Game Show Graveyard

[Flowgli]

Hello, little kiddies. This is Dr. Flo-enstein, and welcome to the inaugural edition of a brand new series called Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

It’s very common for game shows to have bits and pieces of them taken and put together in a creative way to make new game shows. It’s also very common for creators and producers of game shows to recycle their own game shows to make new ones. It’s all good, but there are times when game show creators and producers just flat out take game shows created by other game show creators and producers and do nothing creative with them for their new game shows. The most appropriate and relevant example for this edition is Chuck Barris. One of the game shows that Chuck Barris is best known for is The Newlywed Game as a producer. That show was such a big hit that many game shows with similar gameplay to that of it came out, one of which was produced by Chuck himself. It was Three’s A Crowd, which I already covered back in year one of Game Show Corner, and it got a lot of backlash, though it’s not because of the fact that it has gameplay similar to that of The Newlywed Game. No, it’s because of the fact that it has a premise that doesn’t sit well with feminists and conservative religious activists. But you know what else he did? He attempted to produce a game show that is a rip-off of To Tell The Truth, a game show produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Yeah, after not having done a game show with an original concept six years after the run of Three’s A Crowd ended and doing revivals of older game shows, whether those game shows were created or produced by him or someone else, Chuck Barris had the nerve to try going back to doing original game shows by ripping off a game show done by other people. And you know what? He failed. Not only that, but he also got threatened with a lawsuit for this attempt. The attempt in question was Bamboozle.

Bamboozle was shot for ABC in early 1986. It was hosted by game show announcer Bob Hilton, announced by Wheel Of Fortune announcer Charlie O’Donnell, and produced by Chuck Barris in his production company Chuck Barris Productions, known at the time as Barris Industries, Inc.

Two full games are played in the unsold pilot, with each game played by a panel that consists of two celebrities and one contestant. The celebrities featured in the unsold pilot are Elaine Joyce and Stuart Pankin. On each game, the panel is introduced to three guests, all of whom claim to have a particularly strange story about themselves. One of the guests is telling the truth, while the other two guests are lying. The story is then told to the panel, which is about an owner of a pet who can play a sport in the first game and an elderly woman who has a Tae Kwon Do black belt in the second game. After the story, the panelists take turns interrogating the guests.

Unlike To Tell The Truth, where each panelist gets one turn, gets to ask as many questions as they can within a time limit, and gets a choose whom to ask each question, each panelist in this unsold pilot gets three turns, is assigned a specific guest to interrogate at each turn, and can ask up to two questions to the assigned guest at each turn. On the first set of turns, the panelists interrogate guest #1, guest #2, and guest #3, respectively. On the second set of turns, the panelists interrogate guest #2, guest #3, and guest #1, respectively. And on the third set of turns, the panelists interrogate guest #3, guest #1, and guest #2. A few times, a panelist gets assigned the same guest as the one in a previous turn of theirs.

After the interrogation is all done, each panelist chooses which guest they think is the one who is telling the truth. The two celebrities each make their choice, but it’s the contestant who has the final choice. Then, the guest who is telling the truth is revealed by means of a set of neon lights behind them lighting up. If the contestant correctly chooses the guest who is telling the truth, they win $1,000 and stays on the show to play again; but if they choose one of the guests who is lying, the money goes to the guest who has “bamboozled” the contestant, and the contestant leaves the show with all the money they have won in previous games, if any.

A contestant can win up to five games, and doing so wins that contestant a car.

And that’s Bamboozle. Now, it’s very obvious as to why this pilot never sold. It’s a blatant rip-off of To Tell The Truth. It’s got three guests claiming to have something in particular, with one of them telling the truth. It’s got a panel interrogating the guests and choosing which one is telling the truth. There may be some differences here from To Tell The Truth, such as the panel consisting of two celebrities and one contestant, and the way each turn of interrogation is done, but that’s not enough differences. With a title for a game show like Bamboozle, there are many things that Chuck can come up with to make a game show with original gameplay that involves fooling people, like having contestants match celebrities and facts pertaining to those celebrities, or teams coming up with obscure answers to categories for each other to guess. It didn’t need to be a rip-off of To Tell The Truth, or any game show produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, for that matter.

At the time of this pilot, Bill Todman was dead, so Mark Goodson took action alone, and I actually mean that, for he threatened Chuck Barris with a lawsuit. Chuck tried twice in court to remove the threat, but he failed both times. Yeah, when you create a game show, or at least a pilot of it, that blatantly rips off a game show created by someone else, of course, something like this is going to happen. I mean, what did you think was going to happen?

And I know that this is just a pilot, but I also have to criticize the set. Except for the neon lights, the set just looks tacky. If a pilot for a game show is going to be sold, not only does it have to have good gameplay that doesn’t rip off game shows created and produced by other people, but it also has to have a good set that’s appealing to the eye. Bob Hilton is also a strange choice of host, as well, as he was only known in the game show world for announcing in game shows. Now, I’m not saying that game show announcers can’t host game shows, too. I mean, there are game show announcers who have hosted game shows, too, the biggest example being Gene Wood, best known for announcing in Goodson-Todman game shows, who hosted the daily syndicated revival of Beat The Clock from 1972 to 1974 after Jack Narz left, and the first season of a similar game show called Anything You Can Do, both taped at Canada. However, Bob Hilton is probably the last game show announcer who comes to mind as someone who would host a game show. The font used for the wording in the logo looks too cheesy, even for the 1980s, and the theme music sounds far out of place, as it sounds like something that came from a circus or an older cartoon. And with all that I just stated here, I can safely say that it’s a good thing that this game show pilot never sold.

Bamboozle was on YouTube in its entirety some time ago, but as I was putting together this edition, it was nowhere to be found there. It must’ve been deleted, so I had to rely on articles I found about the pilot and memory I have about it from having watched it back when it was still up in order have this edition completed and ready for release.

All right. I have one unsold pilot covered, and I have another four to cover for the next four weeks of the month right here on Game Show Graveyard. Keep in mind that in this series, I will be covering five game show pilots that never sold, one per week, in October every year, and the days on which they will be released in that month each year are the 3rd, the 10th, the 17th, the 24th, and the 31st. Yes, the finale of each year of Game Show Graveyard will be released on Halloween, and yes, that’s the plan. So, what game show pilot will I be covering next week on year one of Game Show Graveyard? You’ll have to join me then to find out.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Hello, my spooky friends. It’s me, Dr. Flo-enstein, and welcome to another edition of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

Last week, I started this series off by covering Bamboozle, a shameless To Tell The Truth rip-off produced by Chuck Barris. This week, I’ll be covering an unsold pilot that was hosted by Bob Eubanks, the original host of one of the game shows that Chuck Barris produced: The Newlywed Game. This unsold pilot is called Flash Frame.

Flash Frame was shot for daily syndication in 1984. It was hosted by Bob Eubanks, announced by Bill Armstrong, created by Patrick M. Davis and David M. Greenfield, produced by Michael Thompson Productions and Sun Television, and distributed by Centerpoint Distribution and MT Television.

The game is played by two teams, each one having four members and a team name based on what the members of that team all have in common. The two teams play four rounds, with each round played solely by one member of each team. In each round, the two contestants playing that round come up to the center podium and answer questions about pop culture, with each question answered correctly scoring a team points.

The furthest upstage member of each team plays round one. In this round, the contestants are shown ten images from ten TV shows, one from each TV show, and what they have to do on each image is buzz in and identify the show it’s from. The first contestant to buzz in with the correct identification scores 20 points for their team, but if they buzz in with an incorrect identification, the other contestant gets a chance to identify the show for 10 points.

The second member in sequence of each team plays round two. In this round called the “Show Biz Quiz”, the contestants are asked as many questions as possible until a bell sounds. Some of the questions are multiple-choice, with each one having three answers to choose from. On each question, the first contestant to buzz in with the correct answer scores 20 points for their team, but if they buzz in with an incorrect answer, the other contestant gets a chance to answer the question for 10 points.

The third member in sequence of each team plays round three. In this round, the contestants are shown three clips of three movies or TV shows, one from each movie or TV show. At the end of each clip, four questions related to that clip are asked. On each question, the first contestant to buzz in with the correct answer scores 30 points for their team, but if they buzz in with an incorrect answer, the other contestant gets a chance to answer that question for 15 points.

Round four is called “Celebrity Flashes”. In this round, images of ten celebrities, all under one category, flash on the game board, one at a time, for a total of five seconds. After this happens twice, all four members of each team discuss for twenty seconds how many of the celebrities they think the remaining member of that team can correctly identify. During the teams’ discussions, the images of the celebrities are shown a third time, but to the home viewers only.

The furthest downstage member of each team comes up to the center podium after the twenty seconds, and those two contestants take turns making bids on how many of the ten celebrities they think they can identify, with the contestant on the trailing team making the first bid. The bidding goes on until one contestant makes the maximum bid of ten, or until one contestant challenges the other to fulfill their bid. The contestant who is challenged or has made the maximum bid of ten has twenty seconds to fulfill their bid, with each celebrity correctly identified scoring 40 points for their team.

After round four has been played, the team with the most points wins the game and $1,000, and they advance to the bonus round.

In the bonus round, the winning team is given two categories to choose from, each one having a set of images of ten celebrities under it. After a category is chosen, the images of the celebrities flash on the game board, one at a time, for a total of five seconds, and this happens twice, just like in the previous round. Then, the team has twenty seconds to identify all the celebrities, with one member of the team identifying as many of the celebrities as possible until they get stuck, at which point they pass control of the round to the next team member in sequence. The team wins $100 in cash for each celebrity correctly identified, but if all ten celebrities are correctly identified before time runs out, the team wins $10,000 in prizes.

In this pilot, the prizes in the grand prize package include a trip to Hawaii, leisure sportswear, a gift certificate for a 35mm camera, a set of watches, a set of luggage, and exercise equipment. The prize package isn’t won in this pilot.

And that’s Flash Frame. Well, the gameplay in this pilot is better than the one I covered last week, but the way the rounds in the main game are constructed just makes it all sloppy. The first round involves identifying ten TV shows in which the images shown are from, the second round involves just answering questions until time runs out, the third round involves answering four questions to each of three clips, and the fourth round involves making bids and correctly identifying enough celebrities in order to fulfill the final bid. I mean, the pilot is called Flash Frame, and the only rounds that actually fit the theme of the game are round four and the bonus round; those two rounds involve images flashing for a few seconds, one at a time, and the teams correctly identifying the images. And why is each round in the main game played by only one member in each team? This is a team game, so why can’t all four members of each team be involved in all four rounds of the main game?

I have an idea of how the main game should be played. There will be three rounds instead of four, and in each of the first two rounds, four sets of images will be played, with each set having eight images from a movie or a TV show. If four sets of images seems too much, then three or two can work. All the images in each set will flash on the board twice, and the teams will buzz in and identify the movie or TV show on each set, with each correct identification scoring a team points and giving that team control of that set. The team in control then must identify the celebrities in that set, with the members of that team taking turns, the team scoring points for each correct identification, and each team member who fails to make a correct identification being locked out for the remainder of that set. Each correct identification of a movie or a TV show will be worth 20 points in round one and 30 points in round two, and each correct identification of a celebrity will be worth 10 points in round one and 15 points in round two, for a possible 100 points in each set in round one and 150 points in each set in round two. Round three will be the bidding round, with two sets of images instead of one, and with ten images in each set. Also, in that round, the members of the team attempting to fulfill their bid on a set of images will take turns making guesses on the celebrities in those images for twenty seconds, and they will be building a bank instead of automatically scoring points for each individual correct identification, with each correct identification adding 50 points to the bank. The team will score all the points in the bank if they fulfill their bid, but if they don’t, all those points in the bank will go to the other team. That’s how I would’ve made the main game better. The bonus round is fine exactly the way it is.

Now, with the changes I just came up with to make the pilot better, do you think the pilot would’ve sold, or do you think it still wouldn’t have sold? Maybe, and also if they changed the set. I know this is just a pilot, but the set here looks kinda dull, not to mention that it has similarities to sets in Family Feud, or the only set in that show during the time that this pilot was taped. It’s got team podiums on the left and right sides, a game board centered and in the back with the displays of the teams’ scores on the left and right sides, and a center podium in front of the game board, where Bob stands behind and two contestants—one in each team—come to and stand at their respective sides of. So, the set would definitely be another thing that would need to be changed in order for the pilot to have a better chance to be sold.

