The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Dbacksfan12 on February 27, 2009, 07:14:14 PM
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After reading the thread about GSN schedules, a flaw in the 70s Pyramid was raised. What other flaws are out there? Do any of them stand out...and could you capitalize on any of them?
One other I can recall was on Get the Picture, when the game went into "speed-up" mode, a team could guess at will without penalty.
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Card Sharks 01...with the one row of seven cards, I could get to card number six (say, a King), call "LOWER!", and lose the round because the seventh card is an Ace.
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Merv Griffin's Crossword's spoiler system.
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The debacles known as the Osmond Pyramid $100,000 Tournament.
Version 1: In the event that no one wins the $75,000 prize in WC II, the one who won $25,000 in the fastest time, or the one who accumulates the most money wins the 100K. Three days, anticlimactic, no thought.
Version 2: The finalists compete to go to that night's WC's, each worth $50,000...which doesn't guarantee a $100,000 win. Three days, anticlimactic, even less thought...
Compare to this: In Dick Clark's version, the three fastest WC players play. First one to the top wins $100,000. While there is a flaw within this format (what if the cash is won in the first day), this version seemed more plausible and simple.
An honest opinion I wished to share, and if I am wrong, please let me know where I faltered. Thanks!
The Inquisitive One
/good to be back
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Well, as I'm sure at least one poster here can attest to (paging Chad Mosher...), the huge flaw concerning celebrity partner selection for the bonus round on MDP. It really didn't seem fair to base the selection solely on points scored with the partners, especially since many games ended prematurely, forcing some otherwise great champs to play with a mediocre (or downright awful) partner in the bonus round.
Whether this brings a perceived fairness in selection to the show is immaterial...when there's a MILLION DOLLARS on the line, the contestant should be allowed to choose his/her partner.
As far as $100K Pyramid goes, the Clark/Davidson tournament system was much better from a gameplay standpoint, but I'm not surprised, from a producer standpoint, why it was changed for Donnymid (uncertain # of episodes, the aforementioned problem about having a winner on the first show).
Anthony
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Until 1985, you could buzz in on Jeopardy! as soon as the clue was revealed. Thus, the dominant strategy for a good player quickly became buzzing in as soon as each clue was revealed.
Apparently the correspondingly large number of negs and blank stares caused the rule to be changed, as far as I can tell.
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[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'209009\' date=\'Feb 27 2009, 04:14 PM\']After reading the thread about GSN schedules, a flaw in the 70s Pyramid was raised. What other flaws are out there? Do any of them stand out...and could you capitalize on any of them?[/quote] What's the flaw? That you could have repeated ties until someone outscored the other? I don't think that's a flaw as much as it is the nature of the beast until someone changed things.
One other I can recall was on Get the Picture, when the game went into "speed-up" mode, a team could guess at will without penalty.
And yet you never saw teams thump the button saying "Boondoggle!": to lock out the opposition, which means they were told by the producers to not do it, or the teams never figured out that it was a viable strategy.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'209037\' date=\'Feb 27 2009, 09:51 PM\']
[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'209009\' date=\'Feb 27 2009, 04:14 PM\']After reading the thread about GSN schedules, a flaw in the 70s Pyramid was raised. What other flaws are out there? Do any of them stand out...and could you capitalize on any of them?[/quote] What's the flaw? That you could have repeated ties until someone outscored the other? I don't think that's a flaw as much as it is the nature of the beast until someone changed things.
[/quote]
They were referring to the One-And-Done way of handling contestants in the 70s. If you get a bad celeb, too bad.
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[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209038\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 01:02 AM\']
[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'209037\' date=\'Feb 27 2009, 09:51 PM\']
[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'209009\' date=\'Feb 27 2009, 04:14 PM\']After reading the thread about GSN schedules, a flaw in the 70s Pyramid was raised. What other flaws are out there? Do any of them stand out...and could you capitalize on any of them?[/quote] What's the flaw? That you could have repeated ties until someone outscored the other? I don't think that's a flaw as much as it is the nature of the beast until someone changed things.
[/quote]
They were referring to the One-And-Done way of handling contestants in the 70s. If you get a bad celeb, too bad.
[/quote]
I remember. I recall thinking that "The $25,000 Pyramid," which ran concurrently in syndication one night a week, was in a way preferable because the two contestants got to stay for the entire show, and each got a chance to play opposite each celebrity - it seemed more even-handed that way.
As for the daily "$10,000 Pyramid," I always felt sorry for the contestants whenever Peter Lawford showed up, because he was such a poor player. But I also remember a young man who was such a powerhouse, he kept winning round after round, even though he was saddled with Lawford half the time. And finally, the young man won the Pyramid after something like a dozen tries, much to the joy of the other contestants who were slated to follow him.
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All the versions of High Rollers had a flaw that stuck out like a sore thumb, it would lead to an automatic gane over. That being if a player leaves a 1 on the board, game ends right then & there though it's more common in the Big Numbers round than the main game. That's why it's always a good idea to discard the 1 as quickly as possible to avoid that flaw.
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[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'209048\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 03:54 AM\']
All the versions of High Rollers had a flaw that stuck out like a sore thumb, it would lead to an automatic gane over. That being if a player leaves a 1 on the board, game ends right then & there though it's more common in the Big Numbers round than the main game. That's why it's always a good idea to discard the 1 as quickly as possible to avoid that flaw.
