from five to one, or from six to two. No money is awarded for a straight that has five consecutive numbers shown in any order. Regardless of the outcome of this round, the couple plays against a new challenging couple in the next game. And that's Spin-Off. After checking out this game show myself, I will say that there is no doubt that the gameplay is based on the dice game Yahtzee. In fact, the gameplay of this show is a lot more faithful to Yahtzee than that of that dice game's game show version that aired in syndication in 1988, which I already covered in the previous year. Spin-Off is about everything that Yahtzee should've been, except with the use of giant dice instead of spinners. There are two things I found wrong with this show. One is the cash goal reached or exceeded to win a game. Whether the cash goal is $250 or $200, the game probably would've been too short if at least one of the couples won their first round with a five of a kind. But then again, a five of a kind is probably the hardest combination to get. Still, I think this show would've worked if it was self-contained and has two couples playing as many rounds as they could, with the couple in the lead when time was called winning the game, instead of having a straddling format and two couples playing until one of them won the game. And the other is the way the top cash prize of $10,000 is won in the Super Spin-Off. Instead of getting a five of a kind--which is hard enough to do in the main game, to begin with--a winning couple has to get a straight in order to win the $10,000 cash prize. Sure a straight is hard to get, but a five of a kind is harder to get. What the show did was make the straight even harder to get by making a winning couple get five consecutive numbers displayed in a proper order. But this show is called Spin-Off, not Yahtzee, and it uses spinners, not dice, so I guess it's suitable to make the Super Spin-Off be played the way it was. No full episodes of this show can be found on YouTube or anywhere else on the Internet. There are only a promo, a full episode from Labor Day with only the audio and a few still images, that same full episode with only the audio and the visuals re-created by the uploader of that video, and a video that shows clips of an episode with a male voice speaking over parts of the video about how the game works. Just like I thought about the episodes of Give-N-Take, I thought the episodes of Spin-Off--either most or all of them--were destroyed. But from what I found out, all the episodes are known to exist, and CBS did a lot less in the practice of wiping than ABC and NBC did. So, since Give-N-Take was a CBS game show like Spin-Off, it's possible that all the episodes of that show still exist, but I don't know for sure. In 2000, all the episodes of Spin-Off, by the way, were discovered in a tape storage room at WCBS-TV in New York, along with the first two seasons of The Joker's Wild. Speaking of The Joker's Wild, Spin-Off replaced that show. Now, I'm done talking about Spin-Off. Let me just go back to Give-N-Take for a bit. When I talked about Give-N-Take last week, I mentioned that that show has similarities to a Goodson-Todman production called Say When!! I also said that I will get to that show soon. And you know what? The time for me to talk about that show will be next week. So, join me again in next week's edition when I talk about Say When!!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 Apr 15, 2016 12:00:25 GMT -5
Hi, people! This is Flo, your 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. All right, people. Here it is. I mentioned this game show last week and the week before that, and I mentioned that it is a production of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman with gameplay similar to that of Give-N-Take, which I talked about two weeks ago. So, here it is. The game show I'm gonna talk about today is Say When!!Say When!! aired on NBC from January 2, 1961 to March 26, 1965. It originally aired in black and white, but it switched to color sometime in 1964. Not only was this show produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, but it was also hosted by Art James--who also hosted Catchphrase, a game show I covered in the previous year--announced by Wayne Howell, and modeled alternatingly by Ruth Halsey, Emily Banks, Gunilla Knudson, Carolyn White, Kristan Johnson, and Elizabeth Ames. There were three people who substituted for Wayne during the course of the show's run, and they were Roger Tuttle, Fred Collins, and Mel Brandt. Also, this game show is the opposite bookend of the other game show Art hosted that I covered; while Catchphrase was the last game show that Art hosted, Say When!! was the first game show that he hosted. Not only that, but this game show is also the only production of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman that Art hosted. The game is played by two contestants, one of them being a returning champion, and it is played as a best-two-out-of-three match. Each game of a match is started off with a dollar goal and four prizes revealed to the contestants. The contestants take turns choosing prizes from the board. Each time a prize is chosen, the value of that prize is revealed and added to the total of the contestant who has chosen that prize, and that prize is replaced with another one on the board. At least one of the prizes in each game is a "blank check", which usually involves an item usually found in grocery stores, and the contestant who has chosen it has to decide the desired quantity of that item. The individual price of that item is then revealed and multiplied by the given quantity of that item, and that total is added to that contestant's total. What the contestants have to do is get as close to the dollar goal without going over. As soon as either contestant is within $250 of the dollar goal, they have the option to "say when"--in other words, freeze--sitting out the rest of the game, and forcing their opponent to keep playing until adding just enough to beat the frozen total or adding too much to exceed the dollar goal. The contestant who is closest to the dollar goal without going over wins the game. If a contestant exceeds the dollar goal, they automatically lose the game. The winner of a game keeps all the prizes they have chosen in that game, and a contestant who wins two out of three games wins the match, becomes the champion, and plays against a new challenger. And that's it. That's how the game is played. While the gameplay in this show and the gameplay in Give-N-Take are both similar, the gameplay in this show is more simple than the gameplay in Give-N-Take, and this show lasted four years, while Give-N-Take lasted only twelve weeks. The gameplay in this show is really good. Not only does it have an element of blackjack, but it also has an element that became the main gameplay of a pricing game on The Price Is Right called Grocery Game, which premiered years after this show's run ended. The aim of both this show and Grocery Game on The Price Is Right is to choose a grocery item, give a quality of that grocery item, and not go over a set limit after the individual price of that grocery item and its given quantity is multiplied and added to a contestant's total. Since this show aired on NBC in the 1960s, it is likely that the episodes have been wiped. Only a few of the episodes exist. One of them is a test episode that was taped on December 20, 1960. Two more are full episodes of the series; one of those episodes aired on January 6, 1961, and the other episode aired sometime between June 30, 1961 and September 15 on the same year. One more is one in the form of a clip that features the "Peter Pan" incident; the rest of that episode is believed to be destroyed. This particular footage was shown in various specials that feature embarrassing moments in game shows, such as The Most Outrageous Game Show Moments and Game Show Moments Gone Bananas. About the "Peter Pan" incident itself, it happened shortly after the show switched to color in 1964. The "Peter Pan" in this incident is a brand of peanut butter. Art did a plug for the Peter Pan peanut butter, which went normally until he dropped a knife into the jar. He dropped the knife into the jar so many times during rehearsals for the plug that the bottom of the jar broke, causing the knife to fall through and hit the floor, and this all happened in the plug itself. This caused the audience to laugh, and Art continued to do the plug, with the bottom of the jar falling off the jar itself to the floor as the plug went on, causing the audience to laugh and the plug to end immediately as Art began to laugh at this incident himself. This show also had an Australian version that ran from 1962 to 1964. It was hosted by Jimmy Hannan and produced by Reg Grundy. This version was revived in 1971 as Spending Spree, and it was also hosted by Jimmy Hannan and produced by Reg Grundy. Spending Spree lasted until 1976. The term from Say When!! called "blank check" became the title of another one of the game shows that Art hosted years later. I'll talk about that show in next week's edition. Keep an eye out 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 Apr 22, 2016 12:00:23 GMT -5
Hi, 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. Last week, I talked about a game show hosted by Art James called Say When!!, and in the end, I mentioned that I will be talking about another Art James-hosted game show whose title was used as a term in Say When!! this week. The show is called Blank Check. Blank Check is a game of ESP, and it ran from January 6, 1975 to July 4 on that same year on NBC. Not only was it hosted by Art James, but it was also co-hosted by Judy Rich, announced by Johnny Jacobs, and packaged by Jack Barry Productions. The game is played by six contestants, all of whom play for a whole week. One of the contestants is referred to as a "check writer" and stands at a podium in an area that has a giant check at the back, while the other five contestants are seated at podiums in the area on the opposite side of the set. That area that the five contestants are seated at is called a gallery. That's the way the contestants are set up. Now, let's get to the way the game itself is played. The game starts with five randomizers flashing numbers, just like the spinners on Spin-Off--which I talked about two weeks ago--and the check writer stops the randomizers by hitting a plunger. The five numbers displayed on the randomizers are what the check writer will use to fill in a check. If the numbers displayed on the randomizers are all consecutive and displayed in order--in other words, form a straight--the check writer wins a prize. After the five randomizers are stopped, the check writer secretly chooses one of the numbers to be the ones digit in the check, and Art asks the contestants at the gallery a question that consists of two things that have a common connection. Whoever buzzes in with the correct answer gets the right to choose which of the five numbers from the randomizers they think the check writer has chosen to be the ones digit in the check. If the contestant at the gallery makes a correct guess on the number, they and the check writer switch places, and the new check writer stops the randomizers and uses the numbers displayed at that point to fill in their own check. But if that contestant makes an incorrect guess on the number, the number chosen by the current check writer is filled in the check, the check writer chooses one of the remaining displayed numbers to be the tens digit, and another question is asked to the contestants at the gallery. This process continues until the check writer successfully stumps a contestant at the gallery with the hundreds digit, and that's when the audience game takes place. In the audience game, the check writer plays against a member of the studio audience. The way it works is that the member of the studio audience comes on stage, is shown four prizes and their values, and chooses one of those prizes. Then, the check writer has to guess which prize the studio audience member has chosen. If the check writer makes an incorrect guess, the studio audience member wins the chosen prize and chooses another one of the prizes. If the check writer makes three incorrect guesses, they lose their position, and the studio audience member wins all four prizes. If the check writer makes a correct guess, the audience game ends immediately, the studio audience member keeps all the prizes they won up to that point, and the check writer earns the right to choose one of the remaining two numbers to be the thousands digit. The check writer receives the amount on the check in cash after they either stump a contestant at the gallery with the thousands digit or have their position lost by a contestant at the gallery making a correct guess on a number chosen to be a place in the check or a studio audience member winning all the prizes in the audience game. If the check writer successfully fills out the check with four of the five numbers or makes three incorrect guesses in the audience game, a question is asked to the contestants at the gallery to determine who will be the next to be the check writer. As you can tell from what I said about the gameplay, this show has a straddling format. Because of this, the game just drags on for an entire week, and at the end of the week, the contestant who has written the biggest check wins a car. At the start of the following week, six new contestants play the game. And that's the game. I don't know what to say about the show other than that it's uninteresting, it's quickly tiring, and it just drags on to no end. Regardless of how a check is won, the game just keeps dragging on. Even with the audience game being played, the game just continues to drag on. I don't find a game show with a format like this to work at all. Game Show Garbage founder Robert Q. Seidelman inducted this show, and he stated that he hates ESP games. Even Art James himself said he didn't like the gameplay in this show, nor did any of the staff members of this show; they referred to this show as "Blank Mind", because they thought it "was dumb luck, a guessing game". Well, "Blank Mind" seems to be a more fitting title for this show, since the minds of the show's viewers probably have gone blank from watching the game being played and looking at the bland set. Speaking of the show's title, Jack Barry's producer partner, Dan Enright, sued Mark Goodson Productions for their long-running hit show, The Price Is Right, having one of its pricing games entitled Blank Check. Because of this lawsuit, that pricing game in The Price Is Right was changed to Check Game, and it still goes by that name to this day. Well, I guess if Dan Enright is really this serious about the show's title, and he lived a few years more than he did, he probably would've sued Disney for using that title as a title of one of its live-action films. While still on the subject of Jack Barry and Dan Enright, this show was the first one that Jack Barry produced for NBC since the quiz show scandals back in the 1950s, and it was the first of three game shows that he produced at NBC studios, with the other two being Bullseye and Hot Potato, both of which were packaged by Barry & Enright Productions. Blank Check premiered on the same day Wheel Of Fortune and The Diamond Head Game premiered. Wheel Of Fortune premiered on NBC like Blank Check did, while The Diamond Head Game premiered in syndication. This show replaced the Dennis James-hosted daytime version of Name That Tune, and it was in a scheduling shuffle with a game show called Celebrity Sweepstakes. During this show's run, it was in the 12:30 PM timeslot, and each half-hour this show aired had it end five minutes before the full half-hour time was spent entirely so that an NBC News bulletin could be fit into the network's schedule. I will say that they did the right thing there, since a full half-hour of very drawn-out gameplay seems too much for anyone to sit through. Since the newscast began in October 1960, Blank Check was the eleventh show on NBC to air in the 12:30 PM timeslot, while The Who, What, Or Where Game, another game show hosted by Art James, had the longest run on that network in that timeslot. On New Year's Eve in 1975, NBC aired its last five-minute daytime newscast, and it was discontinued after that. After this show was cancelled, it was replaced by The Magnificent Marble Machine, yet another game show hosted by Art James; that show aired in the 12:00 Noon timeslot in a scheduling shuffle with the original Geoff Edwards-hosted version of Jackpot!, which had its format overhauled a week before The Magnificent Marble Machine premiered. I'll be looking into Jackpot! and talking about it in full detail another time. The music used as the theme for the pilot was composed by Quincy Jones. That theme is called "Chump Change", and it was used as the theme for another game show called Now You See It a few years later. The music used as the theme for the series was composed by Alan Thicke. It's called "Hip Check", it's similar to the theme for the pilot, and it was later used as a prize cue on Wheel Of Fortune. Well, I seem to have said all I had to say about Blank Check, and after all that, I'm getting the feeling that my mind has gone blank from it. I need to get my mind occupied again, so I'm gonna go read a book, and I'll be ready by next week for the next edition. 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 Apr 29, 2016 12:00:23 GMT -5