The full pilot was on YouTube at the time I put this edition together, and it’s still there as of this release. Though, according to the way the video is titled, the pilot I used to help me put this edition together was the second pilot episode of Flash Frame. If there really are two pilot episodes, all I can say is that the first pilot episode is nowhere to be found on the Internet, so it’s unknown if there’s anything different in it from the second pilot episode in terms of gameplay, set design, cash and prizes, and game show personnel.

Okay. Now, that’s all I have to say about Flash Frame. I have another pilot in mind for next week. Join me then to see what I have next in store for you. I’ll be waiting.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Hello, smartasses. It’s Dr. Flo-enstein once again, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

Back in year three of Game Show Corner, I covered a game show called Studs, hosted by Mark DeCarlo, who, before Studs, was a contestant on Sale Of The Century, and, after Studs, did the voice of Hugh Neutron in the Nickelodeon animated film Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and its follow-up television series The Adventures Of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Now, can you imagine Hugh Neutron, a cartoon character, hosting a real game show with real contestants playing for real cash and prizes? Well, something like that happened, only that the character that Mark hosted a game show as wasn’t even Hugh Neutron. In fact, this particular game show is an unsold pilot that occurred two years before Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius was released. The unsold pilot in question is Smartass!

Originally called The Jack Cash Show, Smartass! was shot for USA Network on July 7, 1999. Mark DeCarlo hosted the pilot as a computer-animated anthropomorphic donkey named Jack Cass, obviously a play on the word “jackass”. Melanie Taylor was the co-host and singer of the pilot’s theme song, which was played by a band on stage, with Clarence McDonald playing the piano, Frank Wilson playing the drums, and Randy Landas playing the bass. Mark DeCarlo and veteran game show host Mark Walberg were the creators and executive producers of the pilot. Phil Gurin—whose production company, The Gurin Company, was one of the companies that packaged this pilot—also executive produced and developed the pilot. Other companies included in the packaging of the pilot were GlugginMARX and Modern Cartoons in association with Studios USA.

The game is started off with three contestants, one of which is usually a returning champion. The three contestants play against each other in the first two rounds.

In round one, the contestants are asked toss-up questions, and each time a contestant buzzes in with the correct answer to a toss-up question, they score $25. However, each time a contestant buzzes in with an incorrect answer to that question, the other contestants can buzz in and answer it. The contestant who answers a question correctly not only scores the money, but they also get to answer a follow-up clue—referred to as a “smartass answer”—without having to buzz in. The clue has to be answered in the form of a question like in Jeopardy!, and the correct answer to that clue includes one of the words in the correct answer to the toss-up question recently answered correctly. Correctly answering a clue in the form of a question scores the contestant $50, while incorrectly answering that clue allows the other contestants to buzz in and answer it. The round ends after five sets are played.

Round two is played the same way as in round one, with the dollar values doubled to $50 for each toss-up question and $100 for each follow-up clue. However, each time a contestant buzzes in with the correct answer to a question, not only do they score the money, but they also have the option whether or not to answer the clue before it’s revealed. Each time the contestant in control answers a clue incorrectly or chooses not to answer it, the other contestants can buzz in and answer it if they like. All this is because there’s a penalty for answering a clue incorrectly in this round; each time a contestant answers a clue incorrectly, they lose $100. Also, at one point in the round, a sound of a donkey braying will be heard, meaning that if a contestant answers a clue incorrectly at that point, they lose $200; this is referred to as a “kick in the ass”. The round is played until time for it runs out.

After the two rounds, the contestant with the lowest score is eliminated with no money. In case of a tie for last place, the contestants involved in that tie are asked one question, with the contestant who buzzes in with the correct answer scoring $50 and advancing to round three. If a contestant buzzes in with an incorrect answer to that question, they are automatically eliminated.

In round three, the two remaining contestants compete against each other in getting in the last word—in other words, the last answer that fits in a category—for more money. The contestants are shown two categories, each of which has two lists. For example, if a category is “Play-Dough”, the two lists in that category will be “the plays of William Shakespeare” or “the ingredients in Nestlé’s Toll-House Cookies”. One of the contestants chooses a category, and the two contestants take turns giving answers that fit into either list in that category, with the contestant who has chosen that category answering first. The category is played until a contestant gives an answer that doesn’t fit into either list in that category, repeats an answer already given, or fails to give an answer in time, at which point the other contestant scores money from that category. The two contestants take turns choosing categories, with the first choice of category made by the contestant in the lead going into this round. After a category ends, a new one replaces it, so there will always be two categories to choose from.

This round lasts for one minute, with the clock starting each time a contestant gives the first answer that fits in a category, and stopping each time a contestant does one of the things that ends that category. The first category is worth $100, and each category thereafter is worth $100 more than the previous one. If time for the round runs out while a category is in play, the contestants are allowed to keep playing it until one of them does something that ends that category.

After time for the round is up, the contestant with the highest score wins the game and keeps their money. Both contestants advance to the bonus round, but the winner gets a shot at increasing their total winnings to the top cash prize of $5,000.

In the bonus round, the winning contestant is given five clues, referred to by Jack as “smartass remarks”. What the contestant has to do on each clue is guess a word that that clue describes. The contestant is allowed to make as many guesses as they like on each clue, but they can pass on it if they get stuck and return to it if there’s still time remaining. The contestant has 30 seconds to guess as many of the five words as they can. For each word that the contestant correctly guesses, they receive that word as a clue to a subject—referred to by Jack as the “Super Smartass Answer”—and they get $100 added to the money that they have won in the main game. After all the clues are answered correctly or time runs out, the contestant must guess the “Super Smartass Answer” using the clues that they have earned. If the contestant correctly guesses the “Super Smartass Answer”, their total winnings are increased to $5,000. But if they make an incorrect guess on that, the contestant who has lost the previous round gets to guess it, with a correct guess there winning them $500.

Regardless of the outcome of the bonus round, the winning contestant gets to return on the show to play the game again against two new challengers.

And that’s Smartass! It’s a very enjoyable pilot with a smooth, solid format. The first two rounds have a nice combination of traditional trivia questions and clues that have to be answered in the form of a question like in Jeopardy! I also like how they switch things up in round two by adding penalties for incorrect answers to clues and a bigger penalty for an incorrect answer to one of the clues. Round three seems to be an interesting take on the “Madder Than You” round in Mad Libs, a game show that I already covered back in year one of Game Show Corner. Coincidentally, the run of Mad Libs ended in the same summer that Smartass! was taped. The third round of Smartass! has two lists for each category, making this round challenging. I also like how they increase the dollar values of the categories as more of them come into play, as it gives the trailing contestant a chance to catch up, though that didn’t actually happen in the pilot, as the contestant in the lead going into this round won all the categories in that round. I also like that the clock stops when a category is over and starts again when a new one begins; with a round like this, it’s good that time is saved for the contestants giving answers and not wasted on anything else that goes on in that round. I also like that when time for that round runs out while a category is still in play, the contestants get to keep playing it until it’s officially done. After all, a category in a round like this shouldn’t be left unfinished, and someone has to score in that category. The bonus round is good, too. I like that each correct answer is a clue to the solution to a puzzle; a bonus round like this was featured in The Reel To Reel Picture Show and both pilot episodes of On The Cover, both of which I already covered on Game Show Corner. This mechanic was also used in the main game of Password Plus and Super Password. It’s a well-structured bonus round. Added to that is that the first runner-up gets a chance to win some money if the winning contestant fails to win the bonus round. You don’t see something like this in a bonus round of any other game show ever, so this is a nice, unique addition to the bonus round of this pilot. This pilot didn’t seem like a game show that should have returning champions, but if it should have returning champions, the $5,000 cash prize should be an additional cash prize rather than an augmentation to that amount from the amount won in the main game.

The set is okay, and the animation of Jack is good for the time. The theme song is also enjoyable, especially with Melanie including the names of the contestants and what was about to happen in the game in it at some points in the pilot. That’s not an easy thing to pull off, but it was managed.

I don’t see how this pilot didn’t sell. Unlike the other two pilots I covered here, this one is actually good. There are hardly any problems that I found with it. The next game show pilot that I will be covering, though, will be as problematic as Bamboozle. What will that pilot be? Well, join me next week, and you’ll find out. Trust me, I won’t be copping out on it.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Hello, my little bright stars. It’s me, Dr. Flo-enstein, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

So, we’re back to Chuck Barris, aren’t we? Yes, we are. After all, Bamboozle wasn’t the only unsold game show pilot that he produced. Not only that, but it’s the subject of this week’s edition, and it’s as unimaginative and heavily lackluster as Bamboozle. The unsold pilot that I will be covering today is Cop-Out!

Cop-Out! was shot for CBS on February 15, 1972. It was hosted by veteran game show host Geoff Edwards—who was lesser-known at the time—announced by veteran game show announcer Johnny Jacobs, and produced by Chuck Barris in his production company called Chuck Barris Productions.

The game is played by two contestants, who face a panel of eight celebrities. The celebrities featured in the panel in this pilot are Ann Elder, James Farentino, Michele Lee, Bill Bixby, Lois Nettleton, Larry Hovis, Della Reese, and Richard Dawson, and these celebrities come into play, one at a time, in that order. With each celebrity who comes into play, a personal question is asked to that celebrity. That celebrity gives an answer to that question and secretly locks in whether they are being honest or “copping out”, in other words, lying. Afterwards, a few other celebrities each give their own opinion on whether the celebrity currently in play is being honest or copping out and explain why. Then, the contestant in turn makes their own choice of whether the celebrity currently in play is being honest or copping out, and that celebrity reveals their true action on their answer to their question, with a readout on the set displaying “HONEST” if that celebrity is being honest or “COP OUT” if they are copping out.

The two contestants take turns making judgments on the celebrities’ answers, with each contestant having four celebrities to work with. As the contestants play the game, a bank goes back and forth between them. The bank goes up by $100 on each question until a correct judgment on a celebrity’s answer is made, at which point the contestant who has made said correct judgment wins all the money in the bank. For the eighth and final question, a contestant wins all the money in the bank by either making a correct judgment or winning by default if their opponent makes an incorrect judgment.

In this pilot episode, no correct judgments on the celebrities’ answers have been made, except on Richard Dawson’s question, which is the last one in the entire pilot episode. That has won a contestant the $800 maximum in the bank.

And that’s honestly all there is to this unsold pilot. So, after having explained how the game is played there, is it any wonder why this pilot never sold? It’s nothing more than a slow-paced panel game show with each celebrity in the panel answering a Newlywed Game-style question and contestants deciding whether each celebrity is telling the truth or lying. With a format like this, it’s nothing but The Newlywed Game and Hollywood Squares combined in a way that it somehow makes it so boring and hard to sit through. As far as I know, Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley, the creators and producers of Hollywood Squares, never responded about how this game show pilot had the one element that Hollywood Squares had, which was contestants having to decide whether the answers from the celebrities in the panel are truth or lies. Maybe they weren’t even aware of this game show pilot or just didn’t care. Also, the scoring doesn’t make any sense. There’s just a pot that goes back and forth between the contestants and increases by $100 with each question. There’s no real scoring in this game, and there’s no prize awarded to the winning contestant at the end of the game, which is strange, since this is a Chuck Barris-produced game show pilot. If I was producing a game show called Cop-Out!, I would’ve done away with everything in this pilot episode, including the celebrity panel, and had it all be about one contestant being shown a series of games to play for hidden amounts of cash, deciding whether to play each game or cop out on that game, and deciding at the end of the game whether to buy a grand prize for a hidden price or cop out on doing so and keeping all the money won up to that point.

Now, even though this is just a pilot episode, the set for it can’t be left not talked about. It’s just one curved wall with the name of the show on it and the front being full of lights, except for one part that protrudes from the top, which has a readout that displays “HONEST” or “COP OUT”. There’s also a podium where the host and the contestants are seated at and a row of eight seats for the celebrities, and none of these things look any interesting whatsoever. It’s not like Chuck Barris-produced game shows never had sets that looked decent. Those shows did have a reasonable amount of effort put into their sets. I mean, it’s better than the set for Bamboozle, but that’s not saying much. It’s bland, unimpressive, and even a hazard to the people on there. Yes, a hazard. This is something that was pointed out in Robert Seidelman’s induction on that pilot episode at Game Show Garbage. Actually, for some time, Robert went from being Robert to Cyndi, and she stopped doing inductions for Game Show Garbage and went from doing Game Show Garbage to Game Show Gumbo. Anyway, she pointed out that because the set had way too many lights, and everyone on that set are way too close to the lights, there was a report that they had to be treated for first-degree and second-degree burns afterwards! I’m not kidding. I don’t know how a set for a game show, especially a set as simple as this one, even if this game show just a pilot episode, could be a safety hazard. Now, that is scary!