[/quote]
How is that really a flaw? I would figure most people would have enough sense in their heads not to do something like that because they know you can't roll a one.
I mean, yeah, the possibility exists of someone leaving a one (meaning the automatic game over as you said), but I'd chalk it up more to lack of mental acuity then a gameplay flaw because most, if not all, of the players would find a way to get the 1 off the board ASAP.
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[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'209048\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 12:54 AM\']
That's why it's always a good idea to discard the 1 as quickly as possible to avoid that flaw.[/quote]
Many would disagree with you. (http://\"http://gameshow.ipbhost.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=8589&view=findpost&p=93544\")
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The NBC big-money show Identity had a rule where if you identified 10 out of the 12 personalities without using your free miss, you forfeited the free miss. Considering that the game had no business being played for the enormous sums of money they were offering, that struck me as a ham-handed attempt to create risk where none would be otherwise.
That and the rule in the original version of Jackpot! in which the expert remained at the podium after answering a Jackpot riddle correctly, thus providing no reason to play on once you found it except if you were really close to the Target number.
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[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'209048\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 03:54 AM\']All the versions of High Rollers had a flaw that stuck out like a sore thumb, it would lead to an automatic gane over. That being if a player leaves a 1 on the board, game ends right then & there though it's more common in the Big Numbers round than the main game. That's why it's always a good idea to discard the 1 as quickly as possible to avoid that flaw.[/quote]
This is -- unsurprisingly -- wrong on several levels. As far as the bonus round is concerned, it's not really a flaw of the game for the '1' to be left alone, but a combination of (mostly) bad luck and (maybe) bad strategy. In the main game, leaving the '1' isn't a flaw at all and doesn't end the game "right then & there". You just have to be sure you answer that last question correctly, then it's over.
From my point of view, the bigger problem with High Rollers is that the main games usually end not because one player was successful, but because the other player failed. You typically want a game to end with a winning moment. That can't always be helped in some games, but the High Rollers structure meant that most of the time the game ended because somebody made a bad roll.
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'209059\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 09:43 AM\']
This is -- unsurprisingly -- wrong on several levels. As far as the bonus round is concerned, it's not really a flaw of the game for the '1' to be left alone, but a combination of (mostly) bad luck and (maybe) bad strategy. In the main game, leaving the '1' isn't a flaw at all and doesn't end the game "right then & there". You just have to be sure you answer that last question correctly, then it's over.[/quote]
You just answered a question that I had for years regarding the remaining 1 in a main game round: If a 1 is the last number remaining on the board, it is essentially a tie game. The toss-up question serves as the tie-breaker whereby whoever "wins the question" will win the game by default.
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'209059\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 09:43 AM\']
[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'209048\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 03:54 AM\']All the versions of High Rollers had a flaw that stuck out like a sore thumb, it would lead to an automatic gane over. That being if a player leaves a 1 on the board, game ends right then & there though it's more common in the Big Numbers round than the main game. That's why it's always a good idea to discard the 1 as quickly as possible to avoid that flaw.[/quote]
This is -- unsurprisingly -- wrong on several levels. As far as the bonus round is concerned, it's not really a flaw of the game for the '1' to be left alone, but a combination of (mostly) bad luck and (maybe) bad strategy. In the main game, leaving the '1' isn't a flaw at all and doesn't end the game "right then & there". You just have to be sure you answer that last question correctly, then it's over.
From my point of view, the bigger problem with High Rollers is that the main games usually end not because one player was successful, but because the other player failed. You typically want a game to end with a winning moment. That can't always be helped in some games, but the High Rollers structure meant that most of the time the game ended because somebody made a bad roll.
[/quote]
I often wonder, since we'll likely never hear a rebuttal from Craiggers, if he has just blocked every single person here who has criticized his postings.
I less than often wonder, if Craiggers thinks that the GSForum has 9 members, since if the above is the case, that's all he can read from at this point.
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Some from over the pond.
Chain Letters and their tie the leader round sums it up.
Name That Tune, the winner in the golden medley plays for the car regardless how much they win in earlier rounds.
Keynotes, rounds were £30, £60 & £120. So winning round 3 guarantees the team to come back as returning champions.
1 Vs 100, if you decide to dodge on a question but wipeout all 100 people you win the £50,000 without any risk. In return your current winnings before that is cut in half.
Strictly Come Dancing and their mathmatical confusion in late 2008 with the judges scores.
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Also, the one strike Triple round from the first four seasons of Feud. They at least corrected that at the start of the 2003 season...even if it did result in a now-outdated catchphrase. :-P
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[quote name=\'GameShowGuru\' post=\'209063\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 10:15 AM\']You just answered a question that I had for years regarding the remaining 1 in a main game round: If a 1 is the last number remaining on the board, it is essentially a tie game. The toss-up question serves as the tie-breaker whereby whoever "wins the question" will win the game by default.[/quote]
In the spirit of full disclosure, I can't say I ever saw it happen. Still, how else could they possibly do it? Any time there is ANY number left on the board, the game isn't over. Since a '1' is an impossible roll, there's no need to make somebody actually roll the dice, but it should still come down to asking that last question.