Hello, everyone in Oregon...as well as everyone else in all the other forty-nine states of America. This is Flo, your 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. There's a special category of game shows that is sure to be talked about a lot here starting today, and that category is local game shows. Local game shows are each recorded in a studio with a set that is cheap but still looks okay, air only in the one state it is recorded in, has low cash prizes and prizes that are very less valuable than prizes seen in any game show with a much bigger budget but all are still satisfying enough for the contestants, and has all of the contestants be people who actually live in that state. I'm gonna be talking about one of those game shows in this week's edition. As you can tell in the introduction, this local game show was taped and aired in the state of Oregon. That game show is called On The Spot. On The Spot lasted four seasons from September 1984 to October 1988. It was produced by and aired on KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon, created by Douglas K. Vernon--who was a videotape editor for KGW at the time--hosted by newscaster Larry Blackmar, and announced by disc jockey Michael Bailey. The game is played by three contestants, with one of them usually a returning champion. Each contestant is started off with 1,000 points. In round one, the contestants are shown six categories on a game board, with each category having three lit triangles under it. The triangles represent questions in the categories. The category board is shown to the contestants for ten seconds, and it turned away from view after that, and the contestants have to memorize the categories and keep track of how many questions have been asked in each category in this round. The contestants are then asked a toss-up question that does not come from any of the categories. Whoever buzzes in with the correct answer scores 100 points and chooses one of the six categories. After a category is chosen, a question in that category is asked, and whowver buzzes in with the correct answer scores 100 points and makes the next choice of category. Every question--toss-up and category--is a multiple choice question, with each question having three answers to choose from. If the first contestant to buzz in answers incorrectly, one of the remaining two contestants gets to buzz in and answer that question. If the second contestant to buzz in answers incorrectly, the question is thrown out, and all three contestants are asked another toss-up question. Each incorrect answer on a category question deducts 100 points from a contestant's score, but there is no penalty for answering a toss-up question incorrectly. A contestant also gets penalized for choosing an exhausted category--in other words, a category with no questions left--and another toss-up question is asked to all three contestants if this happens. The show goes into its commercial break after half of this round is played. Starting in season two, the contestants are shown the category board again before this round continues, allowing them to see the categories again and how many questions are left in each one. In round two, the contestants are shown the category board for the second--third starting in season two--and final time. The categories in this round are all the same as those in the previous round, and each category is restocked with a new set of three multiple-choice questions. Also, a correct answer adds 200 points to a contestant's score, while an incorrect answer to a category question or choosing an exhausted category deducts 200 points from their score. Finally, one of the category questions in this round is dubbed the "Spotlight Question"; at the start of this round, the category and position of the Spotlight Question is shown to the home viewers during the reveal of the category board, and if the next question in the chosen category is the Spotlight Question, then the contestant who chose that category at that point will be the only one who gets to answer it. Before the Spotlight Question is asked, the contestant who reached it must wager from 100 points to 500 points. A correct answer on the Spotlight Question adds the wager to their score, while an incorrect answer on it deducts the wager from their score. Regardless of the outcome of the Spotlight Question, the contestant who reached it gets to make the next choice of category. Both rounds are played according to time, so each round ends when time runs out before all the category questions in that round is asked. Also, each contestant has the option to pass control to another contestant in hopes that the contestant with control just passed to them will choose an exhausted category and lose points and control. Each contestant is allowed only one pass, and they each can only use their pass after buzzing in with a correct answer. After round two ends, the contestant with the most points wins the game, receives a prize, and advances to the bonus round, while the losing contestants receive consolation prizes, which include gift certificates from local stores and restaurants. Win or lose, all contestants each receive an On The Spot umbrella made by Shedrain. The bonus round is called the "Flash Round", and it starts off with the winning contestant spinning two wheels, with a smaller wheel within a bigger wheel, just like the wheels in Melody Roulette in Name That Tune, and they are spun the same way as the Melody Roulette wheels; one of the wheels is spun in one direction, while the other wheel is spun in the other direction. The inner wheel has eight wedges with amounts of cash on them; the amounts of cash are $25, $50, $75, and $100, and each of those cash amounts appears on two wedges. The outer wheel has four wedges with prizes on them; each of the prizes appears on two wedges. The spin of the inner wheel determines how much money each correct answer will be worth, while the spin of the outer wheel determines which prize the contestant will receive for winning the round. Starting in season two, the $25 wedges are removed from the inner wheel. After spinning the wheels, the contestant is asked ten questions within 60 seconds. There are no categories, there is no penalty for an incorrect answer, and the questions are not multiple-choice. The clock starts after the first question is read in its entirety. On each question, the contestant gets to make as many guesses as they wish, and as soon as they give a correct answer or pass on a question, they move on to the next question. If there is still time remaining, the contestant goes back to the questions they passed on. The contestant receives the amount of cash landed on the inner wheel for every correct answer, regardless of the outcome of the bonus round. If the contestant answers all ten of the questions correctly before time runs out, they win the prize landed on the outer wheel on top of the money. Starting in season two, Larry hands out the money the winning contestant won in dollar bills to them, just like Jack Barry did in The Joker's Wild. A contestant stays on the show until they are defeated or win five games. That's generally the game. There are a few more things I have to mention about the game. One is a couple more changes made to the game at the start of season two. First, a contestant gets 100 points added to their score for choosing the category that has the final question in either round of the main game. Second, the Spotlight Question is a question sent to the show by a home viewer. If a home viewer's Spotlight Question is asked, they win a prize, whether or not it is answered correctly by any of the contestants. Originally, the prize is an On The Spot t-shirt, but the prize is later changed to a gift certificate to a local store or restaurant. Now, another thing I have to mention is that in the show's fourth and final season, a third prize is added to the outer wheel in the Flash Round, and that prize is called a "$5K Giveaway". The wedge for the "5K Giveaway" is a small one with "62 KGW" on it, as this prize is associated with 62 KGW, KGW's AM radio sister-station. Landing on the "62 KGW" wedge gives the winning contestant a chance to play for $5,000. There is one of those wedges placed in a space between two of the regular prize wedges on the outer wheel on a contestant's first trip to the Flash Round, and each time that contestant takes a return trip to the Flash Round, another one of those wedges is added in another space between two of the regular prize wedges. On that contestant's fifth and final trip to the Flash Round, they get to choose where on the outer wheel they want the fifth of those wedges to be placed. If the contestant lands on the "62 KGW" wedge and wins the round, they receive a check for $5,000 on top of the cash earned for every correct answer. The final thing I have to mention is that somewhere in the middle of the show's run, there was a high school version of it called On The Spot High School Challenge. The game is the same, except that it is played by local-area high school contestants, and those students are not only playing for cash and prizes for themselves, but also scholarship money for their schools. Unlike the regular version, which aired on a daily basis, the high school version aired on Saturdays. So, that's the game overall. This show is great. The gameplay is simple to follow but very interesting. The main game is played in a similar manner to Jeopardy! and other game shows played like it, but unlike those game shows that have the categories shown on the board for the entire round until they have no questions left in them, this game show has the categories shown on the board for ten seconds, and the contestants have to remember what the categories are and keep track of how many questions have been asked in each category. So, this is a game of not only knowledge, but also of memory. The cash payouts and the prizes are also good for a local game show in the 1980s. What other local game show has up to $1,000 in cash and prizes such as a trip to Lisbon, Portugal and a personal computer up for grabs? None, as far as I know. The cash and prizes played for and the set the game is played in shows that this show has a big budget, that is, as far as local game shows in the 1980s go. This is also probably the only local game show that aired on a daily basis and had returning champions, whereas other local game shows aired on a weekly basis with a new set of contestants on every episode. I'll look into some more local game shows in later times. We'll be going back to national television next week. What game show will I be talking about then? See for yourself when we get to 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 May 6, 2016 12:00:22 GMT -5
Hey, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! It is I, Flo, your host, welcoming you to another edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Yes, I'm going to be talking about another "battle of the sexes" game show, and I just want to say right away that it's not a good show at all. You don't believe me? Well, there may not be any full episodes of this particular show uploaded anywhere on the Internet, but there are a couple of videos of this show on YouTube. This game show is called All About The Opposite Sex. All About The Opposite Sex is not only a "battle of the sexes" game show, but it's a game of ESP. Yeah, it's Mindreaders all over again, sort of. This show was one of the game shows produced by Dan Enright after his producer partner, Jack Barry, died. In fact, this show aired around the same time that another show Dan Enright produced called Hold Everything!--a game show I already talked about in the previous year--aired. All About The Opposite Sex aired in syndication from June 18, 1990 to August 17 on the same year. It was hosted by Outdoor Channel personality David Sparks, who, prior to this show, hosted an unsold Mark Goodson-produced pilot called On A Roll, the 1986 revival of Crosswits, and NFL Trivia Game. This show was also announced by Larry Van Nuys, who, at that time, was also the announcer of two other Dan Enright-produced game shows, which were Hold Everything! and the short-lived Patrick Wayne-hosted revival of Tic Tac Dough. The game is played by two teams of seven, both of whom play against each other for five episodes in a week. Fifty studio audience members consisting of twenty-five men and twenty-five women act as a voting group for questions in this game. The two teams play three rounds. In round one, each team is asked a question that focuses on a certain situation. Each question has three answers to choose from. All thirty-two people of the same gender who are asked the current question vote for an answer using cards labeled A, B, and C. After the votes are locked in, one member of the opposing team has to predict which answer is made the most popular by the voting gender, and if that member of the opposing team is successful, they score one point for their team for every person of the voting gender who has chosen that answer. Not only that, but one member of the voting team has their answer to that question recorded in an interview before the show, and if the guess made by the member of the opposing team matches the recorded answer, their team's score on that question is doubled. In round two, each team is asked another question with three answers to choose from. This round is played the same way as the previous round, except that after a team scores points for correctly predicting which answer is made the most popular by the other gender, they double those points by correctly choosing which member of the voting team is one of the people who has voted for that answer. In round three, the final round in the entire show, each team is asked one more question, now with only two answers to choose from. All seven members of the voting team vote for which answer they think one member of the opposing team will choose, and if the majority of the voting team has voted correctly, their score is doubled. At the end of the game, the team with the most points wins the game and splits a cash prize of $1,000. Because the same two teams play against each other for five episodes in a week, one team can win up to $5,000. So, that's All About The Opposite Sex. Oh, my God. Do I really need to say more about this show? Most "battle of the sexes" game shows are bad, and this one is one of them. In fact, this is the worst "battle of the sexes" game show I ever even checked out! Not only that, but the gameplay is sloppy, the set is cheap, and the money won by a winning team is too low for a team of seven. Speaking of the money and the number of people on each team, there's no possible way for a team to have any money be divided equally among seven people. A team can win only either $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, or $5,000, and none of those amounts are equally divisible of seven. This is even worse than a team of three having to split a cash prize that is not equally divisible of three. I mean, I know I complained about this several times before, but it's still a big problem. But the way money is split by a team in this show is even worse! How much money does each member of a winning team receive for winning a game? They each would receive $142.85, and if you take that and multiply that by seven, that makes it $999.95, not $1,000. The seven people on that team would be fighting over the remaining five cents, whether those five cents are in five pennies or one nickel. In short, this show is just stupid. Everything about it is just stupid. This just goes to show that Dan Enright can't even produce one single game show that is good with Jack Barry gone. I really need to remind myself to cover Tic Tac Dough soon. But anyway, I'm done talking about All About The Opposite Sex. I'm done! 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 May 13, 2016 12:00:23 GMT -5