Man, I just covered an unsold pilot with an unintentionally scary set, and it’s not even Halloween yet. But it will be Halloween next week, and we’re gonna calm down for the unsold pilot that I will be covering then. We’re gonna calm way, way down for that. The game show pilot that I will be ending year one of Game Show Graveyard with does have a calmer atmosphere than what I just covered this week. This unsold pilot that I’ll be covering next week have three things in common with a game show that I already covered back in year three of Game Show Corner: They were hosted by Graham Elwood, they were made for Game Show Network, and they have contestants play for a chance to win $10,000. I’ll reveal what that pilot is on the year one Halloween finale of Game Show Graveyard. See you then.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Hello to all of you trick-or-treaters out there. This is Dr. Flo-enstein, and welcome to the year one Halloween finale of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

Well, it sure has been a spooktacular ride doing this series. I’ve had varying levels of feelings about the unsold pilots that I covered here, and now, it’s time to look into one more unsold pilot and see what I think of it. It’s time to end year one of Game Show Graveyard with TriBond.

TriBond is a game show adaptation of the board game of the same name. It was shot for Game Show Network on February 13, 2002. It was hosted by Graham Elwood, who later hosted a game show on the same channel called Cram and earlier hosted a game show in syndication called Strip Poker, both of which I already covered back in year three of Game Show Corner. The companies and people behind the production of this unsold pilot episode are unknown.

The game is started off with three contestants, who play in the first two rounds. In each round, the contestants are shown a series sets of three items that share a common bond. What the contestants have to do is buzz in and guess the common bond that the three items in a set has. Each correct guess scores a contestant points, while each incorrect guess allows their opponents to buzz in and guess the common bond.

In round one, nine sets are played, each one having one row of three items. Each correct guess on a common bond of a set of items is worth 25 points.

An example of a set of items in this round is as follows:

A Cold - A Fly Ball - Winona Ryder

The common bond of these three items are that they are caught. Someone can catch a cold, a fielder can catch a fly ball in baseball, and Winona Ryder has been caught shoplifting in 2001.

In round two, six sets are played, each one having two rows of items. Each set in this round has two items that are part of the bond in the top row and three items in the bottom row, with one of the items in the bottom row sharing a bond with the two items in the top row. On each set, when a contestant buzzes in, they must complete the bond by choosing the item on the bottom row that shares that bond with the two items in the top row and, if correct, guess the common bond of those three items. Each time a contestant does all this correctly, they score 50 points.

An example of a set of items in this round is as follows:

Bugs - Easter

Miss America - Miss Piggy - Miss October

The correct item in the bottom row is Miss October, and the common bond of that item and the two items in the top row are that they are bunnies. There’s Bugs Bunny of Looney Tunes, the Easter Bunny, and a title of Playboy Playmate of the Month called Miss October.

At the end of this round, the contestant with the lowest score is eliminated. If the round ends in a tie for lowest score, the contestants involved in the tie is given another set to determine who will be eliminated and who will advance to round three.

In round three, the two remaining contestants play five sets. Each set in this round has three rows of items, with one item in the top row, two items in the middle row, and three items in the bottom row. The item in the top row, one of the two items in the middle row, and one of the three items in the bottom row share a bond. On each set, when a contestant buzzes in, they must complete the bond by choosing the item in the middle row that shares that bond with the item in the top row and choosing the item in the bottom row that shares that bond with the item in the top row and the correct item in the middle row and, if correct on both, guess the common bond of those three items. Each time a contestant does all this correctly, they score 100 points.

An example of a set of items in this round is as follows:

A Pool Table

A Pair Of Jeans - A Sock

White Bread - Wheat Bread - Pita Bread

The correct item in the middle row is a pair of jeans, the correct item in the bottom row is pita bread, and the common bond of those items and the item in the top row are that they have pockets. It’s all obvious, so no explanation is needed for these items.

At the end of this round, the contestant with the highest score wins the game. If the game ends in a tie, the contestants are given another set to determine who will win the game and who will lose the game.

In the bonus round, the winning contestant is shown seven sets, one at a time, to guess the common bonds of within 45 seconds. All the sets in this round are exactly like the ones in round one. The contestant is allowed to make as many guesses as they need to on each set, but if they get stuck on one, they can pass on it, and they’ll return to it later if there’s still time remaining.

After time runs out or the common bonds of all seven sets are correctly guessed, one more set comes into play. Just like the seven sets from earlier in this round, the final set in this round is exactly like the ones in round one. The common bonds of three of the sets from earlier in the round are items in the final set, and each of those items in that set are revealed only if it’s guessed correctly. After all the earned items in the final set are revealed, the contestant has 10 seconds to guess the common bond of those items. Correctly guessing the common bond of the revealed items in the final set before time runs out wins the contestant $10,000.

And that’s TriBond. It’s a good, challenging game of guessing what three items in each set have in common, with each round being more challenging than the previous one, since, in rounds one and two, contestants have to complete each bond by choosing which items share that bond with the item revealed outright before guessing the common bond itself. The consolation prizes for the losing contestants are good for the time, such as a wireless telephone and a digital camera. And even though the gameplay in general is all good, it can get monotonous, since all the sets are toss-ups, meaning that contestants just buzz in and make guesses. The bonus round is one of those that have each correct answer in it being a clue to the solution in a puzzle that comes afterwards, and that’s one of the kinds of bonus rounds I like. Smartass!, which I already covered two weeks ago, had a bonus round like that, and I think it could’ve worked there. The bonus round in TriBond, however, doesn’t work just as well, since there are seven sets in the first part and only the common bonds of three of those sets are items in the set in the second part. They probably should’ve just make the bonus round so that it only has the winning contestant needing to correctly guess the common bonds of all seven sets within the 45-second time limit in order to win the $10,000 cash prize. Or they can shorten the number of sets in the first part from seven to five and have the set in the second part be exactly like the ones in round three, with one item in that set revealed in the top row at the start of that part, and the items in the middle and bottom rows being revealed by being guessed correctly in the first part, and the winning contestant just needs to correctly guess the common bond in the set in the second part without needing to choose which earned items are part of the bond first in order to win that cash prize. That could’ve worked better. If they made those changes, as well as make the set a bit more professional and make the atmosphere a bit more exciting, then this pilot episode would’ve sold. There’s no mention of what the winning contestant would’ve won if they should fail to win the bonus round. While the pilot episode did have a bonus round win, it still would’ve been nice for some consolation for a bonus round loss to be mentioned.

Even though TriBond didn’t sell, Graham Elwood still hosted a full series on Game Show Network a year later, which, like I said, was a game show that I already covered back in year three of Game Show Corner called Cram. However, before Graham hosted either one of these for Game Show Network, he hosted another unsold pilot for the same channel. That pilot is called Pictionary, and that was back in 2000. If that pilot episode sold, there would’ve been three game show adaptations of that board game. I already both full series on Game Show Corner, the first one back in year two and the second one back in year three. I’ll cover the unsold pilot of what could’ve been the third game show adaptation of that board game next year here on Game Show Graveyard. Until then, the first year of this series is over.

Well, I gotta say that I have enjoyed doing this series so far. It’s been great covering game show pilots that never sold, and I’d be happy to cover more of these next year. Right now, I have to get back to working on editions for Game Show Corner. I have been slacking on those lately, even though I always have been posting editions for that series when the time comes. So, I’m gonna get back to work on those, right now, and I’ll see you later.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a Happy Halloween.

[Flowgli]

Greetings, my fellow Halloween creatures. I’m Dr. Flo-enstein, and welcome to the year two premiere of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

I ended year one of this series with an unsold pilot for Game Show Network hosted by Graham Elwood, and that was TriBond, based on a board game of the same name. What I’m gonna be doing, now, is start year two of this series with another unsold pilot for Game Show Network hosted by Graham Elwood, also based on a board game of the same name. This unsold pilot that I’m gonna be covering this week is what could’ve been the third game show adaptation of the board game in question—though we still have a third game show adaptation of that board game come through, as that game show adaptation premiered on select Fox stations this July—and a possible subject for Game Show Corner if it was sold. So, let’s get ready to draw yet again, as we look into the unsold pilot called Pictionary.

Pictionary was shot for Game Show Network in 2000. It was hosted by the host of Strip Poker and Cram—both of which I already covered in year three of Game Show Corner—who, as I just mentioned, hosted an unsold pilot for TriBond, which I already covered here in the finale of the previous year. It was also produced by Bogorad/Wyler Productions.

The game is played by two teams, each one consisting of four members. Each team is given a team name by Graham based on something about them, such as their attire or energy. The two teams play three rounds, and in each round, they will be drawing subjects based on clues on a telestrator, with everything drawn there being shown on a large screen for their teammates to see. For example, if the clue is “Fit As A Fiddle”, the subject will be a violin.

In each of the first two rounds, each team draws two subjects, and the two teams take turns. On each subject, one member of the team in turn is called up to the center podium and draws a subject on the telestrator there using an electronic pen. The team has 30 seconds to draw and guess the subject. Before time starts, the clue is shown on the screen, and the subject is shown to the drawing team member on a card. If the drawing team member’s teammates correctly guess the subject before time runs out, they score money. Each subject is worth $100 in round one and $200 in round two. For each team’s turn to draw, the furthest upstage team member draws on their team’s first turn in round one, the second team member in line draws on their team’s second turn in round one, the third team member in line draws on their team’s first turn in round two, and the furthest downstage team member draws on their team’s second turn in round two.

In round three, four phrases are played, with each one played by a different pair of opposing contestants. On each phrase, the two contestants involved come to the center podium, and they are shown a clue to the phrase on the screen. Based on the clue, the contestants take turns making bids on how much time they think they can draw that phrase and get their teammates to guess it within, with the bidding starting at one minute and going down with each bid made until one of the contestants challenges their opponent to fulfill their bid. After the bidding is done, the contestant being challenged draws the phrase, and their teammates must guess it correctly within the time limit according to the final bid made. If successful, that contestant scores the dollar value of that phrase for their team. If not, the involved contestant on the other team has 15 seconds to either draw the phrase on a clean slate or add to the drawing done by the contestant on the challenged team, and get their teammates to guess that phrase for that money either way. If the teammates on the opposing team fails to guess the phrase within the 15 seconds, neither team scores the money. The phrases are worth $200, $400, $600, and $800, in that order, and they are drawn by the contestants in the order of their positions on the teams, from the furthest upstage contestants to the furthest downstage contestants. If a team scores enough money to make it impossible for the other team to catch up with the remaining phrases, the round ends immediately.

After three rounds, the team with the most money wins the game and advances to the bonus round. Both teams keep the money that they have scored.

In the bonus round, the winning team chooses one member to draw up to seven drawings, all under one category. The teammates have to guess five of the seven drawings correctly within two minutes. If the team gets stuck on a drawing, they can pass on it, but they are allowed to pass on up to two drawings. If five of the drawings are correctly guessed before time runs out, the team wins an additional $5,000.

And that’s what could’ve been the third game show adaptation of Pictionary. How did this pilot not sell? The rounds in the main game are consistent, and they give all the contestants an equal chance to draw, depending on what happens in round three. The scoring is fair, and the bonus round is well done. The set does look kinda bland, but it doesn’t look bad, and the use of the telestrator for drawing is much better than the use of it in the first game show adaptation. If there’s anything I really have a problem with this pilot episode is that $5,000 is the cash prize played for in the bonus round. It can be easily split equally by four people, and it was a cash prize played for in game shows played by teams four or even five, such as Family Feud in both daytime runs, but this pilot episode was taped in 2000, so it doesn’t make sense to have $5,000 as the top cash prize there. It does make sense to have that amount of money as the top cash prize in game shows like the daytime runs of Family Feud, since that was back in the mid-to-late 1970s, the 1980s, and the early 1990s. With four people on a team in a game show in 2000, even if that game show is an unsold pilot episode, the top cash prize should’ve been $10,000. Speaking of teams, why do the teams here have their team names chosen for them by the host? Normally, teams choose their own team names.