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As for the daily "$10,000 Pyramid," I always felt sorry for the contestants whenever Peter Lawford showed up, because he was such a poor player. But I also remember a young man who was such a powerhouse, he kept winning round after round, even though he was saddled with Lawford half the time. And finally, the young man won the Pyramid after something like a dozen tries, much to the joy of the other contestants who were slated to follow him.
I remember that. He won something like 12 games in a row, and oddly enough always played against a woman contestant. For some reason, Pyramid never liked to have two men play each other - even if one went on a long winning streak. I can't remember what happened after he won, but the next woman champion probably played several male contestants in a row.
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As far as recent shows go....
IIRC, if contestants on both 5th Grader and Lyrics make it to the million-dollar level with lifelines/helps on the table, they lose the lifelines if they want to go for the final question or song. Never liked that rule -- if you were able to get to the top of the chain without using all your helps, you should be able to use remaining helps on the $1M question/song.
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On the hour-long TPIR, you can play your pricing game perfectly and still not go on to the showcase, while someone who totally bombed out gets in.
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'209081\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 12:08 PM\']
On the hour-long TPIR, you can play your pricing game perfectly and still not go on to the showcase, while someone who totally bombed out gets in.
[/quote]
On the half hour long TPiR, all three can play their pricing games perfectly and still one wouldn't go to the Showcase through a combination of either the One Bid not being worth that much or (most likely) the pricing game award not retailing for very much.
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[quote name=\'colonial\' post=\'209080\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 09:07 AM\']
As far as recent shows go....
IIRC, if contestants on both 5th Grader and Lyrics make it to the million-dollar level with lifelines/helps on the table, they lose the lifelines if they want to go for the final question or song. Never liked that rule -- if you were able to get to the top of the chain without using all your helps, you should be able to use remaining helps on the $1M question/song.
[/quote]
I don't watch Lyrics, but the way 5th Grader structures it makes it a little more palatable. It's a money tree of 10 questions to $500,000. Once you scale the money tree, you decide if you wanna take a shot at the bonus question for the million. Since it's a bonus question with a completely different set-up (ie: you have to decide whether or not to play before seeing it), I don't think it's so bad that the help rules are different too.
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I don't recall the exact rule, but on Identity, wouldn't the "lifeline" that's forfeited at the last level have essentially given the correct answer to the contestant, thus auto-winning them $500K?
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[quote name=\'rjaguar3\' post=\'209035\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 01:45 AM\']
Until 1985, you could buzz in on Jeopardy! as soon as the clue was revealed. Thus, the dominant strategy for a good player quickly became buzzing in as soon as each clue was revealed.
[/quote]
Merv might have remembered this from the 1974-75 syndie season, when this first came into common practice. I don't remember it being used much before that -- anyone else my age or older have conflicting memories?
This reminds me of when a friend of mine and I were in a Krypto tournament (well, an all-day affair against two kids from the next grade up). We figured out after awhile the safest way to have a chance of winning was to called Krypto the moment the objective card was flipped, and pray you didn't have anything in your hand that would cause problems.
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IIRC, On Fleming J! you'd usually hear someone ring in as soon as the card was pulled.
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[quote name=\'CJBojangles\' post=\'209126\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 05:53 PM\']
I don't recall the exact rule, but on Identity, wouldn't the "lifeline" that's forfeited at the last level have essentially given the correct answer to the contestant, thus auto-winning them $500K?
[/quote]
Precisely, and that's why that game shouldn't have been played for $500K in the first place.
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[quote name=\'Loogaroo\' post=\'209147\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 04:31 PM\']
[quote name=\'CJBojangles\' post=\'209126\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 05:53 PM\']
I don't recall the exact rule, but on Identity, wouldn't the "lifeline" that's forfeited at the last level have essentially given the correct answer to the contestant, thus auto-winning them $500K?
[/quote]
Precisely, and that's why that game shouldn't have been played for $500K in the first place.
[/quote]
It makes me wonder if there was some rule in place on Super Millionaire if a player had their 50:50 and Double Dip at the same time, particularly on the $10M question.
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[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209120\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 01:19 PM\']I don't watch Lyrics, but the way 5th Grader structures it makes it a little more palatable. It's a money tree of 10 questions to $500,000. Once you scale the money tree, you decide if you wanna take a shot at the bonus question for the million. Since it's a bonus question with a completely different set-up (ie: you have to decide whether or not to play before seeing it), I don't think it's so bad that the help rules are different too.[/quote] I don't think the $1m question on Fifth Grader is a bonus; it's the eleventh question in the stack that's played by different rules. And there's no earthly reason to have different rules unless you want to discourage people from playing it. On DFTL, you get to the Big Fella, and have to punt $400,000 on the fact that the song is a Number One, and it comes from one of the previous nine questions.
I'm not sure whether it's laziness, apathy or something else on the part of the producers, but I don't understand why they think that having a completely different rule set for a level of the game that isn't reached all that often is a good thing.