Hey, guys. 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. I really don't care much about parody game shows. It's actually one of the types of game shows I like the least. There are game shows like this, such as The Gong Show--which is a parody of talent shows--and The $1.98 Beauty Show--which is a parody of beauty pageants--both of which were produced by Chuck Barris, and which the original version of the former was hosted by Chuck Barris, as well. But the game show parody that I'm gonna be talking about today is one that was not produced by Chuck Barris nor did it have him involved in it in any way. The game show is called The Cheap Show. The Cheap Show is a weekly syndicated game show that ran from September 1978 to September 1979. It is a parody of game shows, and it was hosted by D ick Martin--who, a year after the cancellation of this show, hosted another game show called Mindreaders, a game show that I already talked about in the previous year--co-hosted by Wanda--whose real name is Janelle Price--announced by Charlie O'Donnell, produced by Chris Bearde, and packaged by Payson-Odin Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. Before the show, a verbal disclaimer is given, stating that even though this show is edited for television, it still may contain some objectionable material, and that the producers feel that that alone should be enough for the home viewers to stay tuned to the channel the show was airing on. Now, on with the show! The show features two teams and a panel that is supposed to consist of three celebrities, but the celebrity who is supposed to occupy the third seat in the panel is a no-show, so there are only two celebrities in the panel. One member on each team stands at a microphone, while the other member on each team puts on goggles and go into an area called "The Pit". The main game is played in two rounds. In each round, categories are announced, and a question is asked to the panel on each category. Each celebrity in the panel gives an answer to a question, with one celebrity giving an answer that is the truth and the other celebrity giving an answer that is a bluff. The member of one of the teams who is at the microphone has to choose which answer given by the panel is the truth. If they choose the answer that is the truth, they score points and receives a cheap junk prize, all for them and their teammate. But if they choose the answer that is a lie, the other team scores the points and receives the cheap junk prize. After each question, not only does the team that has won that question score points and receive a cheap junk prize, but also, the member of the team that has lost that question who is in "The Pit" gets "punished". The "punishments" in this game include getting a bucket of red or green slime poured all over the member of one of the teams who is in "The Pit" and getting a plate of pie or cake hit in his face. In round one, two questions are played, with each one worth one point. The member of the team that has won a coin toss before the show who is at the microphone gets to make a guess on the first question, while the member of the other team who is at the microphone gets to make a guess on the second question. In round two, only one question is played, and D ick flips a coin to determine who gets to make a guess on that question. That question is worth twenty points, which makes the previous round useless, since only a total of two points can be scored there. So, whichever team scores the twenty points in round two wins the game and advances to the bonus round. The bonus round is called "The Semi-Colossal Prize Sweepstakes Finale". This round features a big wheel with twelve numbered spaces, a "prize wall" with twelve numbered envelopes on it, and a white rat referred to as "Oscar The Wonder Rodent". Also, each space on the wheel has a hole in it. To start the round, the winning team chooses which hole on the wheel they think Oscar will crawl into. After that, the wheel is spun, and Oscar is placed in the prize launch area in the center of the wheel. After Oscar ends up in one of the holes and the wheel has stopped spinning, the prize on the envelope whose number corresponds to the hole in the wheel that Oscar ended up in is revealed, and that prize is the team's to keep regardless of the outcome of the bonus round. But if the numbered space on the wheel chosen by the team has Oscar crawled into it, the team wins the grand prize on top of the prize on that numbered space's corresponding envelope. All prizes featured in this round are real and valuable prizes; none of the prizes here are cheap junk prizes like those won in the main game. Well, that's The Cheap Show. After finding one episode of this show and taking a look into it, I gotta say that I don't find it that bad. With the set and the prizes played for in the main game, not to mention the title of the show, I gotta say that this was all intentional, what with it being a parody game show that parodies game shows in general. The prizes played for in the bonus round are actually good for the time; such prizes are a Viking camping trailer, a Toshiba television set, a set of luggage, a trip to Las Vegas, and a car. The cheap junk prizes played for in the main game included are an old bee smoker, a spare sink, a trip to Balboa Island--which is not a real location--and a fashion package put together by the show itself. I wonder if the teams that won the prizes in the main game actually keep them, or they're just props for the show? The ditziness of Wanda and the interactions between her and D ick work for a show like this, too. The "punishments" given to the contestants in "The Pit" are good, too, and they are somewhat the same messy situations that would be seen in Nickelodeon shows years later and done better in those shows. I need to remind myself to cover a Nickelodeon game show later. There are two things about this show that I actually have a problem with. One is the amount of questions played in the main game. Only three questions were played. That doesn't seem to be enough. I thought it would be better if there were two or three more questions added to that. Having just three questions in the main game and having them played the way they were seems to make it kinda short. The other is how Oscar, a real, living creature was used as a prop in the bonus round. I was afraid that the poor rat would not only end up very dizzy, but also get bumped around by ending up hitting the raised edges of the wheel! Luckily, nothing like that happened. Well, in closing, The Cheap Show is okay for what it is, which is a game show parody of game shows in general. Because of this, I'm not gonna consider this show one of the worst game shows, but I'm not gonna consider this show one of the best game shows, either. Parody game shows are just not my thing, and if there's a parody game show currently airing on TV, it's not something I would watch on a regular basis. So, if you really like parody game shows, that's fine. I just have a differing opinion and taste in game shows, that's all. 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 May 20, 2016 12:00:25 GMT -5
Hello, there, big game show fans! 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. There are some cases where more than one game show share the exact same title, and even that, they air in different years, have different gameplay, and even air in different networks in the United States. I'll be talking about one of those game shows today. The title that is gonna be the subject of this week's edition is Double Dare. Now, I mentioned that there are two game shows entitled Double Dare back when I talked about Knockout in the previous year. One of them is the popular Nickelodeon game show, while the other is the short-lived CBS game show from the 1970s. The game show with this title that I'm gonna be talking about is the short-lived CBS game show from the 1970s. The Double Dare I'm talking about this week ran from December 13, 1976 to April 29, 1977 on CBS. It was produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, created by Jay Wolpert, hosted by Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, and announced by originally Johnny Olson and later Gene Wood. The game is played by two contestants, each one in a soundproof booth. In this game, a subject that the two contestants have to identify is revealed to the home viewers, with Alex advising the home viewers to close or cover their eyes or look away from their television screens if they want to play along with the contestants, and revealing whether the subject is a person, place, or thing. Afterwards, clues to the subject are revealed on the game board, one at a time, up to ten clues. The clues start out difficult, and as more of the clues are provided, they get easier. Whenever a contestant thinks they know what the subject is, they buzz in, causing their opponent's soundproof booth to close so they can't hear that contestant's guess or see the next clue yet if that contestant makes a correct guess. If a contestant buzzes in and makes an incorrect guess, their soundproof booth is closed, their opponent's soundproof booth is reopened, and their opponent is shown a "penalty clue" and makes a guess. Whether the contestant shown a penalty clue makes a correct guess or an incorrect guess, the contestant who buzzed in with an incorrect guess earlier never sees the penalty clue, that is, unless the contestant shown the penalty clue chooses to dare their opponent to make a guess on that clue. More on that in a minute. If an incorrect guess on a penalty clue is made, the soundproof booth of the contestant who buzzed in with an incorrect guess is reopened, and both contestants are shown more clues to the subject. I suppose the penalty clue doesn't count as one of the ten clues. Anyway, a correct guess on a subject, whether that guess is made on a toss-up clue or a penalty clue, wins a contestant $50 and shows that contestant another clue to that same subject. That contestant has to decide if they want to dare their opponent to guess the subject on that clue and hope that they fail to make a correct guess. If the contestant chooses to dare their opponent to make a guess on that clue, their opponent's booth is reopened, and their opponent is shown that clue and has five seconds to study it before being asked to make a guess. A correct guess made by the dared contestant wins them $50, while an incorrect guess made by them wins the daring contestant $100, closes the dared contestant's soundproof booth, and shows the daring contestant yet another clue to that same subject and gives them the option to double dare their opponent to guess the subject on that clue. This time, if the daring contestant chooses to double dare their opponent to make a guess on that clue, their opponent's booth is once again reopened, and their opponent is shown that clue and, like before, has five seconds to study it before being asked to make a guess, with a correct guess from the dared contestant worth $100 to them and and an incorrect guess from them worth $200 to the daring contestant. If a contestant who is given the option to either dare or double dare their opponent chooses not to do so, play of the subject ends, and another subject comes into play. This is also the case if and when a dared contestant makes a correct guess on a dare or a double dare, a double dare is played--whether the dared contestant makes a correct guess or an incorrect guess--or neither contestant makes a correct guess on the tenth and final toss-up clue. More subjects are played in this manner until one contestant reaches or exceeds $500; as soon as that happens, that contestant wins the game and becomes the champion. Both contestants keep the money they won, but the contestant who won the game advances to the bonus round. The bonus round is called "Beat The Spoilers". The spoilers in this round are a panel of three people who have earned Ph.D. degrees, with each person seated inside a separate soundproof booth. Not only are there three people called "spoilers" in this round, but there is also a board containing eight numbered spaces, with a clue to a subject behind each number. The board for this round is placed in a way that the spoilers can't see it. The round begins with all three of the spoilers' booths closed and a subject revealed at the top of the board. Each of the eight hidden clues to that subject is in a different level of difficulty, but the numbers on the clue spaces on the board do not indicate the difficulty of the eight clues. With the spoilers' booths closed, the winning contestant has to choose a numbered space, and a clue in that space is revealed and read out loud by Alex. Then, the contestant must decide whether to give that clue to the spoilers or pass on that clue. The object of this round is to give four of the clues to a subject to the spoilers and hope that those clues stump at least one of the spoilers. If the contestant decides to give a clue, the spoilers' booths are all opened at the same time so they could hear the clue from Alex, and the booths are then closed and reopened one at a time so that each spoiler can make a guess on a clue without the other spoilers hearing them. If the contestant decides to pass on a clue, that clue is taken out of play, and the contestant has to choose another clue. Because there are eight clues, and the contestant has to give four of those clues to the spoilers, up to four clues can be passed on. Each time a spoiler makes a correct guess on a subject after a clue is given, they receive $100 and sit out the rest of the round, a blue "X" is lit up in front of them, and their soundproof booth remains open for the rest of the round. Each time a spoiler makes an incorrect guess on a subject after a clue is given, the contestant receives $100. If all three spoilers correctly guess the subject, the round is over, and the contestant keeps all the money won up to that point. If at least one spoiler fails to correctly guess the subject after four clues are given, the contestant's bonus round winnings are increased to $5,000. After "Beat The Spoilers", the contestant goes into the champion's soundproof booth and plays another game against a new challenger. A contestant remains on the show as a champion until they are defeated, or until they reach CBS's winnings limit of $25,000. This show also has a straddling format, so an episode of this show ends at any point of the game when time is up, and the game continues right where it left off at the start of the next episode. So, that's Double Dare. While it isn't the Nickelodeon game show of the same name that people know more about, it's still a great game. I have no problems with what is in the show. I find nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with the set, nothing wrong with the host, nothing wrong with the announcers, nothing wrong with the cash prizes, and definitely nothing wrong with the gameplay. Oh, okay, there's just one complaint I have about it, and that's the number of clues to each subject in the main game. It has been said that there are ten clues to each subject in the main game, but it hasn't been specified whether all ten of those clues are toss-ups or the penalty clues, dare clues, or double dare clues are counted as part of those ten clues. I suppose that the penalty clues, dare clues, and double dare clues are counted as part of the ten clues to a subject, since those clues are numbered along with the toss-up clues. There is one person who is involved in both this show and the other show of the same name, and that is Edd Kalehoff, a music composer for these two shows and even more game shows. The theme music composed for this show is not the same one composed for the other show of the same name, but it was later used as the theme for the original version of another production of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman called Card Sharks. This show's other music cues and sound effects were later recycled for other game shows such as The Price Is Right--for two pricing games called Penny Ante and Vend-O-Price--and The Joker's Wild. A pilot episode of the show was taped, and the game there is played exactly the same as in the series. The only difference in the pilot in terms of gameplay is that there are ten clues to a subject in "Beat The Spoilers", and five clues have to be given to the spoilers, meaning that up to five clues can be passed on. This pilot and the series aired on Buzzr, a network founded last year that airs game shows produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman and now owned by FremantleMedia, and the series still airs on that network today. This show also aired on GSN--known back then as Game Show Network--during the mid-to-late 1990s. But before all that, this show replaced another game show on CBS called in the 11:00 AM timeslot, facing a game show on ABC called Wheel Of Fortune. Double Dare didn't do well in its original timeslot, so on March 7, 1977, it was moved to the 10:00 AM timeslot, where it faced reruns of a sitcom on NBC called Sanford And Son. After the run of Double Dare ended with a finale that features suggestive clues to the subject of "a boomerang", it got replaced by reruns of a sitcom called Here's Lucy. And that's all I have to say about Double Dare, the short-lived CBS game show that aired in the 1970s. Next week, I'll be talking about a game show with another title that is shared by more than one game show. You'll know what that title is in next week's edition. 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 May 27, 2016 12:00:26 GMT -5
Hello, everyone. 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. Last week, I talked about one of the game shows that is entitled Double Dare. This week, I'm gonna be talking about one of the game shows that goes by another title. That title is Break The Bank. The Break The Bank that I'm gonna be talking about this week actually started out as a radio show. The radio show had two runs, with the original run lasting from October 20, 1945 to April 13, 1946 on Mutual, and the second run lasting from July 5, 1946 to September 23, 1949 on ABC. The original Mutual run featured different hosts each week, and those hosts included John Reed King and Johnny Olson. The ABC run was hosted entirely by Bert Parks, who was also a full-time host of the Mutual run in 1946. Bud Collyer and Bob Shepherd were the announcers of the radio show. It wasn't until 1948 when this show became a TV show. The TV show had a total of four runs as a primetime game show, with the first two runs being on ABC--with the first of those two runs lasting from October 22, 1948 to September 23, 1949, and the second of those two runs lasting from January 31, 1954 to June 20, 1956--and the last two runs being on NBC--with the first of those two runs lasting from October 5, 1949 to January 9, 1952, and the second of those two runs lasting from June 23, 1953 to September 1 on the same year. Oh, I forgot that the TV show had yet another run as a primetime game show, and that aired on CBS, lasting from January 13, 1952 to February 1, 1953. The TV show also had one run as a daytime game show, and it aired on NBC, lasting from March 30, 1953 to September 18 on the same year. Finally, there's one more run of the show, and it was entitled Break The $250,000 Bank; that version of the show aired on NBC from October 9, 1956 to January 15, 1957. All runs of the TV show were hosted by Bert Parks, except for the daytime version, which was hosted by Bud Collyer, who also assisted Bert Parks from 1948 to 1953. Janice Gilbert was on the TV show as an assistant and a paying teller, Peter Donald and Johnny Olson sub-hosted from 1948 to 1953, Bill Cullen sub-hosted somewhere in August 1954, and Ed Wolf productions packaged the TV show. Whew! That's a lot to say about where and when the show broadcasted, and who was involved with the show in what way. Now, we can get to the most important part of the show, and that's the gameplay. The name of a contestant is read out loud from a card, and that contestant and any family members of theirs come on stage from the studio audience. The game that the contestant plays is a basic question-and-answer game. What the contestant has to do is answer enough questions correctly in a category announced by the host in order to "break the bank"--in other words, win all the money in a jackpot--and that contestant has to do it before answering two questions incorrectly. Originally, a contestant has to answer eight questions correctly in order to win the jackpot. Somewhere in the mid 1950s, the number of correct answers needed to win the jackpot was changed