Okay, I think I said all that I had to say about this unsold pilot. So, when it comes to game show adaptations of Pictionary, I covered the children’s game show from 1989 produced by Dan Enright and the adult game show from 1997 hosted by Alan Thicke on Game Show Corner, and now, I just covered the unsold pilot from 2000 hosted by Graham Elwood here on Game Show Graveyard. With the newest game show adaptation of the board game having just aired this July, I won’t be getting around to cover that show for a long, long time. Next time, I will be covering an unsold pilot hosted by a well-known game show host who died last year.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Hello, children. Dr. Flo-enstein here, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

In just under a month, it will be the one-year anniversary of the day that Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek died. For those of you who don’t know, he hosted more game shows than just Jeopardy!, one of which I already covered in year two of Game Show Corner. That game show in question was Double Dare. No, not the Nickelodeon game show; the CBS game show from the 1970s. He also hosted a few unsold pilots, and I will be covering one of them today on Game Show Graveyard. The subject of this week’s edition is Second Guess.

Second Guess was shot for NBC on July 8, 1986. It was hosted by Alex Trebek, announced by John Harlan, and packaged by Marty Pasetta Productions.

The game is played by two couples, one of which is a championship couple. The championship couple is in the red position, while the challenging couple is in the blue position. The couples play against each other in two rounds, and in each round, the couples compete in winning the most valuable prizes possible, with each round ending once three prizes in total are won.

The couples are shown a list of six prizes in order from the least valuable prize at the bottom to the most valuable prize at the top. Each prize has a path consisting of a specific number of steps for each couple to take in order to win that prize. From bottom to top, the prizes have one, two, three, four, five, and six steps for each couple to take in order to win that prize; the more valuable the prize, the more steps it takes for a couple to win it.

A couple must earn steps towards a prize by answering toss-up statistical questions. On each question, one half of each couple is at the buzzer, and three possible answers are read, followed by the question itself. The first contestant to buzz in chooses which answer they think is said the most by a specific group of people. After they have made their choice of answer, their spouse has the option to agree if they think that answer is correct or disagree if they think that answer is incorrect and choose one of the remaining two answers, or “second guess” them, as the latter option is referred to as, hence the name of the game. Then, the correct answer is revealed, and either the couple wins the right to take steps towards a prize if the final choice of answer is correct, or the opposing couple wins the right to take steps towards a prize if the final choice of answer is incorrect.

The couple who has won the right to take steps towards a prize is shown a randomizer with three screens that shuffle the names of the prizes and given a number of spins to use on it, depending on how they have won the toss-up question. That couple is either given two spins if they have won the question on their own or one spin if they have won the question by default. With each spin taken, one half of the couple in control presses their buzzer to stop the randomizer, which freezes on a prize on each screen. Then, the couple chooses which prize frozen by the randomizer that they want to take steps towards, and they get a step towards that prize lit up on their path towards it for each appearance of it on the randomizer. After all that, another question is played in the same manner, and the process repeats until three prizes in total have been won, at which point the round ends.

As soon as a couple has gotten enough steps towards a prize lit up on their own path to it, that couple wins that prize, and it’s theirs to keep regardless of the outcome of the game. That prize is also removed from the randomizer, preventing the other couple from trying to win it, as well, as each prize can be won by only one couple.

Each round has a different set of six prizes for the couples to play for. After round two ends, John describes the prizes won as they are being shown, and Alex reveals the combined total value of each couple’s accumulated prizes. The couple with the highest total value in prizes wins the game, becomes or remains the championship couple, and advances to the bonus round.

In the bonus round, the winning couple is shown a list of cash amounts, with each one having a path consisting of a different number of steps to win it. From bottom to top, the amounts of cash are $100, $250, $500, $1,000, $2,500, and $10,000, and they have one, two, three, four, five, and six steps, respectively, for the couple to take in order to win that amount of cash. So, the higher the amount of cash, the more steps it takes for a couple to win it.

The bonus round is started off with all four steps of the path to the $1,000 cash prize lit up, and the couple is started off with that amount of cash. There is a randomizer like in the main game, but there are no questions unlike in the main game, for the bonus round is all about luck. The couple gets to take as many spins as they like, and they stop the randomizer by tapping their hands on the red bar on the top of the podium. All six cash amounts are on each screen of the randomizer, and after all three screens of the randomizer are frozen, the couple gets a step lit up on their path towards each frozen cash amount for each appearance of that cash amount on the randomizer rather than having to choose which one that they want to take the steps towards.

As soon as the couple has gotten enough steps towards a cash amount lit up on the path to it, they get that cash amount added to their bonus cash winnings, but that cash amount is not removed from the randomizer like the prizes won in the main game.

After each spin, the couple has the option to take another spin or stop and take all the money that they have accumulated up to that point, but if they choose to take another spin, they must be able to have at least one step lit up on an path that hasn’t been completed yet before they are given the option again. If the couple chooses to take another spin, and all three screens on the randomizer are frozen on cash amounts that have paths that are already completed, they lose all their bonus cash winnings, and the bonus round ends. If the couple completes the path to the $10,000 cash amount, they win the $10,000 cash prize, and the bonus round ends immediately.

A couple can win a possible $14,350, which can be achieved by completing all the paths to all the cash amounts, with the path to the $10,000 cash prize completed last. Regardless of the outcome of the bonus round, the couple gets to return on the show to play the game again against a new challenging couple.

That’s Second Guess. It’s a very fun and interesting game for couples to win cash and prizes. I like that it has couples winning prizes in the main game by earning steps towards them. It’s pretty much like the scoring used in the pilot episode of Bedtime Stories—which I already covered in year six of Game Show Corner—except better. The scoring in the game could’ve been a best-two-out-of-three-round match, or just a single round with the first couple to win three prizes to win the game, or a set or endless number of rounds with the couple who wins the most prizes winning the game. But instead, it’s two rounds with a total of three prizes won in each one and the couple who has the highest total value in prizes winning the game, which is a unique kind of scoring. They could’ve done away with the prizes that require six steps for a couple to get to in order to win it, both in the main game and in the bonus round, as it’s excessive, and steps to such prizes are hard to earn and rarely chosen if earned. The way the questions are done in the main game is interesting, and they could’ve been used in the bonus round, as well, in order for it to live up to the title of the pilot episode. I’m not saying that the bonus round is bad; it’s fine, but if they were to keep it the way it was, then they might as well have changed the title from Second Guess to The Steps To Victory. There’s a much bigger focus on earning steps towards prizes to win them than on the couples second guessing each other on questions in the pilot episode overall anyway. Even though I just said that the bonus round is fine, I still think that it could’ve been better; it could’ve been one that is all reward and no risk, it could’ve had the winning couple starting off with no money in the bonus round bank, and it could’ve required the winning couple to complete all the paths within a specific number of spins in order to win the $10,000, with the five cash amounts to complete paths to—yes, I’m still sticking with five paths and not six—being $500, $750, $1,000, $1,250, and $1,500 for one, two, three, four, and five steps, respectively.

For an unsold pilot, the set does look very nice. The colors, the shapes, and the compartment in which the prizes are modeled by an unidentified female model all remind me of Sale Of The Century, even though that show and this unsold pilot were created and produced by different people and different companies.

In this unsold pilot, the championship couple was identified as Rob and Ashley Minkoff. Ashley was previously a contestant on Catch Phrase—also packaged by Marty Pasetta Productions—which I already covered back in year one of Game Show Corner. Many people who have heard of this unsold pilot, though, believed that Rob is the same Rob Minkoff who later went on to be a film director, having directed The Lion King with Roger Allers, The Haunted Mansion starring Eddie Murphy, the first two Stuart Little films, Flypaper, The Forbidden Kingdom, and Mr. Peabody & Sherman. This particular contestant couldn’t be the same person who later became a film director, because from what I found out about the film director, the only spouse he has in his life is Crystal Kung, whom he married in 2007, twenty-one years after this pilot episode was taped; he never had a wife named Ashley. So, either the Rob Minkoff in this pilot episode is a different person from the film director, or it’s the same person who did become a film director later on and was paired up with Ashley to be a fake couple just for this pilot episode. Something like this happens in unsold pilot episodes, you know, and it’s not uncommon that it does.

Second Guess was one of the shows considered by Variety to replace reruns of Family Ties on NBC on January 5, 1987. The other show was the Bill Rafferty-hosted revival of Blockbusters. The show that ended up replacing the reruns of Family Ties on NBC was, of course, the Bill Rafferty-hosted revival of Blockbusters. Ironically, though, that revival of Blockbusters would be replaced later that May by a revival of Concentration called Classic Concentration, which, like Second Guess, was hosted by Alex Trebek. Classic Concentration would last for four years, with Alex also hosting a revival of To Tell The Truth after Gordon Elliott and Lynn Swann at one point during the former’s run and, of course, hosting Jeopardy! before, during, and after the former’s run.

Wow! Not only have I covered an unsold pilot hosted by Alex Trebek, but I also have very briefly gone over the three game shows that he hosted at the same time at some point. But now, I’ve said all I had to say about Second Guess, the unsold pilot episode hosted by Alex Trebek. Next week, I will be covering an unsold pilot episode that was hosted by another veteran game show host who died last year. I’ll see you then.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Hello to all of you little boys and girls. This is Dr. Flo-enstein, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

Tonight, we will be taking a look into an unsold pilot hosted by Tom Kennedy. Tom Kennedy hosted several game shows, some of which I already covered on Game Show Corner, like Big Game, It’s Your Bet, the original run of Split Second, 50 Grand Slam, Body Language, and Wordplay. He also hosted Password Plus after Allen Ludden left that show for the second and final time, and, most notably, Name That Tune from 1974 to 1981 in nighttime and in 1977 in daytime. After Tom hosted his final game show, Wordplay, he hosted two unsold game show pilots before he retired. Those unsold pilots were Eavesdroppers and the subject of this week’s edition, Star Play.

Star Play was shot for syndication on November 20, 1988. It was the very last game show project hosted by Tom Kennedy before his retirement in 1989 and his death in 2020. It was also announced by veteran game show announcer Rod Roddy, packaged by Kalola Productions and Tom Kennedy Productions, distributed by MCA Television, and taped at Hollywood Center Studios.

The game is played by two teams, each one consisting of two contestants and three celebrities. One team is red, while the other team is blue. The teams play three rounds, and in each round, each team chooses a card by number, with each card having on it a subject and a series of clue words that sound like that subject when put together. The game is started off with six cards, with one less card to choose from after each one chosen.

After a card is chosen, a category and how many clue words there are on that card is revealed on the game board, and the subject on that card is shown to the home viewers. One celebrity on the team who has chosen that card is shown the subject and the clue words on it, and they must act out the clue words, while their contestant teammates must choose the clue words by numbers in any order they want and make guesses on the clue words being acted out. An example of a subject is “Cybill Shepherd”, with the clue words being “cymbal”, “ship”, and “bird”. Each time a clue word is correctly guessed, it appears on the game board, replacing its respective number.

In each round, each team plays one subject and has 60 seconds to guess it. At the end of each round, the team who has correctly guessed their subject in the fastest time wins money. Round one is worth $100, round two is worth $200, and round three is worth $300.

On the bottom half of one of the numbered cards is a star, which is covered by the card holder until it’s pulled out by Tom. The contestants on the team who has chosen the card with the star on it wins a bonus prize if they correctly guess the subject before time runs out, regardless of which team wins the money in the current round. In the case of this pilot episode, the bonus prize is a trip to Hawaii.

One of the subjects is not shown to the home viewers after it’s chosen. Also, if a subject is correctly guessed before all the clue words are correctly guessed, the celebrity is asked to act out the remaining clue words to that subject.

For the entirety of the main game, each subject has its clue words acted out by a different celebrity. After three rounds, the team with the most money wins the game and advances to the bonus round.

Before the bonus round, which is called “Three For The Money”, the contestants on the winning team chooses one of their celebrity teammates to help them in it, and the game board rotates 180°, revealing three windows on the other side. Each window is labeled with a category; one window is labeled “Person”, another window is labeled “Place”, and one more window is labeled “Thing”. On each window, there are magnetic cards with words on them that make up a subject under that category when arranged in the correct order.

In the bonus round itself, the contestants on the winning team and the celebrity teammate of their choice have 45 seconds to arrange all the clue words to each subject in the correct order and correctly guess all three subjects. To start, the contestants on the winning team chooses which one of them will be the captain. The contestant chosen as the captain will be the one arranging the clue words to each subject with help from the chosen celebrity teammate, while the other contestant on the team will be the one guessing the subjects. Completing one subject wins the team $500, completing two subjects doubles the money to $1,000, and completing all three subjects increases their bonus winnings to $5,000.

After the episode returns from its final break, members of the studio audience are called up onstage, one at a time, to act out clue words to subjects to one of the teams of celebrities. If the subject is correctly guessed within 60 seconds, the studio audience member wins $100.