[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209156\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 05:32 PM\']It makes me wonder if there was some rule in place on Super Millionaire if a player had their 50:50 and Double Dip at the same time, particularly on the $10M question.[/quote]I hope not. If you can answer 14 questions without using those two lifelines, knowing that you were risking hundreds of thousands of dollars (and later millions) each time, bully for you. Show the question, cut two wrong answers, invoke Double Dip, pop the confetti bomb. You've earned it.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'209167\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 06:21 PM\']
[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209156\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 05:32 PM\']It makes me wonder if there was some rule in place on Super Millionaire if a player had their 50:50 and Double Dip at the same time, particularly on the $10M question.[/quote]I hope not. If you can answer 14 questions without using those two lifelines, knowing that you were risking hundreds of thousands of dollars (and later millions) each time, bully for you. Show the question, cut two wrong answers, invoke Double Dip, pop the confetti bomb. You've earned it.
[/quote]
Absolutely agreed.
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[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'209048\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 02:54 AM\']
All the versions of High Rollers had a flaw that stuck out like a sore thumb, it would lead to an automatic gane over. That being if a player leaves a 1 on the board, game ends right then & there though it's more common in the Big Numbers round than the main game. That's why it's always a good idea to discard the 1 as quickly as possible to avoid that flaw.
[/quote]
In the bonus, at least, if there was a 9 and a 1 remaining, couldn't they just as easily have called the 9 a bad roll instead?
[quote name=\'TravisP\' post=\'209068\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 09:58 AM\']
Name That Tune, the winner in the golden medley plays for the car regardless how much they win in earlier rounds.[/quote]
Do most British game shows have some sort of prize ladder? I always wondered because most shows here play the bonus for a flat prize, and the above "flawed rule" is considered regular fare.
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[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'209048\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 02:54 AM\']That's why it's always a good idea to discard the 1 as quickly as possible to avoid that flaw.[/quote]
That makes it strategic, not flawed.
[quote name=\'rollercoaster87\' post=\'209175\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 09:38 PM\']In the bonus, at least, if there was a 9 and a 1 remaining, couldn't they just as easily have called the 9 a bad roll instead?[/quote]
They could, but rolling a 9 would at least earn you another hundred bucks, even if it meant game over.
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[quote name=\'rollercoaster87\' post=\'209175\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 09:38 PM\']
In the bonus, at least, if there was a 9 and a 1 remaining, couldn't they just as easily have called the 9 a bad roll instead?
[/quote]
But how would that make any sense whatsoever? The "1" left on the board isn't simply called a "bad" roll for arbitrary reasons...since the player must always roll both dice in each and every turn, the combined total on both dice will always be a 2 or greater. You can't roll a "1" on one dice and a "0" on the other so really, a "1" isn't simply a bad roll, it is an impossible roll.
If a "9" and a "1" were remaining on the board, either in the main game or the bonus, how would it be possible to call the "9" a bad roll when there are two combinations totalling 9 that could be rolled (3 & 6 or 5 & 4)...also, with "9" & "1" remaining on the board, there is still the roll of a 10 (6 & 4 or 5 & 5) that would remove them both, clearing the board.
Is it just me and did I miss something here with this 9=bad roll concept? My brain kinda hurts...
Jake
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[quote name=\'PYLdude\' post=\'209049\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 01:20 AM\']How is that really a flaw?[/quote]It isn't. And actually, many of the items listed aren't flaws. There are some stupid rules, for sure, but not a flaw. A flaw is something that makes the game unworkable, like having the champion go first in every round of Wordplay. The "round four Triple" thing was annoying and rendered the first three questions on Family Feud all practice rounds, but both families knew that round four was the one to win. I didn't like that the second player didn't have a chance to tie after a three-joker win, but it's the rules of the game.
Some real flaws:
The betting round of Chain Reaction, where teams saw their chances of winning slip away with every wrong guess, and further so because the betting was capped at $500 per turn.
The three-question final round on the early episodes of Sale of the Century.
Control reverting to the player with the last correct answer on Joker's Wild 1990. Some contestants were able to keep control of the game only because the opponent was unable to jump-in and steal.
And the rule on Name That Tune where you were able to buzz in at any time, say "It's The Armpit Song!" and the opponent didn't get to hear any more of the tune.
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You could of used 50/50 and double dip on the same question on Super Millionaire. I read that Michael Davies were intrigued by the possibility, although it never happened. The possibility of using the double dip after the 50/50 turned the 50/50 from the worst lifeline of the original three to the best lifeline, in my opinion.
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I guess the 1 in the High Rollers situation was more a nussance than a flaw. But if there are other numbers left along with the 1, than it's good strategy to knock it out quickly.
As for the 50/50 & DD, when you reach the $10M level, it's very easy to exploit the 50/50 by using that first & then the Double Dip, thereby creating instant riches. It never hhappened, but if there was an online version of Super Millionaire, it would be fun to try to exploit the 50/50 at the final level.
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[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'209202\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 04:05 AM\']when you reach the $10M level, it's very easy[/quote]...right.
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I think this one might fall more under the heading of "bad hosting" rather than "flaw", but I didn't like that the number of words played in Speedword in the second round (in the Cross-Sprint-Cross-Sprint-Bonus format) was so dependent on how gabby Chuck Woolery felt that day.
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On MDP, I don't like the rule where the clue giver must wait for a response from their partner before giving the next clue. Likewise, I don't like when the responder only can give one response per clue. On the Password Plus and Super Password bonus rounds, you didn't have such restrictions (although on P+, you'd often hear the responder say "Clue" before the clue giver said the next clue in the bonus round [shades of Stumpers!]).