to seven. In the original format, a contestant receives $10 for the first correct answer, and each correct answer thereafter increases that contestant's winnings to $20, $50, $100, $200, $300, $500, and all the money in the bank, in that order. When the format changed, the dollar values are $25, $50, $100, $200, $300, $500, and the bank. In the daytime version, the dollar values are $10, $20, $30, $50, $100, $200, $300, and the bank. In the syndicated versions, the bank starts at $1,000, while in the daytime version, the bank starts at $500. Either way, a contestant's first incorrect answer reduces their cash winnings to the amount in the previous level, and their second incorrect answer ends the game, but they keep their cash winnings won up to that point, and whatever amount of money is won up to that point is matched and added to the bank. If a contestant wins all the money in the bank, the bank in the next game--which is played by another contestant--will be worth its starting value. That's how the game is played until Break The $250,000 Bank, the final version of the show, premiered. The gameplay in Break The $250,000 Bank is a lot different from that in any of the other versions before it. First, a contestant gets to choose a category themselves. Second, the contestant is asked five questions, with each correct answer worth $100. Third, if the contestant answers all five questions correctly, not only do they receive a total of $500, but they also have to decide whether to walk away with that money or risk it on another question, with the correct answer to that question increasing that money to $5,000. Fourth, a contestant who successfully increases their winnings from $500 to $5,000 gets to return to the show later to answer more questions worth $5,000 apiece. Fifth, a contestant's game is over when the contestant either accumulates a total of $250,000 or gives one incorrect answer, with the latter causing that contestant's total winnings to drop back down to the last multiple of $25,000. And sixth, the contestant can go to an area called the "Family Circle" and call upon a member of their family for help if they get stumped on a question. That's Break The Bank. Since this game show premiered in the late 1940s and lasted well through the early to mid 1950s, the cash amounts in all versions before Break The $250,000 Bank are good, and the cash amounts in Break The $250,000 Bank itself are really great. There aren't that many game shows back then that offered cash prizes that big. The gameplay is also good. It's simple to understand how the game is played, and it's a groundbreaking format, considering that the show began in the 1940s. The format of the show would later be carried over to other big-money game shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Weakest Link, 1 Vs. 100, Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, and more game shows like those, all of which had contestants having their cash totals increase to a higher cash amount in the next level in a money chain, a money tree, or a money ladder. All this, however, would be featured first in The $64,000 Question, which was the game show that Break The $250,000 Bank was created to answer to. Before Break The $250,000 Bank premiered, the highest bank won on Break The Bank was $9,020, which was an impressive amount of money for the time. In Break The $250,000 Bank itself, the top cash prize of $250,000 was never won. The highest amount of money won on Break The $250,000 Bank was $60,000, which is less than a quarter of the top cash prize of $250,000, but it was still a good amount of money for the time; that amount of money was won once by a dentist named Dr. Harry Duncan. Other notable contestants on this show are Ethel Waters and two escapees from the Hungarian Revolution that occurred in 1956. Ethel Waters was an actress and vocalist who won $10,000 in January 1957, and she said that the money she won would go toward back taxes. She appeared on the show again on the final episode, and she was announced for a new game show called Hold That Note, which not only replaced Break The $250,000 Bank, but also was hosted by Bert Parks. The two escapees from the 1956 Hungarian Revolution answered questions in a special category called "Fight For Freedom". So, to sum it all up, Break The Bank as a whole was a good game show that lasted a good nine years and yet had several separate runs, it was a good show that aired in the earliest years of television, it was a fresh start to big-money game shows that came after it years later--or even decades later, since big-money game shows were really a very big thing in the late 1990s and the early 2000s--and it was so good that two different board games based on it were released by Bettye-B in 1955. Well, needless to say that without this show having been created, we wouldn't have gotten the big-money game shows I just mentioned and even more. Break The Bank is a title that is not shared by two game shows, but three. The second game show with this title ran in the 1970s, and the third game show with this title ran in the 1980s. I'll get around to talking about those shows in later years here on Game Show Corner. Next week, I'll be talking about one of the game shows that are entitled Camouflage, and that will be the last game show played by adults that I'll be covering in this year on Game Show Corner. Yes, the three game shows that I'll be covering after one of the game shows entitled Camouflage will be game shows played by kids. Keep an eye out for all 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 Jun 3, 2016 12:00:30 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. In the last two editions, I've covered game shows with titles that became titles of other game shows years after those game shows who originally had those titles got cancelled. Those titles were Double Dare and Break The Bank. I'll be covering another game show like that in this week's edition. The game show that I'll be covering today goes by the title of Camouflage. The Camouflage that I'm gonna be talking about this week is a hidden picture game show created by Jerry Hammer that had two runs. The original version ran from January 9, 1961 to November 16, 1962 on ABC, while the revival ran from February 4, 1980 to May 2 on that same year in syndication. The original version was hosted by Don Morrow, announced by Johnny Gilbert, produced by Jerry Hammer, and directed by Gilbert Cates. In some cases, Don would be absent from the show, so Johnny would sub-host for him, while Chet Gould sub-announced for Johnny. The revival was hosted by Tom Campbell, announced by Johnny Jacobs, produced by Chuck Barris, and directed by John "The Fox" Dorsey--who, three years later, went on to direct Hit Man, a game show that I already covered in the previous year. Each version of the show is played differently, but the main objective of the show is the same in both versions of the show. Two contestants are shown a picture with an object hidden within it on a game board, and they have to find the hidden object and trace it using a wand. But the contestants have to earn the right to find and trace the hidden object by answering questions. Whoever answers a question correctly not only earns the right to find and trace the hidden object, but also adds to their score and has parts of the picture removed to have the hidden object de-camouflaged, making it easier for the contestant to find and trace the hidden object. If the contestant tracing a hidden object makes a mistake while tracing that hidden object, the other contestant adds to their score and gets to find and trace the hidden object. While tracing a hidden object, the contestant tracing only needs to trace the outline of that hidden object and not the details in it. The first contestant to correctly trace the hidden object wins. In the original version, each contestant has their own board showing the same picture with the same hidden object, and the two contestants can't see each other's boards. All questions are true-or-false, each question has a point value that starts at 10 points and drops by 1 point for every half a second that goes by, and a contestant answers a question by secretly locking it in on their podium, which causes the point value to stop dropping. Before any questions are asked, the contestants are shown the same picture on their boards, told what object to find, and given a chance to find that object to win the top prize. At this point, the game has a point value that is at 200 points. From there, the point value of that game drops by 10 points for every unsuccessful attempt at tracing an object. With the questions, a contestant scores the frozen point value for locking in with the correct answer and earns them the right to find and trace the hidden object on their board. But if a contestant locks in with the incorrect answer, the other contestant scores the points and earns the right to find and trace the hidden object on their own board. If a contestant tracing makes a mistake, the other contestant scores 10 points and gets to trace the hidden object on their own board. If neither contestant locks in with an answer before the point value reaches zero, no points are scored, and having this happen three times causes a penalty to the champion. A contestant who has scored points from a question and earned the right to find and trace a hidden object has the option to pass and win more questions in order to get even more parts of the picture to be removed before deciding to find and trace that hidden object. Also, after a contestant scores 30 points, they are shown exactly what the object they are looking for looks like. The first contestant to successfully trace the hidden object on their board wins the game and scores the point value of the game at that point. The winner receives a prize depending on the total of points scored from winning the questions and winning the game; the more points scored, the more valuable the prize. Also, the winner plays another game against another contestant. After an unspecified amount of games are played, the contestant with the highest single-game score becomes that day's winner and plays the bonus round. If time runs out in the middle of a game, the hidden object is revealed to both contestants on their screens, and the contestants playing that game play another game against each other on the next episode. In the bonus round, the day's overall winner is shown one more picture, and they have fifteen seconds to trace the announced hidden object. There are no questions, and no parts of the picture are removed to de-camouflage the hidden object. If the contestant successfully traces the hidden object before either time runs out or a mistake is made, they win a car and retire from the show undefeated. If they fail to trace the hidden object, they return on the next episode and play another game in order to earn the right to play for the car again. A contestant who fails to win the car five times retires from the show undefeated with the prizes they have won in all the games they have won against their opponents. That's the original version. Now, we're gonna go straight to the revival. The revival has only one board, and the contestants see pictures and hidden objects on the same board. Also, correct answers and and succesfully-traced hidden objects are worth money. About the questions, some of them have two answers to choose from and other have contestants come up with answers on their own, but the questions are barely, if never, true-or-false. The contestants also buzz in and say out loud what they think the correct answers to questions are. And the contestants are shown what the object they are looking for looks like at the start of the game after the picture that the object is hidden in, but they don't get a chance to find and trace the hidden object before they are asked any questions. Most of the time, the object the contestants are looking for is not shown until after two questions are answered correctly. Each time a contestant buzzes in and gives a correct answer to a question, they receive $50 and have the option to find and trace a hidden object after parts of a picture are removed or pass. But each time a contestant buzzes in and gives a wrong answer, the other contestant is asked the next question and the only one who gets to answer it. If the contestant chooses to find and trace the hidden object and makes a mistake, more parts of the picture are removed, and the other contestant gets to find and trace the hidden object. Whoever successfully finds and traces the hidden object wins a pre-determined amount of cash. This version has two formats. In the first format, each game has a pre-determined amount of cash ranging from $200 to $1,000, and the bonus round is played after each game. In the second format, the game is played tournament-style, with two contestants playing the first game, two more contestants playing the second game, the winner of each game playing the bonus round for an additional $1,000, and the winners of those two games playing against each other in the third game, with the winner of the third game being the day's overall winner and playing the bonus round for a car. This time, the pre-determined amounts of cash for each game range from $200 to $500. However, regardless of the format in this version, the dollar values of questions and games never drop. The bonus round in this version is played exactly the same way it was played in the original version. The big difference here is that there is no time limit. Other differences is that the bonus round is played three times in each episode, with a car being played for in every bonus round in the first format, and an additional $1,000 in cash being played for in the first two bonus rounds and a car being played for in the third bonus round in the second format. Also, in the first format, each time a contestant fails to win a car in the bonus round, they play another game against a new contestant in order to earn the right to play for the car again. And in that same format, if a contestant wins a car in the first or second bonus round, the next game is played by two new contestants. And that's Camouflage. Whether it's the original version or the revival that I'm watching on YouTube, the overall gameplay is actually good. It's not what I would say is the best gameplay I've seen in a game show, but I would still say that it's good. It's a neat puzzle game that is a test of observation, with the main game that starts off really challenging and becomes easier as it progresses, and a bonus round that is always challenging. Out of the two versions of the show, I prefer the revival, specifically the second format. I like the second format of the revival more than the first format of the revival and the original because it has the best way of keeping each episode of the show self contained, and that is by having the game played tournament-style. The fact that in the original version, a contestant plays against a new challenger after every game they win, not to mention that the bonus round is not played until the end of the show by the contestant who has scored the most points in one game, just does not work for me. Also, the fact that in the first format of the revival, a contestant plays another game against another contestant each time they fail to win a car in the bonus round and remain a contestant on the same episode of that show until they win the car, lose a game, or win the third and final game of the episode, doesn't do it well for me, especially when during the entirety of the revival's run, it aired on a weekly basis, and there's no continuity between the episodes, unlike the original version, which aired on a daily basis and does have continuity between the episodes. If there's gonna be another version of the show, then they should have the same two contestants play against each other for an entire episode, and have those two contestants play a set number of pictures--maybe three--with the contestant with the highest score after all those pictures playing the bonus round. And if there's gonna be another version with returning champions, then they should have a contestant working with the same picture for the entirety of their champion, with portions of a picture being removed each time a champion fails to win the bonus round and makes a return trip there, and the hidden object never revealed to them whenever they fail to win the bonus round until they win the bonus round, while the studio audience and home viewers are shown exactly what the hidden object looks like and where exactly that hidden object is in the picture. Also, I don't think anyone has found and traced a hidden object before the questions in the original version, because a hidden object could easily blend into a picture due to how detailed that picture is. One had to be the keenest of sight, just like Ono from The Lion Guard, in order to find and successfully trace a hidden object before any questions are asked and win the top prize. Oh, and about the tracing, I'm glad that there's no time limit in tracing in the bonus round in the revival, because tracing a hidden object with a wand, no matter which version or round it's done in, takes a lot of time and concentration, and it doesn't seem like something that should be done in a short amount of time, which was something expected to be done in the bonus round in the original version. Whether any contestants in the original version have won the top prize by finding and successfully tracing the hidden object before any questions can be asked will remain a mystery, because most of the episodes of this version are likely to have been destroyed. Only two or three episodes of this version still exist, while all thirteen episodes of the revival still exist and have been shown in reruns on GSN in the 1990s back when that network was known as Game Show Network. Speaking of Game Show Network, a show on that network called Faux Pause, which has a format similar to that of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and aired back in 1998, features an episode of the revival of Camouflage in the first format. Also, while still on the subject of GSN, the second game show that goes by the title of Camouflage aired on that network back in 2007. The original version of Camouflage was originally in the Noon timeslot, and it originally had a thirty-minute runtime. On July 2, 1962, the show was moved into the 12:30 PM timeslot, and just like Blank Check--which I already covered six weeks ago--the runtime was cut to twenty-five minutes, and a five-minute newscast aired in the last five minutes of the half-hour. The revival of Camouflage was the last nighttime game show to air once a week, as many other game shows at the time switched to airing every weekday, and it was the first Chuck Barris-produced game show revival and the replacement of the last Chuck Barris-produced original game show that was the original version of Three's A Crowd, which I already covered in the previous year. So, there you have it. Camouflage the hidden picture game show has now been covered, and Camouflage is the third game show title shared by more than one game show that I covered here in a row. Next time, I'll be covering one more game show with a title shared by more than one game show. Also, like I mentioned in last week's edition, Camouflage the hidden picture game show is the last game show played by adults that I'll be covering here in year two on Game Show Corner. The next three game shows that I'll be covering here are played by children, so join me next time when I cover a game show that goes by the title of Pictionary. I'm really looking forward to 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 Jun 10, 2016 12:00:32 GMT -5