That’s Star Play. Before I give my thoughts on this unsold pilot, I have to talk about the runthrough that came before it called Star Game. In the runthrough, there’s a panel of five celebrities, and they are not part of the teams. Also, the subjects are each worth points, and a team scores points depending on how long it takes for them to correctly guess a subject; the faster a team correctly guesses a subject, the more points they score. On each subject, the team in turn has 90 seconds to guess it, with the subject worth 40 points if guessed correctly within the first 30 seconds, 30 points if guessed correctly within the next 30 seconds, or 20 points if guessed correctly within the final 30 seconds. The bonus in the runthrough is a bonus of 20 points if the card with the star on it is chosen, and the subject on that card is guessed correctly. The celebrities also rotate positions after each subject, and the teams take turns guessing subjects, all until one team reaches 100 points, with the first team to do so winning $500 and advancing to the “Three For The Money” bonus round, which is almost exactly the same as in the actual pilot. The differences in the runthrough are that one member of the winning team arranges all the clue words to each subject on their own, while the other member of that team and the celebrity of that team’s choice make guesses on the subjects, and that each subject correctly guessed is worth $1,000 instead of $500 like in the actual pilot. The winning team still wins $5,000 for correctly guessing all three subjects within 45 seconds. The contestant arranging the clue words to each subject doesn’t have to have all the clue words to each subject in the correct order to receive credit for the subjects correctly guessed.

Now, I can give my thoughts on this pilot episode. It’s a great combination of Body Language and You Don’t Say!, two of the game shows that Tom Kennedy hosted. So, this pilot episode is a great combination of charades and mondegreens. The acting of the clue words and the guessing of the clue words and the subjects make for good, fast-paced gameplay, as always in game shows involving charades, and such gameplay wouldn’t be as fun without the celebrities. The bonuses and the mystery subjects are nice additions to the main game, and the bonus round is quick and fun, too. There are two different kinds of scoring between the actual pilot episode and the runthrough, and I think the scoring in the runthrough is better. I think it’s better to award teams with more points the faster they correctly guess the subjects than to award only the team who correctly guesses their subject faster than the other team does with a flat amount of cash at the end of each round. Though, I think the reason why in the actual pilot episode, in each round, the money only goes to the team who has guessed their subject correctly faster instead of going to each team who has guessed their subject correctly, is that all the subjects are too easy to guess, and in both the actual pilot episode and the runthrough, all the subjects have been correctly guessed. Yeah, not one single subject has been missed in either the actual pilot episode or the runthrough. I guess that’s why the pilot didn’t sell; because the game is too easy. I also guess that’s why the grand prize in the bonus round is only $5,000, not that there’s anything wrong with a game show having $5,000 as the grand prize to play for in the bonus round in 1988. But Body Language had up to $10,000 to play for in the Sweepstakes bonus round, and that show lasted from 1984 to 1986. The set is the best-looking one seen in an unsold game show pilot. It’s got a very nice gold and pink color scheme, with the backgrounds of the score displays in the teams’ colors, the score displays themselves displaying “STAR” on the red team’s score display and “PLAY” on the blue team’s score display when they’re not displaying the scores, palm trees in the background, and a good use of stars. The benches for the teams and the director’s chairs for the celebrities, all in the team’s colors, are good seating areas. The game board looks good and functions very well, with each side having a different purpose—one side for the main game, and the other side for the “Three For The Money” bonus round—including the revolution and the reveal of the magnetic cards. The part of the set I like the most is the card holder that unfolds up when it’s time to choose a card and folds back down after the choice of card is made. The theme music, the music cues, and the sound effects are all good for television and ready for it. Heck, everything about this game show pilot is good and ready for television! In fact, it was available for a place in the 1989-1990 season. Too bad it didn’t sell. The setup and function of the runthrough doesn’t look or feel like a game show, but to be fair, it is a runthrough, and a runthrough just showcases everything that’s being planned out for the actual thing. That’s all a runthrough really needs to do. I found it quite annoying that in the runthrough, mimes appear in it, presumably to hammer in the fact that the game has “pantomiming” words involved. There’s also mention of returning champions in the runthrough, but there’s no mention of returning champions in the actual pilot episode, leaving it unknown whether or not there would’ve been returning champions should it have had sold.

By the way, I might as well do a rundown on the celebrities involved, since it’s an unsold game show pilot that involves celebrities playing the game with the contestants. In the actual pilot episode, the celebrities involved are Carol Burnett—who co-executive produced it with Tom Kennedy and helped him develop it—Willie Aames, and Diedre Hall on the red team, and Robert Guillaume, Valerie Harper, and Pat Harrington on the blue team. In the runthrough, Teresa Ganzel, Charlie Callas, Florence LaRue, Richard Simmons, and Marcia Wallace, were the celebrities.

Well, I think I said all there is that needed to be said about Star Play. Next week, we’ll be looking into an unsold pilot that can be considered a spiritual predecessor to Scattergories, a game show that I already covered back in year three of Game Show Corner. Can’t wait to see your initial reaction to it.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Hello, my little bright stars. Dr. Flo-enstein here, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

Remember when I covered Scattergories on year three of Game Show Corner? Well, eighteen years before that show premiered, there was an unsold pilot episode that had a similar premise. Not only that, but this pilot episode was taped thirteen years before the board game in which Scattergories was based on was first published. So, this pilot episode seems to be the predecessor of both the board game Scattergories and the game show adaptation of the same name. The subject of this week’s edition is Initial Reaction.

Initial Reaction was shot on April 1975, with the day and the network unknown. It was hosted by Dean Jones, packaged by Carruthers Company and Warner Bros. Television, and taped at Studio 33 in CBS Television City, Hollywood, California. There was also a male announcer in the pilot episode, but his identity is unknown.

The game is played by two contestants, who face a panel of five celebrities. The contestants play two rounds. To start the game off, a set of five categories is shown on a board offstage. In each round, each contestant chooses a category, and after the contestant in turn chooses a category, a panelist is selected at random, and a multi-part question is asked. The panel writes their answers on cards like in Match Game, Yahtzee, and The Hollywood Connection. There are a few catches, though. One is that all the answers written down must begin with the same letter as the initial letter of the randomly-selected panelist’s last name. Another is that the panel must try answering the question differently from each other. One more is that the panel has ten seconds to have all their answers written down and locked in.

The celebrities in the panel in this pilot episode are Pat Harrington, Elaine Joyce, Tim Conway, Jo Ann Pflug, and Robert Reed. An example of a question is “Names of things that only come in pairs” under the category “Two’s Company”, with Pat Harrington being chosen at random for this question, meaning that all the answers to this question have to begin with the letter “H”.

After the ten seconds of the panel writing down their answers, the randomly-chosen panelist reveals the answer that they have written down, and the contestant in turn wins money. Then, the two contestants take turns choosing the remaining panelists, starting with the opposing contestant. Each time a chosen panelist reveals to have an answer that’s different from the answers previously revealed on the question in play, the contestant in turn wins money. Each time a chosen panelist reveals to have an answer that’s a duplicate of an answer previously revealed on the question in play, however, or an answer that’s overall unacceptable, the contestant in turn wins no money. Each turn is worth $50 in round one and $100 in round two, except for the final turn on each question, which is worth $100 in round one and $200 in round two.

After the two rounds, the contestant with the most money wins the game and advances to the bonus round.

In the bonus round, the winning contestant and the panel are given one more question and initial letter. The panel writes their answers to that question that begin with that letter like before, but this time, the contestant writes an answer of their own on a slate during this. Afterwards, the contestant chooses a panelist to see an answer from. One of the panelists has a starting value of $1,000, while the other panelists each have a starting value of $500. Whichever panelist the contestant chooses first, they will receive the starting dollar value that that panelist has. Then, the contestant has the option to stop and take the money or play on and choose another panelist to see an answer from. If the contestant chooses to play on and choose another panelist to see an answer from, the answer written down by that panelist has to be a different one from the one previously revealed in this round. Each time the contestant chooses a panelist whose answer is different from the ones previously revealed in this round, their bonus round money is doubled, and they have the option to stop or keep going. The contestant can win up to $16,000, provided that they choose the panelist who has a starting value of $1,000, chooses to see the answers from all the panelists, and all five of the panelists’ answers are different from each other.

If, at any point in this round, the contestant chooses to play on and chooses a panelist whose answer is a duplicate of an answer previously revealed in this round, the round is over, and they reveal the answer that they have written down on the slate. If the contestant’s answer is different from all the answers revealed by the panelists up to that point, they keep their bonus winnings. But if the contestant’s answer is a duplicate of any of the answers revealed by the panelists up to that point, they lose their bonus winnings.

And that’s Initial Reaction. This could’ve been a good predecessor of Scattergories—either the board game or the game show based on it—but it isn’t good enough to be that. The idea of celebrities coming up with answers that begin with their last initials to questions under categories and having them not be matched is good, but it’s not done well here. It’s basically a clone of Match Game, but without the concept of contestants trying to match the answers that the celebrity panel wrote down. The contestants don’t even give answers of their own except in the bonus round when the winning contestant writes down an answer and reveals it in the end. What they could’ve done was have each panelist write down an answer that begins with their own last initial on each question, and have the contestant in turn in the main game and the winning contestant in the bonus round verbally giving five answers—one for each panelist’s last initial—on each question. The bonus round could use some more work than what I just thought of; it shouldn’t be a double-or-nothing bonus round, and considering the lackluster gameplay, the cheap set, and the fact that this pilot episode was taped in the 1970s, up to $16,000 is too high for a top cash prize on an unsold game show pilot like this anyway. What they should’ve done was award the winning contestant in the bonus round $250 for their first non-duplicated answer, double their bonus winnings for each non-duplicated answer thereafter, and increase their bonus winnings to $5,000 for all five non-duplicated answers, with the bonus round ending immediately after one duplicated answer, but the contestant keeping all the money that they have won up to that point.

I just commented that the set was cheap, and I know it’s just a pilot, but it has to look good enough to have a chance at being sold. But I guess it doesn’t matter anyway, since the gameplay isn’t good enough for this pilot to have a chance at being sold. The set looks dull, especially with how the pilot’s logo is placed on parts of it. The letters spelling out the name of the pilot on the panel area are well-built, but the font used for the letters is the most boring one that anyone can use for a logo on a game show, even if that game show is just a pilot, and an unsold pilot at that.

Okay, that’s enough talking about Initial Reaction. Next week, it’ll be Halloween, which means that next week’s edition is the year two finale of Game Show Graveyard. We will conclude year two with an unsold pilot episode produced by the same person who would later produce an unrelated game show of the same name. That may sound like a challenge to you, but it really isn’t. See you on Halloween!

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Hello to all the trick-or-treaters out there. This is Dr. Flo-enstein, and welcome to the year two Halloween finale of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

It’s now time for something very scary. Well, actually, it’s not that scary. But it is interesting, and for a couple of reasons. One reason is that the unsold pilot episode that I’m gonna be covering today was produced by the same person who would later produce a game show of the same name. The other reason is that the host of this unsold pilot episode died on the day after the day I covered Pictionary, the unsold pilot from 2000. You may consider all that scary, though. Maybe? Maybe not? Whatever. So, let’s finish off year two of Game Show Graveyard with The Challengers.

The Challengers was shot for CBS on April 21, 1974. It was hosted by Alan Kalter—referred to on this pilot as Alan Roberts, who would later become the announcer of The Moneymaze and The $50,000 Pyramid, the former of which I already covered in year three of Game Show Corner—announced by Bill Wendell, and packaged by Ron Greenberg Productions and Universal Television.

The game is played by two contestants, one of which is a returning champion. It’s started off with a toss-up question, with the first contestant to buzz in with the correct answer getting control of the game.

While a contestant is in control of the game, they are asked questions unopposed, with these questions read from ten different numbered sets. The numbers for the sets of questions range from 1 to 10, and they indicate the difficulty of the questions in those sets; the higher the number for a set of questions, the more difficult the questions in that set.

The contestant in control of the game keeps it by answering questions correctly. If they miss a question, they get penalized and lose control to their opponent.

At some point, the contestant in control can use one of two strategies. One is a toss-up question, and the other is the option to freeze. If they choose to use the toss-up question strategy, both contestants are asked a toss-up question, giving the opposing contestant a chance to steal control by buzzing in with the correct answer. If the contestant in control chooses to use the freeze strategy, their score is frozen, and their opponent must answer questions unopposed until they answer enough questions correctly to surpass the frozen contestant’s score, or until they miss a question before they surpass the frozen contestant’s score. However, the option to freeze is available to the contestant in control only if they are in the lead.

Every question answered correctly wins a contestant $100. If the contestant in control misses a question, they lose $100.