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[quote name=\'mbclev\' post=\'209239\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 01:03 PM\'](although on P+, you'd often hear the responder say "Clue" before the clue giver said the next clue in the bonus round.[/quote]Because the clue giver had to wait for a response. If you didn't have to wait for an answer by the guesser, you could just string together a sentence. That's not Password.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'209240\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 04:06 PM\']Because the clue giver had to wait for a response.[/quote]I don't think that's entirely accurate. I've seen plenty of bonus round trips on P+/SP where the celebrity just takes a pause and gives another clue, instead of waiting for a response. That's evidenced here (http://\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2c2Lxuu0FQ&feature=related\") and here (http://\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCFOCdwLcGw\").
[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'209014\' date=\'Feb 27 2009, 07:57 PM\']Well, as I'm sure at least one poster here can attest to (paging Chad Mosher...), the huge flaw concerning celebrity partner selection for the bonus round on MDP. It really didn't seem fair to base the selection solely on points scored with the partners, especially since many games ended prematurely, forcing some otherwise great champs to play with a mediocre (or downright awful) partner in the bonus round.[/quote]Your support is appreciated. ;)
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'209059\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 10:43 AM\']
As far as the bonus round is concerned, it's not really a flaw of the game for the '1' to be left alone, but a combination of (mostly) bad luck and (maybe) bad strategy.
[/quote]
You could also argue that, in many cases, the contestant's leaving the "1" could have been the best (s)he could have done. Regardless of the decisions of which numbers to remove when, the only way that the player can win is if the numbers on the rolls of the dice total to 45 (1+2+3+...+9)... it's a necessary (but not sufficient) requirement. Thus, if the player leaves the "1," that means the dice rolls to that point have totaled 44... meaning the contestant is screwed no matter what, so to end up with $800 is the best possible outcome. It's certainly possible the player's game could end sooner based on their choices of what to remove coupled with the dice outcomes, but when the rolls total 44, it's impossible to win.
Of course, there are often exceptions caused by rolling doubles. When I talk about the dice rolls adding up to 45, I'm referring to the dice rolls that are "used." We've all seen dice rolls that were bad, but because of insurance markers the game continued. Had a different choice been made earlier of which number(s) to eliminate, perhaps that roll wouldn't have been bad; that is, a different roll would have been counted as "used." In other words, here the contestant's endgame outcome is potentially more dependent on the choices they make; one choice might lead to a set of "used" rolls that adds to 45, while another could add to 44 (or something else, for that matter).
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'209240\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 01:06 PM\']
Because the clue giver had to wait for a response. If you didn't have to wait for an answer by the guesser, you could just string together a sentence. That's not Password.[/quote]
No, they didn't. There were lots of times where a clue was followed by a blank stare, then followed by another clue. Now, if I have a partner who is going to be patient and wait for me to guess when I've got nothin', I'm going to say "clue" as a way of saying "get on with it, give me another one."
Yes, you could string together a sentence or multi-word phrase if you wanted to, provided you spaced them out such that they appeared to be single-word clues. And if you did that, 1) you'd be wasting time, and 2) you very likely wouldn't be asked back as a celebrity guest.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'209254\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 02:07 PM\']
Yes, you could string together a sentence or multi-word phrase if you wanted to, provided you spaced them out such that they appeared to be single-word clues. And if you did that, 1) you'd be wasting time, and 2) you very likely wouldn't be asked back as a celebrity guest.
[/quote]
3) You'd be playing an entirely different game than your partner was playing, and you'd go down in flames. (Possibly what you entailed with #1)
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[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209256\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 02:10 PM\']
3) You'd be playing an entirely different game than your partner was playing, and you'd go down in flames. (Possibly what you entailed with #1)[/quote]
Absolutely correct.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'209257\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 05:11 PM\']
[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209256\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 02:10 PM\']
3) You'd be playing an entirely different game than your partner was playing, and you'd go down in flames. (Possibly what you entailed with #1)[/quote]
Absolutely correct.[/quote]
Even in MDP we saw clue givers trying to string together a phrase out of their individual clues, oblivious to the fact that their partner was processing each clue individually. Didn't one poor fool try "Duke" and "Blue" as clues for "Devil"?
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'209260\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 05:14 PM\']Even in MDP we saw clue givers trying to string together a phrase out of their individual clues, oblivious to the fact that their partner was processing each clue individually.[/quote]We did and I even exercised it with "Miss", "America". It managed to work in that instance, though.
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I believe that "one clue, one response" was in effect in Alphabetics when Password Plus began, wasn't it? During the disastrous round with Carol Burnett, I distinctly recall her telling her partner to "just say anything" after about 5 seconds of silence.
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[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' post=\'209267\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 05:37 PM\']
I believe that "one clue, one response" was in effect in Alphabetics when Password Plus began, wasn't it? During the disastrous round with Carol Burnett, I distinctly recall her telling her partner to "just say anything" after about 5 seconds of silence.
[/quote]
I was just going to say something similar. One of the celebrities on one of the episodes I saw recently (must have been the weekend run) even stated something about how that rule had been modified to allow them to give clues without requiring a response from the contestant.