Hey, kids! 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. Well, here we are again. We've reached the time of the year where all the kids can start having a lot of fun and not think about school for a few months. So, like I said in last week's edition, I'll be covering game shows played by children for the rest of year two on Game Show Corner, and this one game show that I'm gonna be covering this week is gonna be the fourth and final game show in a row to go by a title that is shared by more than one game show, with the last three I covered going by the titles of Double Dare, Break The Bank, and Camouflage, in that order. The game show that I'm gonna be covering today goes by the title of Pictionary. The Pictionary that I'm gonna be covering today is a children's game show based on the board game of the same name, and it is one of the many game shows that lasted only one season consisting of 65 episodes. It aired in syndication from June 1989 to September on that same year. It was one of the game shows produced by Dan Enright after Jack Barry died. Yeah, we're back to good old Dan Enright, though I'm not really surprised about this, considering that not only have I actually planned to cover this show this week, but I also occasionally jumped into a game show that Dan Enright produced without Jack Barry in the past few months. Now, not only was this show produced by Dan Enright, but it was also produced by Quantum Media Incorporated--or QMI Television--and distributed by MCA TV--one of the predecessors of NBCUniversal Television Distribution. It was hosted by Brian Robbins, announced by Harry Stevens, and co-hosted by Felicity--whose real name is Julie Friedman--and Judge Mental--whose real name is Rick Zumwalt. What Felicity does is present categories, reveal clues and subjects, and keep score. What Judge Mental does is explain the rules of each round in the main game and makes sure that the contestants don't break the rules. By the way, Felicity is like the Vanna White of this show, and Judge Mental is like the "bad guy", because everytime he is introduced and turned over to explain the rules of the rounds in the main game, he gets booed at by the studio audience. The game is played by two teams of three, with one team being the blue team and the other team being the red team. The two teams play three rounds, each of which involves them drawing on a telestrator, with everything drawn on a telestrator appearing on the game board for their teammates to see and make guesses on. At the start of round one, Felicity holds up two cards, each one with a category written on it. One of the teams will be drawing and guessing answers in one of the categories, but the category they will be playing will be chosen by the other team. After the team in turn has a category chosen for them, they have 60 seconds to draw and guess as many answers as they can in that category. When that team's time starts, the three team members take turns running to the telestrator and drawing on it. While a team member is drawing on the telestrator, their teammates make as many guesses as they need to until they make a correct guess or a rule is broken, but each drawing can be spent on for up to 20 seconds. After each drawing, the team member at the telestrator runs back to the team's podium, and the next team member in line runs to the telestrator to draw another answer. After that team's time runs out, they are shown two more categories to choose from, and the other team draws and guesses answers in that category in their turn. After each team has played a category, whichever team has guessed the most drawings correctly scores 10 points. In case of a tie, the two teams score 10 points each. In round two, each team has seven drawings to work with, all of which are clues to a puzzle. On a team's turn, only one team member does the drawing, and they are shown the clues on seven separate cards to draw by Brian in random order. Each clue has a number from one to seven, and each number is announced by Brian as the team member at the telestrator begins drawing the clue accompanying that number. Each time a clue is correctly guessed, a space on a board is flipped over by Felicity to reveal that clue. The team in turn has 60 seconds to reveal as many clues on the board as possible, and after time runs out, they get to solve the puzzle using the revealed clues. If that team succeeds, they score 10 points; but if they fail, the other team has 30 seconds to draw and guess as many of the remaining clues as possible, and that other team gets to solve the puzzle and score the 10 points after that. Two puzzles are played, so a team can score up to 20 points in this round. Round three is a speed round that lasts for 1 minute and 30 seconds. For the entirety of this round, one member in each team both take turns drawing on the telestrator. Just like in round one, each drawing can be spent on for up to 20 seconds. What the guessing members of the two teams have to do is buzz in and guess what's being drawn. Each time a team buzzes in with an incorrect guess, the other team gets to make as many guesses as they need to within the remaining time of the 20 seconds on the drawing in play. After time for the round is up, whichever team has guessed the most drawings correctly scores 30 points. In case of a tie, the two teams score 30 points each. After three rounds, the team with the most points wins the game, and each team member receives a prize. If the game ends with a score of 60 to nothing, the members of the winning team each receive an additional prize. Also, the winning team advances to the bonus round called "Waterworks". The set is given a big change for the bonus round called "Waterworks". What the winning team has to do is uncover as much of a caricature drawing of a famous person and guess who that person is. The caricature drawing is behind one side of a clear water tank that is filled with different-colored plastic balls. The three members of the winning team each has a different task to get water into the tank so that the balls in it will rise up, revealing part of the caricature drawing. The first team member is in a booth that has two hoses in it, and they have to connect the two hoses so that water goes to a tank above the second team member, who is wearing a pair of springy eyeglasses and has to hold one of several water pitchers above their head and use it to catch the water coming out of the tank. When the second team member thinks they have caught enough water, they hand the water-filled pitcher to the third team member, who is wearing a pair of flippers and has to take the water-filled pitcher to the water tank and pour the water into the water tank, making some of the balls in the water tank rise up to reveal part of the caricature drawing. After all the water in the pitcher has been poured into the water tank, the third team member spreads the risen balls off the tank and returns the pitcher to the second team member and takes another water-filled pitcher from them. The team has 90 seconds to collect as much water as possible and use it to reveal as much of the caricature drawing as possible. After the 90 seconds, all three members of the team get together in front of the caricature drawing and have 10 seconds to think about their guess on the caricature drawing and make their guess afterwards. If the team correctly guesses the person in the caricature drawing, each member receives the grand prize. And that's Pictionary. Before I share my thoughts on the show, I must say that Felicity was absent for some of the weeks of the show's run, leaving Brian to take over Felicity's duties for her during the weeks she was absent, and towards the end of the show's run, one member in each team is a child star, and they took over drawing duties for the entirety of round three. Now, I can get to sharing my thoughts on the show. I find the gameplay to be a mixed bag. Having teams draw answers in categories chosen for them by their opponents in round one is good, but having members of a team running to the telestrator and back to that team's podium doesn't sit right with me; I just find that a waste of a team's total time. The way round two is played is something that actually could've been done in the bonus round, as the way the bonus round is actually played has a winning team wasting a lot of water to reveal parts of a caricature drawing and not doing any drawing themselves whatsoever. I think round two should be played the same way as round one. The way round three is played is what I will say is something the show has done right. The scoring doesn't seem to be good, either; A team only scores points by guessing the most drawings correctly or ending up in a tie with the other team in rounds one and three, and correctly solving puzzles in round two. I think it would be better if a team simply scores points for every drawing they guess correctly. I also have some mixed feelings with the amount of time that can be spent on a drawing. I think it makes sense for each drawing being spent on for up to 20 seconds in round one, since in that round, each team has a turn that lasts one minute, and that gives each and every team member a chance to work on at least one drawing at the telestrator. That way, a team doesn't stay on one drawing for too long, and it wouldn't seem as if that team is getting nowhere because of it. The time limit for each drawing in round three doesn't seem to sit right with me, because when a team buzzes in and makes an incorrect guess, the other team has the unfair advantage of making as many guesses as they wish within the remainder of the 20 seconds on that drawing. Besides, round three is a speed round, so there should be many drawings worked on within no more than 10 seconds for each one. I think what should've been done in this round is have one member of one team work on a drawing for up to 5 seconds before that drawing is cleared from the telestrator and game board if neither team buzzes in to guess that drawing, and if a team does buzz in to guess that drawing, and they are incorrect, the other team should have only five seconds to make one guess and one guess only. And since there are three rounds in the main game and three members in each team, each member in each team should take over drawing duties for the entirety of one round. Another thing I want to say about this show, now, is the set. It looks cheap and crude. Let's start with what is used to keep score. Most productions of Jack Barry and Dan Enright that came before this one, if not all of them, have eggcrate displays, and those displays that were used for keeping score on those shows were on the front of the contestants' podiums. But in this show, scores are kept by a turn of one of two knobs on a container, causing blue or red plastic beads to be poured in until they reach the number of points a team has scored in total. They must have wasted the technology used for this show on the telestrator and the game board, which are used for drawing and seeing the drawings. The telestrator and the game board are the next two things that I'll be moving on to. This is a show that is based on a board game that is all about drawing. I'll admit that it's incredible to see such technology used for drawing in a game show in 1989, but I don't think that kind of technology was ready to be used for any show back then. And when drawings appear on the game board, it would be difficult for some people to see exactly what is being drawn or decipher what it is, and that is because of the multi-colored gradient background on the monitor of the game board. The game would've been better off with the teams using pens and paper instead of a telestrator and a game board. The other game show that is entitled Pictionary, which premiered in 1997, has pens and paper that teams use for drawing, so why not on this show? Maybe, for this show, they use a telestrator and a game board instead of pens and paper to save trees, or because they may not have enough paper to last the entire run or even an entire episode. Hey, it's a Dan Enright-produced game show that aired years after Jack Barry died, so that could have been the case. Now, the setup for the bonus round. It's just as tacky as everything else on the set, and it wastes a lot of water. So, they decided that it is best not to waste one single sheet of paper for this show, but it's best to waste several pitchers of water? Again, this is a show that is based on a board game that is all about drawing! What does water have anything to do with drawing?! Another thing about this show is that each time it goes into a commercial break, a drawing is given to the home viewers via superimposed graphics, and after the show comes back from a commercial break, the correct answer to the given drawing is written via superimposed graphics. Pictionary in 1989 isn't really that great of a game show, but Brian, Julie, and Rick did well with what they had to work with. After this show, Brian went on to produce a sketch show on Nickelodeon called All That and direct a movie based on one of the sketches on that show, and that movie is called Good Burger. Brian would also move on to produce sports films such as Coach Carter and Hardball, and produce TV shows such as Smallville and One Tree Hill. In 2012, Brian founded a company and YouTube channel called AwesomenessTV, which, a year later, had its own TV show of the same, with Brian himself being the creator and executive producer of. And right now, Brian is producing a film adaptation of a novel called Before I Fall, which will be released later this year. So, Brian has been doing very well with himself after Pictionary. Rick, who was a professional arm wrestler, later went on to appear in an episode of a sitcom called Night Court, play a small role of one of the henchmen of the Penguin in Batman Returns, and become an active member in a clean and sober fellowship and being in service to those who are suffering from substance abuse, all before he died at age 51 on March 19, 2003 after suffering from a major heart attack. It is unknown as of today what Julie went on to do after Pictionary, but it is known that Dan Enright later went on to produce Hold Everything!, All About The Opposite Sex--both of which I already covered here--and the Patrick Wayne-hosted revival of Tic Tac Dough before Barry & Enright Productions folded. A year after the company was folded, Dan married former Wheel Of Fortune co-host Susan Stafford, who was employed by him as vice president of that company. The marriage was short-lived, though, as Dan died of cancer at age 74 on May 22, 1992. Well, that's it. Pictionary is the last title shared by more than one game show that is covered here for now. We're coming down to the final two game shows for me to cover here in year two of Game Show Corner, people. Not only will both of these shows be game shows played by children, but they will also be game shows that aired back-to-back in weekly syndication in the summer of 1988. Those two game shows will be Treasure Mall and Slime Time, and I will conclude year two of Game Show Corner by covering those two game shows in that order. See you in the following two weeks! 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 Jun 17, 2016 12:00:56 GMT -5