Some of the questions are multi-parters. When the contestant in control is asked a question like this, they must give all the correct answers needed in order to be credited for it. If they give one incorrect answer to that question, play of that question ends immediately, and that contestant loses $100.

There are three ways a contestant can win the game. One is that a contestant becomes the first to reach $1,000. Another is that a contestant answers enough questions correctly to surpass their opponent’s score after the opponent chooses to freeze. One more is that a contestant chooses to freeze, and their opponent misses a question before they can answer enough questions correctly to surpass the frozen contestant’s score, still losing $100 for missing that question.

If a contestant wins the game by being the first to reach $1,000, they win a cash jackpot that starts at $6,000 and increases by $1,000 each time it’s not won. If they win the game by a successful freeze strategy on their part or a failed freeze strategy on their opponent’s part, they are given the option to keep the money they have won in that game or gamble it all away for a chance to win the jackpot. If they choose to go for the jackpot, they must answer a question correctly for every $100 they are short of reaching the $1,000 goal in order to win it. For example, if the contestant wins the game with $800, they will need to answer two questions correctly to win the jackpot if they choose to go for it. Answering all the questions correctly wins the contestant the jackpot, while missing one question forfeits their chance to win the jackpot and loses all the money they have won in that game.

Regardless of what happens after the game ends, the losing contestant keeps their money, and the winning contestant becomes or remains the champion and plays the game against a new challenger. Also, the pilot uses a straddling format, meaning that the game can be stopped at any point when time for an episode runs out and continue where it has left off at the start of the next episode.

And that’s The Challengers, the unsold pilot from 1974. The gameplay isn’t bad, but it isn’t impressive. The idea of a contestant answering ten increasingly difficult questions correctly in one game in order to win a progressive cash jackpot, whether by reaching $1,000 or gambling away their recently won winnings and answering questions correctly in the remaining levels, is okay, and the strategies added to the game do add more to the gameplay to keep the game from being too basic and stale. There’s also a button between the two contestants, seeming to be used to freeze, but that button was never pressed whenever a contestant chooses to use the freeze strategy. It sure is strange that a button is added to the game, only for it to never be used. It’s also strange that the starting point of the cash jackpot is $6,000, since that’s too random of a number for a cash jackpot to start at. Why couldn’t it start at $5,000? It’s okay for them to do that. This pilot was taped in the 1970s, after all. The set is colorful, and it would look okay to be used on a game show in the early 1970s, but it does look kind of cheap with the contestants’ names in front of them all in lowercase letters, with the exception of one contestant, and it also does look excessive with a set of steps in the back that never got walked down on. The runtime of the pilot episode is also short for a game show pilot, with it being under fourteen minutes. This particular pilot episode was referred to as “Pilot #2”, though, so it is implied that there are at least two episodes of this pilot. “Pilot #1” is nowhere to be found on the Internet. In fact, it’s unknown if it still exists or not, so it remains unknown if there’s anything different in it from “Pilot #2”.

Host Alan Kalter and announcer Bill Wendell later went on to be announcers on The Late Show With David Letterman, with Bill announcing on that show until 1995, and Alan immediately succeeding him until the show’s run ended in 2015 when David Letterman retired. Meanwhile, Ron Greenberg later went on to produce The Challengers, a Dick Clark-hosted game show mostly about current events that premiered in 1990 and ended a year later, which is a revival of The Who What Or Where Game, also produced by Ron Greenberg.

Well, that’s done. It wasn’t easy for me to have all the editions done for Game Show Graveyard this year, what with me waiting until the last minute to get the editions done for not just this series, but also for Game Show Corner, both as of late. For Game Show Graveyard this year, I would’ve had an even more difficult time getting the editions done for it if the subjects of said editions were never uploaded on YouTube by veteran game show host Wink Martindale. Oh, yes. Wink Martindale has a YouTube account where he uploads obscure game show content under the title Wink’s Vault. That really helped me out with this series, and I hope to see more unsold pilots from Wink so I can get editions ready for year three. But now, year two is over, and I will now continue to work on year eight of Game Show Corner. So, goodbye for now, right here on Game Show Graveyard. See you in year three. Rest in peace, Alan Kalter.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a Happy Halloween.

[Flowgli]

Greetings, my little children. It is I, Dr. Flo-enstein, and welcome to the year three premiere of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

Wanna see some fast-paced trivia with initials that stand for correct answers? Well, take some of Jeopardy!, add some of Blockbusters, sprinkle a bit of Pyramid, throw in a bit of Your Number’s Up!, and maybe add a bit of Sale Of The Century to it. Mix it all together, and you could’ve gotten Pressure Point.

Pressure Point was shot on March 19, 1990, for which network is unknown. It was hosted by singer-songwriter and Las Vegas entertainer Clint Holmes, announced by veteran game show host and announcer Jim McKrell, and produced by Reid/Land Entertainment.

The game is played by three contestants, one of whom is a returning champion. The contestants face a game board with four categories, with each category having six questions in it, with all the questions in the form of clues. In each category, three of the questions are worth 10 points each, two of the questions are worth 20 points each, and one of the questions is worth 30 points.

The game is started with the returning champion in control of the game choosing a category and a point value, and a question in that category and worth that point value is asked, while a set of initials that stand for the correct answer to that question is given. Whenever a category gets chosen for the first time, though, a question worth 10 points must be chosen right then and there. Each time a contestant buzzes in and answers a question correctly, they score the points and gets to make the next choice of category and point value. However, if a contestant buzzes in and misses a question, they are locked out of the next question, while the remaining contestants get to buzz in and answer the current question.

There are twenty-four questions in total within the four categories, and three of those questions are special ones. One of those questions is a “Double” question, meaning that that question is worth double its point value. Another one of those questions is a “Triple” question, meaning that that question is worth triple its point value. One more of those questions is a “Tie The Leader” question, which is added to the game in its second half of the game, and if a trailing contestant buzzes in with the correct answer to that question, their score is increased to the leading contestant’s score, thus tying with that contestant for the lead.

Each game is split into two halves, with the second half simply being a continuation of the game after a commercial break, with the “Tie The Leader” question added to the game. Each half of the game is played according to time.

After the second half of the game, the contestant in the lead is asked a “Pressure Point” question in a category chosen for them by their opponents. If they answer the “Pressure Point” question correctly, they win the game; but if they miss that question, the contestants go into a one-minute speed round, or “Overdrive”, as Clint puts it. In the speed round, the contestants are asked questions in the four categories without them making any choices of categories, or even point values, whatsoever. The contestants buzz in and answer as many questions as possible within one minute, with each question answered correctly worth 20 points. Contestants still get locked out of the next question for buzzing in and answering incorrectly.

After the game is over, the contestant with the highest score wins the game and advances to the bonus round called “Pressure Plus”, while the other two contestants each receive their score in dollars.

“Pressure Plus” takes place in a completely different area of the set, and in this round, the winning contestant is shown twelve numbered columns on a game board referred to as “lanes” by Clint, with each lane having a pink box at the top and a green box at the bottom. Behind one box in each lane is a dollar sign, and behind the other box in each lane is a blank space. The contestant is shown what is behind all twenty-four boxes for ten seconds before they are all covered back up.

After the peek behind the boxes, one minute is put on the clock, and the contestant must choose a box in the first lane, at which point the clock starts counting down, and Clint gives a set of initials and a clue to the correct answer which those initials stand for. All twelve lanes are played in order, going from left to right, and the contestant must choose a box by saying the lane number and “top” or “bottom”, such as “one bottom”. If the contestant answers the clue correctly, they are shown what’s behind the chosen box in the current lane; but if they miss the clue or pass on it, they are given another set of initials and clue, with more initials and clues given until a clue is answered correctly. After the contestant answers a clue correctly, they advance to the next lane if the chosen box in the current lane has a dollar sign behind it or stay on the current lane and choose the other box if the box chosen first has a blank space behind it.

The contestant must uncover all twelve dollar signs before time runs out. Succeeding to do so wins the contestant $5,000, while failing to do so wins them $100 for each dollar sign uncovered.

After the first playing of “Pressure Plus”, the contestant goes back to the main part of the set and play the second game against their two opponents from the first game. And after the second playing of “Pressure Plus”, the contestant with the most bonus winnings will become or remain the champion and return on the next episode to play again against two new challengers.

And that’s Pressure Point. It’s a very nice fast-paced Q&A game of clues and initials. It’s great how it’s made with gameplay similar to Jeopardy! without it being similar to the point where it would be considered a clone of Jeopardy!. Locking a contestant out for one question instead of just deducting points from their score makes for a good penalty for answering incorrectly. The fact that the initials of all the correct answers being given in all the clue-formed questions, which was the case of the Gold Run on Blockbusters, really makes this game stand out from Jeopardy! even more. What makes this game stand out from Jeopardy! even more than that is that there are two ways that a contestant can win; one is by being asked a “Pressure Point” question when they’re in the lead in a category chosen for them by their opponents, and the other is by ending up in the lead after the one-minute speed round, which is played a lot like the speed round in Sale Of The Century and takes place after the “Pressure Point” question if it’s missed. The three special questions really help contestants out in scoring big. The “Pressure Plus” round is also a good bonus round of speed, knowledge, and memory, and it seems to be a good combination of the bonus rounds of Blockbusters and Your Number’s Up!, as it not only has clue-formed questions and initials of the correct answers to those questions, but it also has winning contestants starting at the left side of the board and working their way to the right side of it within one minute, and it has them choosing the correct spaces and answering correctly to claim them and get closer to victory. I also have to add that Your Number’s Up! also has initials that stand for correct answers, so it makes even more sense to bring that show up here. I have to ask, though, what’s the point of calling the lane numbers along with the top boxes or the bottom boxes if they have no choice but to go in order from left to right and can’t go in any order they want? Also, twelve lanes seems to be a bit too much. Maybe if they shorten that to ten lanes, then it wouldn’t be close to impossible to win this round and win the $5,000. It even seems to have the same returning champions rule as Pyramid, that being that a contestant would return to the show by winning both games or winning more money from “Pressure Plus” than another contestant if two contestants have won one game each. There’s no explanation as to what would happen if two contestants are tied for most “Pressure Plus” winnings, but I believe that if that were the case, then those two contestants would appear on the next show as co-champions.

The set for this pilot looks very good. It does look like it’s ready for a series, It’s well-built and colorful. The use of the colors gives it that modern art look. It does look as if Piet Mondrian played a major part in designing the set. The game board for the main game does look cool, as it’s split in four separate boards, each one having a different color. I don’t know why there has to be a separate area for “Pressure Plus”, though; what they could’ve done was have the game board have two sides—one side for the main game and the other side for “Pressure Plus”—and have it rotate 180° so that the appropriate side comes into play, and have the contestant playing “Pressure Plus” stand in the center of the set.

Pressure Point is good enough to be sold and last a season or two as a series. It makes me wonder how it didn’t sell. It’s got good gameplay, a nice set, a competent host, and cash prizes still good enough for 1990. For the next pilot that I’ll be covering, though, there’s a reason why that pilot didn’t sell, while I have my own reason as to why. I’ll explain it in next week’s edition when I cover it. See you then.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Hello, my little monsters. This is Dr. Flo-enstein, welcoming you to this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

There are game shows based on the game Bingo, with the best example being Lingo, though an upcoming revival of that show will not include the Bingo element. Boo. So, how about we just look into an unsold pilot based on Bingo, okay? And what better unsold pilot based on Bingo to look into than Banko?

Banko was shot for the 1986-87 television season for syndication on December 16, 1985, with plans for twenty-six weeks’ worth of first-run episodes to be produced. It was hosted by veteran game show host Wink Martindale, announced by Wheel Of Fortune announcer Charlie O’Donnell, produced by Jack Barry and Dan Enright in their production company Barry & Enright Productions, and originally planned to be distributed by 20th Century Fox Television, but later planned to be distributed by Colbert Television Sales around June 1986.

The game is played by two contestants, one of whom is a returning champion. The contestants face a game board consisting of twenty-five monitors in a 5x5 grid, making it a Bingo-style game board. There are prizes, booby traps, and bonuses hidden in twenty-four of the monitors. At the start of the game, four of the prizes are revealed in four of the monitors, and the center monitor is marked with a star, making it a free space, just like at the start of a regular game of Bingo.