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Celebrity Sweepstakes started as a three-player game and then became a two-player game. A contestant started with $20 and could bet $2, $5 or $10 on which celebrity could answer a trivia question correctly. The flaw was if a contestant ended a round with no money both contestants were given $20 to continue the game. The result was that every bet was for $10 because the contestants would just get their money back if they were wrong twice. The producer's solution was restrict bets to $2 if a player's score was $10 or less. My solution would have been to start the contestants with $19.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'209193\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 12:22 AM\']
The three-question final round on the early episodes of Sale of the Century.
[/quote]
I always thought this could have been extremely exciting if the show doubled each question to $10.
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I would call this a flaw, since it made the game much less compelling:
Having no returning champions on Whammy! often destroyed the strategy at the end of the game. On PYL, if one player had a high total and the other player couldn't likely catch up, but had a spin left, there was still an incentive for the player that was trailing to pass their spin, since they could at least come back the next day.
On Whammy!, if one player had $250 and the other $10,000, the $250 player would still sometimes pass their last spin, making them look extremely petty. I remember seeing this happen (not with those exact amounts, but you get the idea.)
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[quote name=\'DJDustman\' post=\'209282\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 07:09 PM\']
[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'209193\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 12:22 AM\']
The three-question final round on the early episodes of Sale of the Century.
[/quote]
I always thought this could have been extremely exciting if the show doubled each question to $10.
[/quote]
Yeah, but only for round three.
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One of the biggest flaws ever in a game show was Phil Gurin's 'Weakest Link'. You could be one of six (or eight, on the Anne Robinson version) players who is always the strongest link, and the other people (whom I dub 'Weakest Finks') vote him/her out.
If Phil Gurin is reading this, here is my solution to this flaw, if you decide to churn out new shows for GSN: At the end of every question round, the person dubbed the 'Strongest Link' has immunity, and cannot be voted out that round. In case of a tie vote, the 'SL' then decides whom to get rid of. When the game gets down to three players, only the 'Strongest Link' votes whom to get rid of (as the other two votes will instantly cancel out), leaving the two players in the final round.
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[quote name=\'WhirlieBird74\' post=\'209294\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 08:19 PM\']One of the biggest flaws ever in a game show was Phil Gurin's 'Weakest Link'. You could be one of six (or eight, on the Anne Robinson version) players who is always the strongest link, and the other people (whom I dub 'Weakest Finks') vote him/her out.[/quote]
No, that's a gameplay dilemma. Would you rather win or make money?
The only instance where this could be a flaw is the 2nd season of Syndie Link. There was no real reason for the best player to be in the final unless the contestants were even dumber than advertised.
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[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'209048\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 03:54 AM\']
All the versions of High Rollers had a flaw that stuck out like a sore thumb, it would lead to an automatic gane over. That being if a player leaves a 1 on the board, game ends right then & there though it's more common in the Big Numbers round than the main game. That's why it's always a good idea to discard the 1 as quickly as possible to avoid that flaw.
[/quote]
I do believe that Alex and Wink made it a point of telling the contestants that they must roll both dice at all times, so "Get rid of that pesky one if you can" or words to that effect. Obviously you can't control the dice, not without getting in trouble, anyway.
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[quote name=\'MrBuddwing\' post=\'209042\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 01:46 AM\']
[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209038\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 01:02 AM\']
[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'209037\' date=\'Feb 27 2009, 09:51 PM\']
[/quote]
They were referring to the One-And-Done way of handling contestants in the 70s. If you get a bad celeb, too bad.
[/quote]
I remember. I recall thinking that "The $25,000 Pyramid," which ran concurrently in syndication one night a week, was in a way preferable because the two contestants got to stay for the entire show, and each got a chance to play opposite each celebrity - it seemed more even-handed that way.
As for the daily "$10,000 Pyramid," I always felt sorry for the contestants whenever Peter Lawford showed up, because he was such a poor player. But I also remember a young man who was such a powerhouse, he kept winning round after round, even though he was saddled with Lawford half the time. And finally, the young man won the Pyramid after something like a dozen tries, much to the joy of the other contestants who were slated to follow him.
[/quote]
On Cullen's Pyramid, the contestant was with the same celeb for both games, so if you got partnered with Lawford or Shatner, too bad. The 80s version fixed this. But I remember on one Cullen $25K, Lawford won both games for his contestant. Debralee Scott had just literally gotten in from the airport and was a little "loopy" for lack of a better term.
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[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'209348\' date=\'Mar 2 2009, 03:15 PM\']Obviously you can't control the dice, not without getting in trouble, anyway.[/quote]Why would this be against the rules? If someone was able to set the dice, without altering them, how could that "get someone in trouble"?
There are a few, very few, people that are able to set and control dice without cheating.
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[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'209350\' date=\'Mar 2 2009, 12:34 PM\']
If someone was able to set the dice, without altering them, how could that "get someone in trouble"?[/quote]
Same way that whip shots, drop shots, and blanket rolls are illegal at a craps table: They just are.
There are a few, very few, people that are able to set and control dice without cheating.
By definition, that number is "none." Any reputable casino is gonna give you the heave-ho if they catch you trying to control the dice roll. Any casino that does not is not a casino you want to be wagering your money at, because who knows what else they're letting dice and card mechanics get away with.