Hey, kids! How was your year in school, and what plans do you have for the summer? I'm no stranger to you; I'm Flo, 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. Well, for this edition, I'm heading to the mall. Well, not just any mall. It's a mall that I mentioned at the end of last week's edition. It's a mall that is really a game show played by children back in 1988. It's a mall that was paired up with another game show I mentioned at the end of last week's edition and will be covering next week in the year two finale of Game Show Corner. It's a mall called Treasure Mall. Treasure Mall aired on Saturdays in syndication from June 11, 1988 to September 3 on that same year. It was hosted by Hal Sparks, announced by Ed Mackay, created by Ellen Levy, produced by OKT Productions, Saban Productions--which also produced I'm Telling!, a game show I already covered in the previous year--and Fiedler/Berlin Productions, Inc.--which, two years later, produced Trump Card, a game show I already covered earlier in this year--and distributed by Access Syndication. This show was paired up with another game show called Slime Time, which I'll get to covering next week in the year two finale of this series. The game is played by two teams, with each team consisting of one boy and one girl. The members of one team wear red jumpsuits, while the members of the other team wear aqua jumpsuits. The two teams play two rounds, and each round is split in two halves. In the first half of each round, the two teams are asked multiple-choice survey questions answered by groups of kids before the show, with each question having three answers to choose from. All four contestants each lock in an answer that they think is made the most popular by the surveyed kids by pressing a button on their team's podium. The multiple-choice answers on each question and the buttons on the teams' podiums are labeled A, B, and C. After all four contestants have locked in their answers, the answer made the most popular by the surveyed kids is revealed, and each team scores one point for each member who has locked in with that answer. Survey questions are asked until one team reaches five points or more, and the team that does that first wins the right to enter one of the stores in the Treasure Mall in the second half of the round. If the first half of the round ends in a tie, then more survey questions are asked until only one team ends up in the lead on their own. Each store in the Treasure Mall is divided into four sections and has sixteen coins hidden in it, with four coins hidden in each section of a store. The stores in the Treasure Mall are the toy store, the music & video store, the adventure store, and the fashion boutique, just to name a few. In the second half of each round the team that has won the first half of it goes into one of the stores in the Treasure Mall with Hal. The store the team will be going to in the Treasure Mall is announced by Ed. What the team has to do in the store is search each of the four sections for coins and drop all the coins found into a bucket held by Hal, all in a total of 100 seconds. Each section of the store is searched by one member of the team for 25 seconds, with one member of the team searching the first and third sections, and the other member of the team searching the second and fourth sections. Whenever time runs out in a section, a bell is heard, and the clock resets to 25 seconds for the next section and starts counting down immediately. Every coin found has to be dropped into the bucket in order for it to count. After time runs out in the fourth section, a buzzer sounds, and Hal counts up all the coins dropped into the bucket. After all the coins in the bucket are counted up, the team receives two prizes depending on how many coins collected and dropped into the bucket; the more coins collected and dropped into the bucket, the more valuable the prizes. If the team collects all sixteen coins and have them all dropped into the bucket, they receive the two most valuable prizes up for grabs. After two rounds, the team that has collected the most coins wins the game...well, that's the case if each team has won one question round. If one team wins both question rounds, however, they automatically win the game, but they still have to go into the announced store and do some coin-searching there after winning the second question round. If each team has won one question round, and the two teams are tied for most coins, more survey questions are asked until the tie is broken. The winning team advances to the bonus round. The bonus round is played in the center of the mall where Hal's podium and the team's podiums are. In the bonus round, there are gift boxes scattered all over the center of the mall and a treasure chest, and inside every gift box is a key. What the winning team has to do is open as many gift boxes as they can and drop the keys found in those gift boxes into a bucket held by Hal. Just like with the coins found in sections of the stores in the main game, every key found has to be dropped into the bucket in order for it to count. The team has 30 seconds to collect as many keys as they can. After time runs out, Hal uses every key collected by the team to try opening the treasure chest. If one of the keys collected by the team opens the chest, the teams win a grand prize package. But if none of the keys collected by the team opens the chest, the team wins a $50 gift certificate for each key found and dropped into the bucket. And that's Treasure Mall. Well, this game seems to be okay. It's a game show with a mall theme, which makes it cool, but the question portion of each round seems kinda flawed, the coin collecting in the stores reminds me of the room searching in Finders Keepers, and the bonus round is kinda weak. I think for the question portion of each round, the team that won it should do a search for coins in a store first, not only, and the other team should do a search for coins in another store afterwards. That way, each team gets a chance to search a store in each round, and the win will be fairly determined by whichever team has collected the most coins. And because of this, the time spent on each store should be reduced in order to conserve time of the half hour to 15 seconds on each section of a store, making it exactly 1 minute on each store overall. And if the question portion of a round ends in a tie, the tie should've been broken by the team who locked in with the correct answers the fastest. Finally, in the bonus round, all a team does is open boxes to collect keys, and Hal tries those keys out to open a treasure chest. Now, I think searching for the key that will open the treasure chest is a great goal for a winning team to reach in order to win a grand prize package is good, but it would've been better if the keys were hidden in a variety of spots in the mall and not just inside boxes. That probably would've made the bonus round more exciting. After Treasure Mall, Hal Sparks went on to host Talk Soup on E!, play the role of Michael Novotny in Queer As Folk on Showtime, play the role of Donald Davenport in Lab Rats on Disney XD, and provide the voice of a machine called "Mr. Q" in the GSN original 20Q, based on an electronic game of the same name originally from Radica and now from Techno Source. So, there you go. I've said all that needed to be said about Treasure Mall. Now, remember to join me for the year two finale of Game Show Corner. That's when I'll be covering Slime Time. After that, I'll put the series on hiatus so I can enjoy the summer, and I'll start year three of the series on the first Friday of fall. So, yeah. I'm really looking forward to next week's edition, and it'll probably turn out good. Don't miss 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 Jun 24, 2016 12:00:40 GMT -5
Hello, once again, kids! Great to see you all here. Welcome to the year two finale of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Okay, everybody, here it is. After covering Treasure Mall last week, it's time now to cover the game show what was paired up with it. The game show is referred to as the messiest half hour on television and a ripoff of Double Dare...the Nickelodeon game show, I mean, not the one from the 1970s, which I already covered five weeks ago. The game show is Slime Time. Slime Time aired back-to-back with Treasure Mall on Saturdays in syndication from June 11, 1988 to September 3 on that same year. It was hosted by Marty Cohen--who, for some reason, is dressed as a referee--announced by Dean Goss--who was also the announcer of I'm Telling!, a game show I already covered in the previous year--produced by Hunt-Jaffe Productions and OKT Productions, and distributed by Access Syndication. The game is played by two teams of four, with all four members of each team representing their school. Each team consists of three students and one teacher, with the students standing behind the team's podium and the teacher sitting on a chair on the downstage side of the team's podium. The two teams wear Jerzees sweatsuits, with one team wearing red sweatsuits and the other team wearing blue sweatsuits. The two teams play three rounds, where they get a chance to win cash and prizes by answering questions and playing stunts. Each episode begins with Marty facing the camera and speaking directly to it. Then, Marty explains the opening stunt, which always involves all four members of each team digging in plates or bowls of a specific kind of food with only their mouths to take a specific object out of that food while keeping their hands behind their backs. Examples of such opening stunts are taking spiders out of bowls of curds and whey, taking flies out of bowls of soup, and taking worms out of pies, with all the bugs being fake, of course. The first team to have all four members each hold the found object in their mouth wins the opening stunt and scores $25. After the opening stunt, the teams go to their podiums and chairs, Marty goes to his podium--which is between the teams' podiums--Dean announces the name of the show and introduces Marty, and round one begins. Does all this sound familiar? This opening stunt is similar to the toss-up challenge in round one of Double Dare! In Double Dare, each episode begins with Marc Summers facing the camera and saying "On your mark...get set...go!", and the two teams play a toss-up challenge after that to determine who will be in control at the start of round one, while at the same time, Harvey explains how the toss-up challenge in play and announces the name of the show. After the toss-up challenge is completed by one of the teams, the two teams go to their podiums, Marc goes to his podium--which is between the teams' podiums--Harvey introduces Marc, and the questions in round one begin being asked to the team in control of that round. So, yeah. Slime Time has a cold opening that is a ripoff of that of Double Dare. After the opening stunt, the three rounds are played. In each of the first two rounds, one student from each team goes to Marty's podium where they are asked questions until one of them buzzes in to answer, and whoever buzzes in with the correct answer scores cash for their team and gets to choose one of six parts of a giant head behind Marty called Mr. Slimehead to determine what stunt will be played by the two teams for more money. But if the student who buzzes in is incorrect, the money and the choice of part of Mr. Slimehead goes to the student on the other team. The student who has earned the right to choose a part of Mr. Slimehead must choose either eye, either ear, or either nostril. After the choice of part of Mr. Slimehead is made, Mr. Slimehead sticks out his tongue, which has a card from the chosen part of him on it, and Marty takes the card and reads the name of the stunt on that card. Some of the cards in Mr. Slimehead have names of prizes on them along with the name of the stunts. If the part of Mr. Slimehead chosen has a card with the name of a prize on it, a bell rings, and the student who has chosen that part of Mr. Slimehead wins the prize for their team. After the chosen stunt is read aloud by Marty, the two teams go back to the front of the stage to play the stunt. Most of the stunts played in this game are played within a time limit of 20 seconds, while other stunts are race stunts with no time limit. Some of the stunts played in rounds one and two are as follows: Peanut Butter Sandwich - The teachers put on ponchos, while the students smear peanut butter on their teachers' ponchos, and stick slices of bread on the peanut buttered ponchos. Whichever team has the most slices of bread stuck to their teacher's poncho at the end of the stunt--not counting the slices of bread that are stuck to other slices of bread instead of the teacher's poncho--wins. Stitch In Time - Each team's teacher is given a long piece of string, and they have to drop one end of the string all the way down into their shirts without lifting them. Then, the teacher must pass the dropped end of the string to one of their students, who must also drop it into their own shirt and pass it to the next student in line, and so on. After all four members of a team has the one end of the string dropped all the way down into their shirts, the third student has to bring that end of the string who then has to hook the string together. The first team to have all four members stringed up wins. Leave It To Beaver With - Each team's teacher has a five-pound kosher salami that is set up to look like a tree, and they have to gnaw on the salami under a yellow line marked on it. To add mess to the stunt, potato salad, cole slaw, mustard, and parsley is placed all around the bottom of the teachers' salamis where they have to be gnawed on; all this stuff added to the salamis is to represent foliage. The first team to have their teacher gnaw on the salami in the area below the line enough to make it fall over--even though the salamis are held up by a couple of members of the show's staff--wins. Cymbal Of My Love - Each team's teacher stands inside a plastic kiddie pool and is given a pair of cymbals. The students toss balloons filled with messy surprises to their teachers while standing behind lines, and the teachers have to use the cymbals to catch the balloons and drop them into the pools. The cymbals have pins around the edges, so the balloons can be popped and get the teachers messy if they are caught by the edges of the cymbals. A balloon has to hit the cymbals before being dropped into a pool in order to count. Whichever team has the most unpopped balloons caught and dropped into their pool wins. Dumbo Meets Pinocchio - The teachers have elephant trunks velcroed around their noses, while the students have long puppet noses velcroed around their noses. Each teacher has a ring placed on their elephant trunk, and they have to pass it to one of their students using only their elephant trunk, and that student has to use only their long puppet nose to take the ring and pass it to the next student in line, and so on. After the third student takes the ring, they have to slide it down from their long puppet nose and into a basket. The first team to have all four members passing their ring and putting it in the basket, all using only their velcroed noses, wins. Pie In The Sky - This stunt is played by the teachers only. Each teacher rides a tricycle to a table that has six pies on it and picks up one pie by the cherry with their mouth. Then, they have to ride their tricycles to another table with the pie in their mouth and place that pie down there. The first teacher to get all three of their pies delivered from one table to the other wins for their team. Chicken Little - Each team has a tub filled with mashed potatoes, and hidden somewhere in the mashed potatoes are rubber chickens. All four members of each team has to dig their hands into their mashed potato-filled tub and search for the rubber chickens. The first team to have all four members each take a rubber chicken out of their mashed potato-filled tub and hold it up wins. Can You Top This? - This stunt is played the same way as "Pie In The Sky", except the students are involved as well. On one side of the set are two tables where the students stand behind with cans of whipped cream, and on the other side of the set is one table where there are bowls of ice cream and the teachers are on tricycles. The teachers have to pick up their bowls of ice cream with their mouths and take them to their teams' tables by riding their tricycles, and the students have to top the ice cream sundaes with, and the teachers have to take the topped sundaes back to the table they were picked up from. The first team to have all three of their ice cream sundaes to get topped and brought back to the table they were brought from wins. Snake Pit - Each member on each team is given a snake-in-a-can, and they have to open the can, letting out the spring snake in it and onto the floor, before the stunt begins. What the teams have to do then is pick up the snakes they let out earlier and put it back in the can, close the cans, and hold the cans up in the air. The snakes for the teachers to pick up and put back in their cans have foam sprayed all over them. The first team to have all four members put all their snakes back in their cans, close their cans, and hold their cans up in the air wins. Tanks A Lot - Each team has a fish tank filled with messy, gungy stuff instead of water. Right before the stunt, oil is poured all over the gunge. What the teams have to do in this stunt is dig their hands into the mess in their tanks and search for sea creature figures. Whatever sea creature figures the teams find have to be taken out of the tanks and placed into separate clear containers. The team with the most sea creature figures taken out of their tanks and placed in their containers at the end of the stunt wins. Other figures such as treasure chests are mixed in with the sea creature figures, but they do not count. Up To Your Elbows - The teachers each have a pair of small cymbals strapped to their elbows. Just like in "Cymbal Of My Love", the cymbals have pins around the edges. The students toss balloons filled with messy surprises, also like in "Cymbal Of My Love", and the teachers have to pop the balloons by catching them with their cymbals. The team that has the most balloons popped at the end of the stunt wins. Butterflies Are Free - The teachers stand back-to-back, with each of them holding a net, while the students blow straw wrappers from the straws to the teachers while standing behind lines. What the teachers have to do is use their nets to catch as many launched straw wrappers as they can. The teacher who catches the most straw wrappers with their net wins for their team. Whichever team has the most success at the end of the stunt, or the first team to complete the stunt, scores cash. If a stunt ends in a tie, the two teams score the full amount of cash each. After the stunt, the teams go back to their podiums and chairs, and another student from each team goes to Marty's