After the board is set up, the contestants play a round that is a game of word association to determine who will get control of the board and how many spins that contestant will use on the board. One contestant is shown five items on their secret screen on their podium, with all of those items having a common connection. What that contestant has to do is choose two of those items that they hope will stump their opponent in guessing the common connection. After the contestant makes their choices of items, those items appear on their opponent’s secret screen on their podium, and the opposing contestant must guess the common connection of those items plus the ones not given to them. If the opposing contestant correctly guesses the common connection, they get control of the board; but if they fail to do so, the contestant giving the items has the option to give their opponent an additional item to stump them with or end the round right then and there. If the contestant giving the items successfully stumps their opponent with all five clues or chooses to end the round, they get control of the board themselves.

At the game board, the contestant who has won the spins for it takes them. On each spin, the contestant sees a set of lights outlining each monitor, one at a time, going from one monitor to another at random, and what the contestant has to do is stop the lights by pressing down a dynamite handle-like plunger, shouting “Banko!” in the process. At that point, the lights stop at a blank monitor, which reveals what’s hidden in it and gets marked. The contestant uses a spin for every item used in the word association round just played, up to five spins. However, some of the spaces have bonus and booby traps attached to the prizes, and they gain or lose the contestant spins if any of those spaces are stopped at. An example of a surprise is an extra spin, which adds one spin to the contestant’s spin total if that space is stopped at. An example of a booby trap is a loss of spin, and the contestant must choose when to lose a spin in their spin total to their opponent if that space is stopped at.

After all the spins in a round have been used, another round of word association is played. The contestants alternate roles of giving items and guessing common connections with each successive round.

The game is played until a contestant stops at a space that completes a line, which is getting five spaces in a row, whether vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. At that point, the contestant wins the game and all the prizes in the completed line. A contestant also wins the game by stopping at the star space, at which point they win all the prizes in both diagonal lines, whether hidden or revealed.

The winning contestant advances to the bonus round to play for thousands of dollars in cash and prizes.

In the bonus round, the winning contestant is shown on the board amounts of cash ranging from $100 to $600 in $100 increments on twenty-four of the spaces and a star on the center space. The contestant uses as many spins as they want until the round ends. On each spin, the contestant must stop at a space with an amount of cash on it; each time they do so, they win that amount of cash, all appearances of that amount of cash are removed from the board, leaving their spaces blank. After each successful spin, the contestant chooses whether to use another spin or stop and take the money that they have won up to that point, but if the contestant chooses to use another spin, and they stop at a blank space, the round is over, and the contestant loses all their money.

There are two ways for the contestant to win the round. One way is to get five blank spaces in a row, and the other way is to stop at the star space. If the contestant wins the round by doing either of those, they keep all their money and win a prize package consisting of three prizes. Unlike other game shows produced by Barry & Enright Productions, the prizes played for are not revealed until after the contestant wins them. The cash and prizes altogether, if won, total over $5,000.

Regardless of the outcome of the bonus round, the contestant returns on the next episode to play the game again against a new challenger.

The home viewers can also win from the show by means of Banko cards that can be purchased wherever they are sold. Each week, all the cards to be purchased are all in the same color. There are two episodes of this pilot, and in the case of both of them, the cards to be purchased are blue cards. On each episode of the week, the home viewers who have purchased the cards will each mark off the prizes on it that the winning contestant has won the game with, if any of those prizes is on that card, and they get to mark off up to three more prizes if the contestant wins the bonus round. If a home viewer gets five marked prizes in a row, they must call the toll-free number, 1-800-JACKPOT, and mail their card. Each home viewer who has called the toll-free number and mailed their card with a complete row wins their share of a cash prize of $200,000. Furthermore, all the winning cards are placed in a drum, and five of those cards are chosen at random, and each home viewer whose whose card is chosen from the drum wins an additional $10,000. This makes it a total of $250,000 won by home viewers each week. If a home viewer, however, doesn’t get a complete row at the end of the show, they must clear their card and save it for the next episode on the next day. The cards are all good for all the days of that week.

And that’s Banko. This looks like a fun and interesting game where contestants and home viewers can win big. The game is a nice adaptation of Bingo with a great word association game for each round to determine who gets control of the board and how many spins that contestant gets to use in that round, up to five, not to mention the surprises that can cause a contestant to gain a spin or lose one to their opponent, as well as the fact that contestants stop a randomly flashing light outline at one of the spaces on the board, pretty much like in Press Your Luck. With the gameplay this show has, though, it looks like the show could’ve had a straddling format, just like all the other game shows produced by Barry & Enright Productions, but this one has its episodes self-contained. I guess that would’ve made it more fair for the home viewers marking off prizes on their card, especially when it comes to clearing their cards for the next day of the week if they don’t get five in a row. The bonus round is the standard one seen in Barry & Enright-produced game shows: the object is to reach a goal to win cash and a grand prize package before making a choice that reveals something that immediately ends the round and causes the contestant to lose all their bonus winnings, with the contestant choosing to stop playing and keep the money or continue playing for some more after each successful decision. There is a bit more to this bonus round than luck and decision-making, though; it involves timing and visually increasing the risks of losing everything. The home viewer contest is very good, but $250,000 is too big of a cash prize for a game show to give away every week in the mid-1980s, no matter how many home viewers end up splitting it. Maybe it would’ve been a reasonable cash prize for home viewers to split if the show was made for a major television network—like ABC, CBS, or NBC—and airing during the early 2000s at the very least. The set does look bright and colorful, though it does look a bit cheap; it still does look passable for a series, though it would need an upgrade if the pilot had sold and got renewed for a second season.

Banko actually would’ve been sold and lasted at least twenty-six weeks in the 1986-87 television season, with reruns airing during the summer while new cards would’ve been distributed. Unfortunately, it never sold, supposedly because of low clearances and the then-upcoming Fox television network having refused to put any of 20th Century Fox Television’s planned syndication efforts for that television season on the lineup, despite there being an article and some trade ads for the show having been put out in 1986.

Both pilot episodes can be currently found on the Internet, with one pilot episode on YouTube and the other pilot episode on Vimeo. The pilot episode uploaded on YouTube—which, by the way, was uploaded there by host Wink Martindale himself in his official YouTube channel—is in the form of raw footage, so retakes, bloopers, and other stuff that would be edited out for television can be seen in it.

So, I have so far covered this year pilots that I think are good enough to have sold and lasted a season or two. What about the pilot that I’ll be covering next week? Do I think that it’s not good enough to have sold at all? You’re gonna have to change partners with me if you want to know what it is I’m talking about. See you next week when I cover an unsold pilot hosted and produced by the same person who hosted Catchphrase, which I already covered back in year one of Game Show Corner.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Good evening, my fellow pranksters of the night. I’m Dr. Flo-enstein, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

You know how in game shows played by teams, regardless of the relationships between the members of each team, the contestants play the game with their teammates in its entirety? Well, how about we get a game show where team members switch teammates and play the game with their opponents and don’t switch back until the end? Yeah, doesn’t sound like a good idea, does it? And after I cover this week’s subject, you’ll know why it’s not a good idea and why a game show pilot like this one never sold. It’s time to, just this once, Change Partners.

Change Partners was shot for an unknown channel on an unknown date in 1972. It was hosted and produced by veteran game show host Art James in his production company Art James Productions and announced by Tom Whitaker.

The game is played by three couples, all of whom have chosen before the show who will be answering questions and who will be keeping score. In this case, all the husbands are the ones answering questions, and all the wives are the ones keeping score.

After the couples introduce themselves, the contestants answering the questions “change partners”, meaning that they each move to the next contestant keeping score to form a new pair with them for the game. From there, the game begins, with each each contestant answering the questions playing for their spouses rather than for their new partners for the game. During the game, the home viewers will be shown the couples’ official scores and the correct answers to the questions, but the pairs will not.

Each couple is started off with 100 points. On each question, a contestant answering the questions gives an answer to a question, and their scorekeeping partner chooses how many points they want to wager—with the wager having to be from 10 to 100 points in increments of ten—and predict whether their question-answering partner is correct or incorrect. A correct judgment on an answer adds the wager to their own spouse’s score, while an incorrect judgment on that answer deducts the wager from their own spouse’s score. However, Art doesn’t reveal the correct answer to that question to that pair of contestants or tell the scorekeeping contestant in that pair that their judgment on their partner’s answer is correct or incorrect.

In each of the first two rounds, each pair of contestants plays three questions, and they take turns playing their questions. Round three of played the same way as rounds one and two, except that the pairs’ official scores are not shown to the home viewers.

After three rounds, the contestants reunite with their spouses, and each couple chooses whether to go for a prize or cash out with their final official score in dollars. There are nine prizes, and each prize has a different point value. The point values of the prizes range from 100 to 900 points in increments of 100, with the more valuable prizes being worth more points. Each couple reveals whether to take the cash or go for a prize, and which prize they want if they choose to go for a prize. Each couple’s final official score is then revealed. If a couple chooses to go for a prize and they have enough points for the prize that they have chosen, that couple has a chance at winning that prize; but if they choose to go for a prize and they don’t have enough points for the prize that they have chosen, they win nothing.

After all three couples have made their choices, the couple choosing to go for a prize who has chosen the most valuable prize while they have enough points for it wins the game and their choice of prize. That couple also wins the game and advances to the bonus round called “Winner’s Choice”.

In “Winner’s Choice”, the winning couple chooses whether to keep the prize that they have just won or double the point value of the prize and win a car, which costs 1,000 points. In this case, the car is a Pontiac Firebird. If the couple chooses to go for the car, they will be asked a question. If they go for the car and answer the question correctly, the point value of their prize is doubled, 1,000 points are subtracted from the point total, and the couple wins the car and the remainder of the doubled points in dollars; but if they go for the car and answer the question incorrectly, they lose their prize, and they don’t win anything in this round.

Regardless of the outcome of this round, the couple gets to return to the show and play the game again against two new couples.

And that’s Change Partners. It didn’t sell, and it’s very easy to see why. The concept of teams switching teammates—or, in this case, couples switching spouses—to play a game was never a good one. Even though the contestants were actually playing for their spouses and not for their new partners for the game, it was still not a good concept. Maybe if it involves individual contestants and celebrities playing the game, then the concept probably would’ve worked, and it also probably would’ve worked just as well with the contestants switching celebrities after each round, and, of course, with the contestants playing for themselves. Having the contestants not be told what the correct answers to the questions or what the couples’ official scores are is a good idea with the scoring used in this game. The idea of the couples gambling their points for big prizes in the score reveals and “Winner’s Choice” is the best one found in the game, though it actually would’ve worked better in a game show that centers around shopping. I actually came up with an idea for a shopping game show that uses this idea years ago, and this was before I first found out about this unsold pilot. I’m not kidding. With the way the game is played overall, it doesn’t look like the kind of game show that would have returning champions. And also, the set is very dull and amateurish. It really is very cheap. Yes, it’s just a pilot, and I shouldn’t judge a set for a game show pilot harshly, but it makes it look more like a runthrough rather than a pilot. The chyroned graphics for the correct answers to questions and the couples’ official scores also look just plain tacky.

None of the couples cashed with their final official scores in dollars in the pilot, so it’s unknown what would’ve happened if all three couples cashed out. It’s also unknown what would’ve happened if all three couples chose to go for a prize whose point value is higher than their final scores, all ending up winning nothing. So, all this gives the pilot even more of a reason as to why it never sold. The writing for the question in “Winner’s Choice” could’ve been better, as well, as it wasn’t specific enough. The question in that round was “Give me the first few words of the Declaration of Independence”. Yes, just “a few”. There was no specified number for that question. Nevertheless, the winning couple did win the car and $200 in cash with by answering with “When in the Course of human events”.

That’s it! I’m done talking about Change Partners! And for next week’s edition, all I gotta say is that, hopefully, the subject of it will be better than this, or at least less bad than this. I’m outta here for now. I’m out.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Hi, my dear little children of five…or over. It’s me, Dr. Flo-enstein, and welcome to this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

I hope you can forgive me for taking off the way I did after I covered Change Partners last week, but it was such a bad pilot for me to sit through that I just had to leave it behind as quickly as I could and find a better pilot to look into and clear my head. I sure need to take five after this year of Game Show Graveyard is over. Longer than that, actually. Well, you know what I mean! This leads to a pilot called Take 5.

Take 5 was shot for CBS on May 6, 1973. It was hosted by Tony Hernandez, announced by veteran game show announcer Don Pardo, and produced by Bud Austin-Castle Drive Productions.

The game is played by two contestants, one of whom is usually a returning champion. The contestants are shown a board consisting of nine spaces in a 3x3 grid. Hidden behind each space is a prize. The contestants compete to win the prizes by forming complete boxes around the spaces, but they have to earn lines to form boxes around those spaces—with the lines referred to as “links”—and they earn them by playing a subject with ten answers on a separate board.