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[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'209287\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 07:34 PM\']
Yeah, but only for round three.
[/quote]
Right I meant just the last three questions, not the entire round and fame game.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'209352\' date=\'Mar 2 2009, 03:49 PM\']
By definition, that number is "none."[/quote]Read this (http://\"http://wizardofodds.com/craps/appendix3.html\"), specifically the section on Wong. Any reputable casino is gonna give you the heave-ho if they catch you trying to control the dice roll.
The same is done with card counters. Neither is illegal.
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[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'209349\' date=\'Mar 2 2009, 03:24 PM\']
On Cullen's Pyramid, the contestant was with the same celeb for both games, so if you got partnered with Lawford or Shatner, too bad. The 80s version fixed this. But I remember on one Cullen $25K, Lawford won both games for his contestant. Debralee Scott had just literally gotten in from the airport and was a little "loopy" for lack of a better term.
[/quote]
I defer to your superior recollection - I must have conflated the earlier and later versions.
Someone else made a point about how "Pyramid" seemed to go out of its way to avoid having "too many men" in the mix. Having a male and a female celebrity plus two female contestants was fine, but they really seemed to go out of their way to avoid having more than two men (excluding the host) on the stage. A blatant example of this was the week William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were the celebs, and Dick Clark announced a brand new rule out of nowhere, to wit, that all of the contestants would be women, thereby disappointing a lot of male "Star Trek" nerds, er, fans.
It was a funny pairing, because on the whole, Nimoy was a better player than Shatner. But I recall on one occasion, Nimoy bombed at the pyramid, and Shatner made a big show of coming over to offer his condolences. (Wonder if any of those episodes survive ...)
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Someone else made a point about how "Pyramid" seemed to go out of its way to avoid having "too many men" in the mix. Having a male and a female celebrity plus two female contestants was fine, but they really seemed to go out of their way to avoid having more than two men (excluding the host) on the stage. A blatant example of this was the week William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were the celebs, and Dick Clark announced a brand new rule out of nowhere, to wit, that all of the contestants would be women, thereby disappointing a lot of male "Star Trek" nerds, er, fans.
It was a funny pairing, because on the whole, Nimoy was a better player than Shatner. But I recall on one occasion, Nimoy bombed at the pyramid, and Shatner made a big show of coming over to offer his condolences. (Wonder if any of those episodes survive ...)
There were about four or five times where they had two men celebrities - and every time all the contestants were women. IIRC, I think one of the times the champ from the previous Friday was a man, but they asked him to come back the following week rather than that week, to avoid having more than two males playing at the same time. I think it was only the very first time they did it that Dick made a point of announcing that all of the contestants would be women. Why...who knows...
The Shatner-Nimoy week from Sept '77 exists in collector's circles...I think they were recorded from a station on the west coast, because the announcer at the end states it will be changing times the following week, and it didn't do that in the Eastern time zone.
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[quote name=\'MrBuddwing\' post=\'209357\' date=\'Mar 2 2009, 05:12 PM\']
[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'209349\' date=\'Mar 2 2009, 03:24 PM\']
On Cullen's Pyramid, the contestant was with the same celeb for both games, so if you got partnered with Lawford or Shatner, too bad. The 80s version fixed this. But I remember on one Cullen $25K, Lawford won both games for his contestant. Debralee Scott had just literally gotten in from the airport and was a little "loopy" for lack of a better term.[/quote]
I defer to your superior recollection - I must have conflated the earlier and later versions.[/quote]
Unwilling to defer to mere recollections, I went back and looked at the episodes in my collection. Sure enough, they did not change partners in midstream.
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[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'209354\' date=\'Mar 2 2009, 01:20 PM\']
The same is done with card counters. Neither is illegal.[/quote]
We're apparently working from two different definitions of "illegal."
Will it get you charged with a crime? No, of course not. (Although if you're running a con game and using a mechanic as part of the con, it might, but the charge would be "conspiracy to defraud someone out of money" or some such, the act of cheating in and of itself is not the offense.) Will a casino chuck you out on yer arse if they catch you doing it? Damned skippy.
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Going back to mere recollection, it seemed like during the early-run episodes of New $25K, Clark would drive home that a contestant that had a bad first round got to try again with the other celeb. A couple of times he said out loud that he couldn't believe the show lasted as long as it did with the One-and-Done format.
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[quote name=\'CarShark\' post=\'209385\' date=\'Mar 2 2009, 09:00 PM\']
Going back to mere recollection, it seemed like during the early-run episodes of New $25K, Clark would drive home that a contestant that had a bad first round got to try again with the other celeb. A couple of times he said out loud that he couldn't believe the show lasted as long as it did with the One-and-Done format.
[/quote]
I remember that as well. He frequently mentioned the advantage of the 80s version was getting a second chance with the second celeb, and that in the NYC version, if you lost, that was it.
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The only reason I can fathom for never having more than 50% of the people playing the game be male would be some sort of edict, internal or external, that housewives wanted to see other women on game shows.
Also, watch a random episode of Wheel of Fortune from the last decade or so (not including when celebs, families, etc. are on) and you will see one male and two female contestants 99% of the time.