podium and buzzes in to answer another question. After the second stunt is played, a buzzer is heard, indicating that the round is over. Questions and stunts are each worth $25 in round one and $50 in round two. Round three is the third and final round in the entire show. In this round, the students buzz in and answer questions from their teams' podiums, while the teachers are each placed in one side of the area in the back of Mr. Slimehead called the "slime chamber". Before the show goes into a commercial break after the previous round, Mr. Slimehead revolves 180 degrees to reveal the slime chamber, which has a big faucet that moves back and forth and two light meters that keep score in hundreds. Each question in this round is worth $100. Just like with the questions in the first two rounds, a team scores the money by buzzing in with the correct answer to a question, but if they buzz in with an incorrect answer, the other team scores the money. This round is played until one team reaches $1,000 or more; the team that does that first wins the game, and the faucet turns to the teacher from the losing team and dumps slime all over them. Regardless of the outcome of the game, both teams keep all the prizes they have won in the first two rounds, if any, but the winning team keeps the money and receives a grand prize package, while the losing team receives a smaller prize package. And that's Slime Time. Well, there's really not much I can say about the gameplay, except that too much of it is ripped off from Double Dare. Just like Double Dare, this show begins with a cold open where two teams play an opening stunt--which doesn't determine anything but which team introduces themselves first, so it has no real reason to be there, to begin with--the two teams are positioned at either side of the host, members of a team are dressed in either red or blue, and the teams score money by answering questions and playing stunts for the first two rounds, each of which ends when a buzzer sounds. And this is another problem I want to address about this show; in every children's game show that has contestants score cash in the main game, all the contestants keep the money they have scored, regardless of the outcome of the game, but not here. In this game, only the winning team keeps the money they have scored. That doesn't seem right. Since this is a children's game show, it should either have both teams keep all the money they have scored or go the usual children's game show route and have both teams score points instead of money. And even though each team has one adult and three children playing this game, it's still technically a children's game show, since the children play more active roles in the game than the adults do. And people say that Fun House is a ripoff of Double Dare? Fun House is completely original compared to Slime Time. I'll go into further detail on Fun House in a later year. Well, that's it. I'm now finished talking about Slime Time. Now, I'd like to take this time to say that this has been another good year of Game Show Corner, for I was able to share with you guys another 40 game shows that not many people may have heard of, go into detail about those game shows, and share my thoughts about them. So, that brings the total game show count here on Game Show Corner to 80. It's a lot, but there's still hundreds of rare game shows to cover here. We haven't reached 100 yet. We'll reach the 100th edition of Game Show Corner in the next year. And who knows? I'll probably have a character as a special guest over to talk about a game show with me by then, just like I had Thunderbolt over as a special guest earlier this year when That's My Dog! was covered. We'll find out when we reach the halfway point of year three of Game Show Corner. Just like in this year and in the previous year, some of the game shows that I'll be covering in the next year will be good, while others that I'll be covering then will be bad, and others that I'll be covering then will be somewhere down the middle of the road. And there's something else I have been thinking about doing for the next year; what I have been thinking about doing for then is doing a co-op on a game show with another member of this forum who may know about that game show more than I do. I probably will make that happen, just as long as that game show this person and I will be covering is an American game show, that game show hasn't been in production in at least ten years, and all the information about that game show that the person who plans to join me in this will provide is accurate. We'll see what happens as we go through year three of Game Show Corner. I'm really looking forward to the next year of the series. So, that does it for not only this week's edition of Game Show Corner, but for also year two of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great summer.
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Post by Flowgli on Sept 23, 2016 12:00:50 GMT -5
Hello, everybody! This is Flo, hoping that every single one of you had a good summer and returning to host my series. Welcome to the year three premiere of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Well, since summer is over, it means that the kids are all back in school. The kids are all going through another year of learning, they're all going through another year of hitting the books, they're all going through another year of expanding their minds in every subject thrown at them. It may seem boring, but it really pays to do a lot of studying, and I do mean that both literally and figuratively. I say this because one, it really helps when one gets older, lives on their own, and gets a job, and two, one can win money on the game show that I'm going to cover here this week by answering questions from various school subjects and grade levels. And if you can answer a bunch of questions like those, then maybe you've got what it takes to Make...The...Grade! Yes, Make The Grade is the name of the game show that I'm gonna cover this week, and it's one of the many Nickelodeon game shows. This show lasted three seasons from October 2, 1989 to an unknown date in 1990, with reruns of it airing on Nickelodeon until December 29, 1991. For the first two seasons, this show was taped in a studio in New York City with an audience track and no studio audience, and it was hosted by Lew Schneider. For the third and final season, this show was taped at Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando, Florida--which was newly opened at that time--with a studio audience, and it was hosted by Robb Edward Morris. For the entirety of the show's run, the announcer was disc jockey Maria Milito. The game is played by three contestants, all of whom are in the same grade level in middle school. Each contestant wears a yellow Make The Grade t-shirt and sits at a different color position, with the color positions being red, green, and blue, in that order from the perspective of the home viewers. The contestants face a 7x7 grid game board, with each square on the game board in the form of a split-flap display, the rows labeled with seven school subjects, and the column labeled with grade levels of elementary, seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth grade, eleventh grade, and twelfth grade. Each square on the game board has an image on it that represents the school subject that square is under, with the squares on the seventh school subject in seasons two and three each having an image of a check mark in a square on it; that particular school subject is known as a "special elective", and the name of the "special elective" changes on every episode. Also, each contestant has a scoreboard in front of them that consists of two rows of seven lights, with the top row displaying the images that represent the seven school subjects of the day and the bottom row displaying the seven grade levels. Just like Debt, Let's Go Back, and Win Ben Stein's Money--all of which I already covered here in year one--the gameplay is similar to that of Jeopardy!. I'm not including Jep! and Rock & Roll Jeopardy!--both of which I also already covered here in year one, because those two shows are spin-offs of Jeopardy!; despite those two shows being separate shows from Jeopardy, they were both based on that show, and all three of those shows are actually the same game. Anyway, a contestant chooses a school subject and a grade level, and the square in the chosen school subject and grade level flips to reveal either a question mark--which represents a question in that school subject and grade level--or a wild card. Each time a chosen square reveals a question mark, the host asks a question in the chosen school subject and grade level to the contestants, while at the same time, that question is shown as a superimposed graphic underneath the contestants to the home viewers. If a contestant rings in and answers that question correctly, the school subject and grade level that that question is in are lit up on their scoreboard, and the chosen square flips to the color that corresponds to the color position that that contestant is in. There is no penalty for ringing in with a correct answer to a question, but the remaining contestants get to ring in and answer that question if that happens. If a question is not answered correctly at all, then the chosen square flips to black; that square is referred to as a "dead square", and it is out of play for the rest of the game. After each question, the contestant who last answered a question correctly chooses another square on the game board. The object of the game is for a contestant to light up all seven school subjects and all seven grade levels on their scoreboard before either of the other two contestants do the same thing on their own scoreboard, and they do this by answering at least one question correctly in each school subject and one in each grade level. Also, while the contestants play the game, they can make any pattern on the game board that they like with the squares they earned; they can go diagonally, randomly, or in two straight lines, with one line going vertically and the other going horizontally. However, given the fact that the contestants have to light up school subjects and grade levels on their scoreboards, which is the real object of the game, the contestants are not likely to care about making patterns on the game board. Now, let's get to the wild cards. The wild cards are labeled "FREE", "TAKE", "LOSE", and "FIRE". If a contestant chooses a "FREE" wild card square, then they automatically get that square turned into their color, and they get the school subject and grade level that that square is in lit up on their scoreboard, all without having to answer a question. If a contestant chooses a "TAKE" wild card square, then they get to choose which square earned by another contestant to take away from them, and that square changes color from that of the contestant who originally earned it to that of the contestant who has just chosen to take that square after choosing that "TAKE" wild card square, and the contestant who has just taken a square from another contestant has the school subject and grade level that that square is in is lit up on their scoreboard, while the same school subject and grade level is no longer lit up on the scoreboard of the contestant who has just lost that square. If a contestant chooses a "LOSE" wild card square, then they have to choose one of the squares they originally earned to lose, and the school subject and grade level that that square is in is no longer lit up on their scoreboard, while the square just lost flips back to its original image and becomes a question square if it is chosen again. And if a contestant chooses a "FIRE" wild card square, then all three contestants go to the center of the set and play a physical game called a "fire drill". All fire drill games are races, and a fire drill game ends after two of the contestants complete the game. Examples of fire drill games are "Toss Your Lunch", where the contestants toss sandwiches into lunch boxes and making those tosses close the lunch boxes after the tossed sandwiches make it in; "Moon Boulder", where the contestants roll boulder-like balls on skeeball machines and score 250 points; "Rings Of Saturn", where the contestants throw rings around rotating planets and get two rings around those planets; "Lunch Box Bowling", where the contestants use lunch boxes as bowling balls to knock down rocket-like bowling pins on bowling lanes and get all the bowling pins knocked down; "Iron Claw", where the contestants maneuver iron claws to pick up asteroids and drop them into buckets by using the claws' levers; and "Pinwheel Maze", where the contestants rotate ball-in-a-maze puzzles by turning cranks and get the balls out of the mazes and into buckets. After one of the contestants finishes the fire drill game, the remaining two contestants compete for second place. As soon as two of the contestants finish the fire drill game, it ends right there, and the first-place finisher gets to choose which one of the three color positions they want to go back to, the second-place finisher gets to choose which one of the remaining two color positions they want to go back to, and the remaining contestant has to go back to the remaining color position. Also, the first-place finisher of the fire drill game gets to make the next choice of square on the game board. During the show's run, a contestant who finishes a fire drill game first usually chooses to go back to the color position that has the most squares in that color on the game board, while a contestant who finishes second usually chooses to go back to the color position that has more squares in that color on the game board than the other of the remaining two color positions, and a contestant who ends up last usually is left with the color position that has the least squares in that color on the game board. Because of this, it is possible for one contestant to win the game by not answering any questions before a fire drill square is chosen by another contestant who is either one school subject or grade level from winning the game, winning the fire drill game, choosing to go back to the color position that that other contestant used to be in before the fire drill square is chosen, and either answer the next question on the needed school subject or choose a free wild card square or a take wild card square. This actually happened in an episode in season three, where the contestant in the green position named Megan worked so hard to get six school subjects and all seven grade levels lit up on her scoreboard, while the contestant in the blue position named Frank had no subjects or grade levels lit up on his scoreboard, and the next square that Megan chose is the fire drill wild card, and she ended up in last place in the fire drill game, while Frank ended up in first place, chose to go back to the green position, chose a question square in the school subject needed to win the game, rang in with the correct answer to that question, and win the game. The remaining contestant in that episode named Mark was in the red position before the fire drill wild card was chosen, and he ended up in second place in the fire drill game and chose to go back to the red position, making no change in the scoring for him. Before the fire drill wild card was chosen, Mark had four school subjects and three grade levels lit up on his scoreboard, making himself exactly halfway to winning the game. Even though it is possible for a contestant to win the game without answering one single question correctly before a fire drill square is chosen by another contestant, who is either one school subject or one grade level away from winning the game, and then ending up in first place in the fire drill game, choosing to go back to the color position that was occupied by that other contestant who has worked so hard to earn all those school subjects and grade levels that are lit up on the scoreboard there, and making the next choice of square that turns out to be either a free wild card or a take wild card, it never happened. If a contestant chooses a take wild card square while both of their opponents have no squares in their own colors on the game board, that wild card square is flipped back to its original image and becomes a question square if it is chosen again, and the contestant who has chosen that square does not have a choice of square to take away. If a contestant chooses a lose wild card square while they have no squares in their own color on the game board, that wild card square is flipped back to its original image and becomes a question square if it is chosen again, and the contestant who has chosen that square does not have a choice of square to lose. The main game is played in two rounds, with each one played according to time, that is, unless a contestant lights up all seven school subject and all seven grade levels before time runs out in either round. Yes, it is possible for a contestant to win the game in the first round; this actually happened at least once, and after that game was won and the bonus round--which I'll be getting to later--was played, a second game with three new contestants in the time left over in that episode for that game and the second bonus round to be played. Also, there are no changes made for the start of round two; it looks exactly like the contestants are continuing where they left off at the end of round one, with the contestant being the last to answer a question correctly in round one making the first choice of square in round two. More wild cards are added behind the remaining squares on the game board for round two, especially another fire drill wild card if the fire drill game in round one is already played, sure, but other than that, the main game doesn't look like it's being played in two rounds. I'm guessing the show needed a way to go into its first commercial break. The first contestant to light up all seven school subjects and all seven grade levels wins the game. If