The contestants are given a subject and asked a toss-up question in that subject. Whoever buzzes in and answers the question correctly gets control of the answer board. The contestants are then shown on the answer board ten answers in two columns of five answers each; five of the answers are correct ones to the subject, while the other five answers are incorrect. The contestant who has answered the toss-up question chooses answers on the answer board, one at a time, whether or not they fit in the subject. That contestant earns a link to place on the prize board for each answer that they have chosen, whether that answer is correct or incorrect, unless their opponent chooses to challenge that answer if they think it’s incorrect.

A contestant can choose to challenge their opponent’s choice of answer by pressing their buzzer if they think that chosen answer is incorrect. If the contestant chooses to challenge an answer, and that answer is incorrect, the steal control from their opponent and earns two links to place on the prize board; but if they choose to challenge an answer, and that answer is correct, their opponent keeps control and earns the two links to place on the prize board.

Each contestant has a console in front of them on their podium, and on the console are buttons that correspond to the links on the prize board. Each time a contestant earns a link by choosing a correct answer or two links after a challenge, they choose the link or links that they have earned by pressing the corresponding button or buttons on their console. Each chosen link gets lit up on the prize board, and as soon as that happens, any spaces whose sides are touching that link reveal the prizes behind them. When a contestant chooses a link that forms a complete box around a space on the prize board, they claim that box, which gets marked with that contestant’s name.

As soon as all five correct answers to a subject have been chosen, that subject is over, and a new subject comes into play with the exact same rules as in the previous one. The two contestants play as many subjects as possible until one of them claims five spaces on the prize board, at which point they win the game. If a contestant claims four spaces on the prize board, and there’s at least one space there that’s one link away from being claimed, then the next chosen answer on the answer board is an automatic challenge for their opponent, who must hope that the answer chosen at that point is incorrect and get control passed to them.

The first contestant to claim five spaces on the prize board wins the game and keeps all the prizes in the spaces that they have claimed. That contestant becomes or remains the champion and advances to the bonus round for a chance to win a car.

In the bonus round, the winning contestant is given a subject and shown a list of ten answers on a board. Like in the main game, five of the answers are the correct answers to the subject, while the other five are incorrect answers. The contestant must choose the five answers that they think are correct, and Tony will take those answers and place them on a separate board. After five chosen answers are placed on the separate board, Don tells the contestant how many of the answers placed there are correct. If all five of the answers placed on the separate board are correct, the contestant wins the car, which, in this case, is a Corvette Stingray. If less than five of the answers placed on the separate board are correct, the contestant must choose which answers on the separate board to switch with other answers on the answer list board. This goes on until all five correct answers are placed on the separate board, or until time runs out. The contestant has one minute to find all five of the correct answers and choose them all to have placed on the separate board in order to win the car.

After the bonus round is played, the contestant plays the game again against a new challenger. Also, this show has a rollover format, so when time for the episode runs out, a bell rings to signify that, and the game will continue from exactly where it has left off at the start of the next episode.

And that’s Take 5. This does seem to be the kind of game show pilot that I think could’ve been sold. It does live up to its name, as there are five correct answers to choose from a set of ten answers to a subject—whether in the main game or the bonus round—and it involves claiming five spaces in order to win the game, and receiving five prizes from doing so. The game altogether has elements that would be used next decade in Wipeout and All-Star Blitz—the former of which I already covered in year one of Game Show Corner—what with it having contestants choosing answers that fit in a subject from a set of answers and forming boxes around spaces, though the latter seems more accurate to the way it would be done in Battlestars than the way it would be done in All-Star Blitz, even though that show involves forming boxes and Battlestars involves forming triangles. I have to say, though, that it doesn’t sit right with me for the prizes to be revealed as soon as one link touching it gets chosen. Maybe it would’ve worked better if the prizes were revealed after boxes were formed around them completely, and also maybe even when the game is over. Yeah, keep the prizes a mystery until a contestant wins the game, at which point the prizes in the spaces claimed by that contestant are revealed and won by them. Also, a contestant being awarded links, whether the answers chosen are correct or incorrect, unless a chosen answer is challenged by their opponent, doesn’t make for good gameplay, as it just awards a contest for choosing incorrect answers. Having a contestant be awarded for their opponent’s mistake? Yes, that works. But maybe, what they should’ve done was have contestants earn links and keep control for correct answers, pass control and award a link to the opponent for incorrect answers—chosen by the contestant who had control, of course—and have the contestant in control choose to pass their next choice of answer to their opponent, challenging them to choose an answer and hope that they choose an incorrect answer, with a successful challenge worth two links. That would’ve added a bit more strategy to the game and not award a contestant for choosing an incorrect answer. The bonus round is similar to the one in Wipeout, except it’s the host who does the physical work, while the contestant chooses the answers verbally. This makes the bonus round kind of awkward. Shouldn’t the contestant be at the the boards for the bonus round and doing the answer placements there themselves. That was what would be done in Wipeout. With the gameplay that this pilot has, if it had gotten sold, it would’ve been considered a predecessor of Wipeout.

The set doesn’t look bad, but it does look bland. It’s mostly blue, and some of it is gray, with the walls being grids with circles in all the spaces. Considering that this pilot was made and shot in the 1970s, you’d think that the set would have brighter colors on it. As for the prizes, they are all good to play for, for the most part, but it really isn’t necessary for Tony to say how much in value they range from and to, not to mention that a fur coat wouldn’t be acceptable as a prize to play for in game shows nowadays. It may still be an acceptable prize back in the 1970s, but I think it was still wrong back then.

Do you know what I think would make for a much better prize to play for on a game show than a fur coat? Candy! Lots of candy! Yes, my friends. Next week, it’ll be Halloween, and that means that it’ll be the year three finale of Game Show Graveyard. So, by that time, I’m probably not gonna see many kids dressed up as the Riddler, one of Batman’s enemies. Why would I say that, you might be asking? Well, the pilot that I’ll be covering does have a misleading title. Well, at least it’s misleading to me. This pilot features celebrities, none of whom are dressed as the Riddler, and yet, it’s called…The Riddlers. See you on Halloween next week when I end year three of Game Show Graveyard by covering The Riddlers. Boy, this’ll be fun.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.

[Flowgli]

Happy Halloween, little trick-or-treaters. I’m Dr. Flo-enstein, your neighbor with a big bowl of candy to give away, and welcome to the year three finale of Game Show Graveyard, where we take a look at game shows that died before they were born.

Well, I can’t say this year has been the best for Game Show Graveyard, and I can’t say that this year will end on a high note. If you take a look at what I said at the end of the previous edition, then you’ll know right away what I’m talking about. You’ll know what’s about to come in this week’s edition. You’ll know that I’m disappointed that the celebrities in this game show pilot that I’m covering tonight were not dressed as the Riddler from the Batman franchise, despite that this pilot is called…The Riddlers.

The Riddlers was shot for NBC on November 4, 1977. It was hosted by comedian and talk show host David Letterman, announced by veteran game show announcer Jack Clark, produced by Bob Stewart in his production company Bob Stewart Productions, and taped at NBC Studios in Burbank, California.

The game is played by two teams, each one consisting of five members. One team consists of civilian contestants with a common bond playing for themselves, while the other team consists of celebrities playing for home viewers who have sent postcards to the show. In this case, the team of civilian contestants are dance instructors, and the team of celebrities consist of Jo Anne Worley, Robert Urich, Joyce Builifant, Michael McKean, and Debralee Scott. In the game, members of a team ask each other riddles and answer them, going down the line and then back up.

At the start of the game, the first member of the team that has lost the previous game is asked a riddle by David. If that team member answers the riddle correctly, they ask a riddle to the next team member in sequence from a card they choose from a card holder on a sliding score display. Then, the second member of that team asks a riddle to the third member of that team, and so on, until that team reaches all the way down to the end of the line. If the fifth member of that team answers a riddle correctly, they ask a riddle to the fourth member of that team, who, after answering correctly, then asks a riddle to the third member of that team, and so on, until that team reaches all the way back up to the start of the line. However, if a member of that team misses a riddle, they stop exactly where they are, and control of the game passes over to the other team. A team continues their progress when control of the game is passed back to them.

The game is played until the first member of a team correctly answers a riddle asked to them by the second member of that team, with the first team to have that happen winning the game. This means that a team has to answer nine riddles correctly in order to win the game. The winning team wins $500 and advances to the bonus round called “Crazy Quotes”.

Before the “Crazy Quotes” bonus round begins, the members of the winning team must rearrange themselves in the order that they wish to play in at a podium in the front of the set. In the round itself, each member of the team is asked one riddle, with the team member in the first position being asked the easiest riddle, and each team member down the line thereafter being asked a riddle that’s more difficult than the one asked to the previous team member. All the riddles asked in this round are asked by David, and they all each ask about what person might have said what quote. After a member of the team has their chance to answer their riddle, they leave the podium, making way for the next team member in sequence.

The team wins money for each riddle answered correctly. The riddles are worth $100, $200, $300, $400, and $1,000, in that order, for a total of $2,000 if all five riddles are answered correctly. If the round is played by the team of civilian contestants, they split the money amongst themselves; but if it’s played by the team of celebrities, the money is split amongst five home viewers whose postcards are chosen at random.

Both teams play against each other for an entire week, with a possible maximum of $12,500 in total.

And that’s The Riddlers. The gameplay isn’t bad, but it is rather slow, and it can be a real drag. Even though David and the team of celebrities are all good at providing comedy in this pilot, that’s not enough to save it from being unsold. And why does the game have a team of civilian contestants and a team of celebrities playing against each other. It seems to make the game imbalanced. Why can’t each team have civilian contestants and celebrities? That’s how it’s done on other Bob Stewart-produced game shows like Pyramid, Chain Reaction, The Face Is Familiar, Shoot For The Stars, Double Talk, and Go, the latter four of which I already covered on Game Show Corner. Speaking of Go, the gameplay used in this pilot reminds me of that show, as the gameplay in both of them involves teams going down the line and back up for correct answers. Go premiered years after The Riddlers, and it was a huge improvement over this pilot; it has better gameplay, faster pacing, and greater cash prizes, which are all won by civilian contestants, by the way. Yeah, that’s the next thing that I’d like to talk about; the cash prizes in The Riddlers are too low for 1977. Usually, the top cash prize on a game show in the 1970s was $5,000. Maybe they could’ve made it so that a team would win $5,000 for answering all five riddles correctly. $2,000 as the top cash prize back then is just cheap. The set does look nice, though like the set for Take 5, there’s too much blue when brighter colors could’ve been used, as this pilot was shot in the 1970s, even though there are lighter shades of blue on the set. It’s got a bit of yellow, it’s got a bit of red, and it’s got white chasing lights. Speaking of the chasing lights, one of those lights blew out, though it was only heard and not seen. This scared Jo Anne Worley so much that she briefly left the set, while David Letterman referred to this incident as “just a little sniper fire” before Jo Anne returned. That’s one wacky moment that happened in the pilot. Another wacky moment that happened in the pilot was that when the team of celebrities were getting ready for the “Crazy Quotes” bonus round, Jo Anne, Joyce, and Debralee were briefly fighting for the spot in which the easiest riddle would be asked.

While the pilot never sold, some good stuff came out of it. Go can be seen as a retooling of it, and it lasted sixteen weeks, originally with returning champions, and later with two teams competing against each other for an entire week. Bob Stewart would continue to produce game shows, such as Go, of course, and other game shows, all of which are better than The Riddlers, regardless of how good or bad they all really are. Also, David Letterman would go on to make an even bigger name for himself by hosting late night talk shows, such as Late Night With David Letterman and Late Show With David Letterman. The pilot itself aired twice on Game Show Network, each time in a marathon. The first time was on a “Game Show Turkeys” marathon in 1998, and the second time was on a “Raise The Dead” marathon in 2000.

Speaking of game show turkeys, I have to start preparing an edition for Game Show Turkey Month for the last time on Game Show Corner. Yeah, each edition I did for Game Show Graveyard has been a rush job, since I didn’t take enough time to get them all done properly, but that’s because I didn’t give myself enough time for each one of them, though I tried my best with each one of them. They’re not the best, though. But with Game Show Corner no longer going to be a regular series after this year, I will have plenty of time to prepare editions for Game Show Graveyard next year. Right now, I really need to get some sleep, and I sure need a good, long sleep after all this.

So, that does it for this week’s edition of Game Show Graveyard. Thank you, everybody, and have a Happy Halloween.