time for the game altogether runs out before a contestant can complete their scoreboard, then the contestant who comes closest to doing so wins the game. The winning contestant receives $500 and advances to the bonus round called the Honors Round, while the losing contestants each receive $50 and consolation prizes. In the Honors Round, the winning contestant is seated at a desk just like a winning contestant would in the $50,000 Final Exam bonus round on WinTuition, a game show I already covered back in year one. However, in season one, there is only a chair for a contestant to sit on and no desk to sit behind. In any case, the winning contestant is given three categories to choose from. After the contestant chooses a category, that category is divided into seven school subjects, and the contestant's head is put in a box--in other words, the contestant's head is shown in a square superimposed against a background with objects that make up the show's logo on it--and a clock is set at 45 seconds. The contestant is asked a question in the leftmost school subject shown in a single row of school subjects, and after that question is read in its entirety, that's when the clock starts counting down. After a question--whether the contestant answers it correctly, answers it incorrectly, or passes on it if they don't know the answer to it--the contestant is asked a question in the next school subject in the row. If the contestant can answer seven questions correctly before time runs out--one question in each grade level--the contestant wins a grand prize. In season one, the winning contestant is asked only one question in each school subject. If they pass on a question, they get to go back to the school subject they have passed on and get another shot at answering that passed question if any time remains on the clock. But if they answer a question incorrectly, the school subject that that question is in is out of play, and the contestant's chance to win the grand prize is gone, but the contestant can still answer questions in any school subjects that remain. The contestant receives $100 for every question answered correctly, but if the contestant wins this round, their total cash winnings in this round is increased to the grand prize of $1,000. In seasons two and three, there are two questions in each school subject. If the winning contestant answers a question incorrectly or passes on it, then they are asked the second question in the school subject missed or passed after they come back to it. If the second question in that school subject is answered incorrectly or passed on, then that school subject is out of play, and the contestant's chance to win the grand prize is gone, but the contestant can still answer questions in any school subjects that remain. The contestant receives $100 for the first six questions answered correctly each, and the seventh question answered correctly wins the contestant the grand prize of a trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. I would say that I'm now done talking about how the game is played and get right to my thoughts on the show, but there's still one more thing I have to talk about in the game, and that is how the remaining time is filled after the game ends early and the Honors Round is played. Each season of the show has a different way of filling in the remaining time. In season one, Lew goes out to public places, mostly malls, and ask general people questions. In season two, a special round called the University Round is played by a game's winning contestant after the Honors Round. In season three, Robb asks members of the studio audience questions that are either unused in that day's game or recycled from previous episodes, with each studio audience member who answers a question correctly receiving a prize, particularly a Make The Grade t-shirt. In the University Round, the winning contestant is asked up to five questions. Each time the contestant answers a question correctly, they win money, and they have the option to stop and take the money or continue on to the next question, putting all the money won in this round up to that point. The correct answer to the first question earns the contestant $50, the correct answer to the second question increases the money to $100, the correct answer to the third question increases the money to $200, the correct answer to the fourth question increases the money to $500, and the correct answer to the fifth and final question increases the money to $1,000. If the contestant answers one question incorrectly in this round, they lose all the money won in this round up to that point, but all the money they won before this round--and the trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, if won--is theirs to keep, regardless of the outcome of this round. All money won in this round is handed to the contestant by Lew, just like what Jack Barry did on The Joker's Wild and what Larry Blackmar did on On The Spot, with the latter game show already covered in the previous year. Okay, now, I'm done talking about the gameplay. I can now get to my thoughts on the show. This show had potential in being a great children's game show that primarily focuses on answering questions a lot more than playing stunt games that test contestants' physical skills a lot more than their knowledge, but the game overall just doesn't turn out to be so well. The goal to winning the game is something you'd expect to see in a game show with a straddling format, but this is a Nickelodeon game show, and Nickelodeon game shows don't have any game shows that have a straddling format. None of them. Not to mention that having the main game being played in two rounds is pointless, considering the goal to winning the game, which can occur anytime in the game, especially as early as the end of "round one"; very little changes are made between the two rounds, and "round two" is really nothing but a continuation of "round one". The two main game rounds are really nothing but a way to get the show into its first commercial break. The fire drill games are very basic but simple and straight to the point. Nickelodeon is known for having messy stunt games being played in its game shows, but none of the episodes of this show that I found so far on the Internet have fire drill games that are messy. And about the structure of the fire drills, it really does seem unfair when a contestant who has worked so hard on lighting up school subjects and grade levels by buzzing in and answering questions correctly ends up in last place in a fire drill game and ends up going back to the color position that was once occupied by a contestant who has done nothing to get any school subjects and grade levels lit up on the scoreboard in that color position before that fire drill game came up, and the contestant who ends up in first place in that fire drill game chooses to go back to the color position that was once occupied by the contestant who did all that hard work in lighting up all those school subjects and grade levels and ends up getting an easy win. It is common for game shows to have parts of a game that gives trailing contestants to catch up, but it's only fair and really rewarding if trailing contestants actually put some effort into earning their way to taking the lead and not get the lead in an effortless, easy way. Also, there really isn't any variety in the prizes. I mean, remember, this is a Nickelodeon game show played by middle school students, and Nickelodeon game shows are known to offer a variety of prizes. Sure, this show and other Nickelodeon game shows are known for giving money away to contestants, but thousands of dollars in prizes are always played for, and the values of the prizes combined are always higher than whatever money is won. All prizes won on this show are money and a trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. There's only variety in the consolation prizes for losing contestants. In cash alone, a contestant can win up to $1,500 in season one, $2,100 in season two if that contestant has enough time left in the show to play the University Round, and $1,100 in season three. Any of those maximum amounts of cash is an incredible amount of money for a children's game show, even one that aired on Nickelodeon and featured contestants play as solo contestants instead of teams. And remember, this show aired back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so even back then, any of those amounts is a lot of money for this particular kind of game show. Going back to the trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, that would be a good grand prize for a contestant to play for in season two, since the show was taped in New York back then, but that's not a good prize for a contestant to play for in season three, since that location was exactly where the show was taped at back then. This is a very big problem I have with Nickelodeon game shows; some of these game shows have a trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida as a grand prize for contestants to play for in the bonus rounds, and yet that location is exactly where those shows were taped at. And what kind of sense does it make for a game show to have a trip to where that game show is taped, since the contestants are already there? It doesn't. Now, I'd like to talk about the game board and the questions asked in the game. Why does the game board have to consist of squares that are split-flap displays? Shouldn't the squares be monitors like the spaces on the game board on Jeopardy!? I'm not expecting this show to be set up exactly like Jeopardy!, but there is a reason why I think the squares on the game board on Make The Grade should be monitors instead of split-flap displays. When a square on the game board is chosen, the flaps on that square will rotate and stop at a question mark or a wild card, which leads me to believe that whoever is operating the squares on the game board is just deciding whether that square should be a question square or a wild card only right after that square is chosen, making the game look like it's rigged, since each and every square on the game board has flaps that display all four wild cards, a question mark, all three contestant colors, and one of the seven school subjects played that day. Maybe all the squares were actually determined on which ones are question squares and which ones are wild cards before the game started, but it still doesn't seem right having the flaps on each square rotating until the appropriate flap is reached. Now, if the squares on the game board were monitors, then each monitor would show only the appropriate graphic and not flash as many of them as possible until the appropriate graphic is reached. Now, about the questions asked in the game, well, some of the questions asked are something that kids would actually learn from school, while some of the questions asked are something from forms and entertainment, such as movies, music, and television, and yet the content of those questions, in a way, made them fit into the school subjects that they were placed in. Some of the questions asked also get recycled for later episodes, and when that happens, it gets worded in a different way. And I don't know if the grade levels are supposed to actually indicate the difficulty of the questions on the game board, but it looks to me as if the questions were all just placed in the grade levels at random. I don't expect the difficulty of the questions to exactly match the grade levels they're asked from, since all contestants on this show were middle school students, but I do expect the questions to be more difficult the higher the grade levels that the questions are asked from are. Also, a few questions on each episode is multiple-choice, sometimes with three answers to choose from and other times with four answers to choose from. Whenever a multiple-choice question with three answers to choose from is asked, it is likely that a contestant will be given credit for that question very easily if they are the last to buzz in after their opponents buzzed in and chose the incorrect answers, because the correct answer to that question would be the only answer to choose from by then, unless one or both of the first two contestants to buzz in gave an answer that is not one of the choices or the second contestant to buzz in repeated an answer given by the first contestant to buzz in. And sometimes, questions can be way too easy, since the correct answers are somewhere in the questions, and in the Honors Round, many of the questions in a chosen category, even those that are fill-in-the-blank, has that category as the correct answer to them. For example, in the same episode that I just described before, the winning contestant in that episode, Frank, chose a category called "Green", and some of the questions in that category are "John Wayne starred in The Blank Berets" in art, "Dr. Seuss wrote Blank Eggs And Ham" in English, and "'Blanksleeves' is the theme song to the TV show Lassie" in music. The correct answer to each of those questions is green!And now, it's time that I explain how I would produce this game show. This part of the edition is based on the How Would YOU Produce It? segment of Robert Seidelman's video induction on Who's Still Standing? Here are the things that that I would've changed to make this show better: 1. The layout of the game board would consist of seven school subjects and four grade levels. 2. Two full rounds in the main game would be played, with each one played according to time. 3. The seven school subjects would be the same for an entire episode, but each round would have a different set of four grade levels. Elementary school, sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade would be the grade levels in round one, while ninth grade, tenth grade, eleventh grade, and twelfth grade would be the grade levels in round two. In both rounds, the questions asked would be more difficult the higher the grade levels they are asked from. 4. The object of the game would be to score points. Each question would be worth 10 points in round one and 20 points in round two. In both rounds, a contestant would score points for correct answers and lose points for incorrect answers and failures to answer in time, and scores would go into the negatives. 5. A contestant who chooses a lose wild card would still lose points even if they're at zero or in the negatives, and a contestant who chooses a take wild card would still choose whom to take points from even if one or both of their opponents are at zero or in the negatives. A contestant who chooses a free wild card would automatically score points without having to answer a question. 6. Each round would have wild cards behind ten of the question squares; three free wild cards, three take wild cards, three lose wild cards, and one fire drill wild card. 7. After a fire drill game, all three contestants would go back to the color positions they were in at the start of the game, with the first-place finisher scoring 50 points in round one and 100 points in round two, the second-place finisher scoring 20 points in round one and 40 points in round two, and the last-place finisher scoring no points in either round. 8. The winning contestant would receive ten times their winning score in cash, with a minimum of $500, while the losing contestants would each receive $100 and a consolation prize. 9. In the Honors Round, each school subject would have an unlimited number of questions, and the winning contestant would win a prize for each correct answer, with each prize won being more valuable than the last prize won, and the seventh prize won being the grand prize, which would change from time to time but never be a trip to where the show is taped. And there you go. Those are the changes I would've made to this show, and because of these changes, there would be no time left over to fill in with anything. Also, the fire drill games should also be messy and fun, and the writing of the questions should have some more effort being put into them. Finally, I have to talk about the hosts. Lew Schneider did okay as a host of this show. He's not the best game show host ever, but he was capable of doing well enough in hosting this show, and he looked, sounded, and acted like he was having a good time on this show. Robb Edward Morris, however, looked, sounded, and acted like he was not interested in being on this show. Whenever he spoke--whether he explained the basic rules of the game, explained how a fire drill game is played, or recapped the contestants' scores, or whatever else the case it could be--he would sometimes fumble over his words, speak slowly, and speak in a monotonous voice. Game Show Garbage founder Robert Seidelman did an induction on Robb Edward Morris back in 2010, and a year later, Robert received positive feedback on the induction from Robb himself. Heck, Robb even friended Robert on Facebook. Robert also received more episodes of the show with Robb as host from a trade and saw that Robb became a better host in those episodes. Robb also explained to Robert his experience as a host of the show; he explained that he got the job as a host of the show right after he got out of college at age 22, and that hosting the show was the hardest job he ever did, since he had to deal with the cameras, working with the kids, reading at least thirty questions on each episode, and getting five episodes taped everyday. After Make The Grade got cancelled, Robb went on to have a better career; he worked in theatre and music, and he's probably still working in those as of this release. So, that's it. Make The Grade is a game show that could've been a really good Q&A game show for Nickelodeon but didn't turn out too well in the end. Next week, I'll be covering another Nickelodeon game show that also could've been really good but didn't turn out too well in the end. What game show is that? You'll have to wait until 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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