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'209364\' date=\'Mar 2 2009, 05:52 PM\']
There were about four or five times where they had two men celebrities - and every time all the contestants were women. IIRC, I think one of the times the champ from the previous Friday was a man, but they asked him to come back the following week rather than that week, to avoid having more than two males playing at the same time. I think it was only the very first time they did it that Dick made a point of announcing that all of the contestants would be women. Why...who knows... [/quote]
Having gone to see the show fairly often, three other weeks feauturing two male celebs on $20K Pyramid were:
Sal Viscuso vs. Billy Crystal
Tony Randall vs. Jack Klugman
Tony Randall vs. Dick Cavett - the one week Clark was afraid they'd do - and they did
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Also, watch a random episode of Wheel of Fortune from the last decade or so (not including when celebs, families, etc. are on) and you will see one male and two female contestants 99% of the time.
If housewives want to see other women on game shows, you'd figure that in Prime Access the audience would be close to 50-50 and that they would shoot for an even number of men and women, rather than two females most of the time. But I guess Jeopardy makes up for it - most of the shows seem to have two males.
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So many flaws that I'd like to write about. Someone mentioned it before, with the Joker's Wild, if the challenger spun 3 jokers and answered the question, the game ended right then and there. The champion was not given the chance to spin to try to do the same thing. I always felt that was unfair, although kudos for allowing the newcomer to spin first at least.
Tic Tac Dough w/those annoying red categories. I preferred when Wink was at the helm, you needed $1,000 or more or TIC & TAC before uncovering the dragon, and the only red category was the Bonus Category I believe, that doubled the pot when chosen. The red categories, too many for me, ruined the flow of the game. I liked if a player missed, that gave the other player a slight advantage at times, not picking a red box to get 3 in a row in one turn essentially.
Way back in the day, when Chuck hosted Wheel of Fortune, the wheel had a "Buy a Vowel" space on it. I believe if a player landed on it, but had less than $250, they lost their turn. If they had $250 or more, they were forced to buy a vowel. I wonder if someone landed on it when all the vowels were already revealed? That would have probably caused them to lose their turn. Subsequently, that space was ditched very fast!
When watching my Price is Right DVD set, seeing the one gentleman try to cheat to spin .40 after spinning .60 in the Showcase Showdown, led to the implementation of the one complete revolution rule.
Lucky Seven had a flaw, back when zeros (or is it zeroes?) were used in the car price. Spelling Bee to me is flawed because you get 2 free picks, and could in theory win the car without getting any pricing questions correct. Pass the Buck you can get nothing right on the pricing portion yet still win the game. Let 'Em Roll also allows the chance (slim though it may be) to win the car without getting any pricing questions right, same holds true for Hole in One, which is why I have such disdain for that game. Stack the Deck theoretically also has this possibility, but at least w/that game, there's some challenge to it, getting all 5 digits right and in the right order too. There are many flaws to many pricing games, but I dont' want to have a 30,000 mile long post.
Password Plus' end game had a flaw. An illegal clue lowered the $5,000 by $1,000, so in theory, with 3 seconds left, the giver could just say the word, and allow the civilian to win $4,000 instead of just a mere $900. Super Password rectified this issue quite nicely I'd say.
My $0.02 on the whole High Rollers 1 left thing...the one thing I seem to remember happening once, I could be mistaken, and I think it was during Wink's tenure, a player had a 1 and 9 remaining in the big Numbers, and had an insurance marker. The player rolled the 9, and was forced to remove it and win only $800. To me, the player should have been given the option to use that marker, but the rule was "if it's a bad roll you have to use it", and 9 was a good roll, but unfortunately it yielded the 1 being left to stand alone.
Catch 21's flaw is the point system. If a player with say 0 or 100 points busts in round 2, and the other 2 players have 200 points or more each, the end of that round is somewhat anti-climactic.
I definitely want to revisit this topic, there are so many more things I'd love to flesh out!
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[quote name=\'wdm1219inpenna\' post=\'210592\' date=\'Mar 17 2009, 05:19 PM\']I definitely want to revisit this topic, there are so many more things I'd love to flesh out![/quote]Most of these aren't flaws, they're just annoying. There's a difference.
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OK, regarding this whole "leaving the 1 on the board" scenario (yet again, I know. I apologize), I could've sworn that in the Big Numbers, if you left the 1 up there, it was worth $1,000 to you, not $800 like everyone else is saying. Does my memory suck that bad or was this the case?
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[quote name=\'wdm1219inpenna\' post=\'210592\' date=\'Mar 17 2009, 07:19 PM\']
Someone mentioned it before, with the Joker's Wild, if the challenger spun 3 jokers and answered the question, the game ended right then and there. The champion was not given the chance to spin to try to do the same thing. I always felt that was unfair, although kudos for allowing the newcomer to spin first at least.
[/quote]
How is that a flaw? Three jokers = automatic win with correct answer. Considering how often that happened...
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[quote name=\'PYLdude\' post=\'210603\' date=\'Mar 17 2009, 06:13 PM\']How is that a flaw? Three jokers = automatic win with correct answer. Considering how often that happened...[/quote]It isn't. It violates the thing where I like games to be balanced, because the other person has no last licks, but it isn't a flaw.
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At one time, the champion spun first, which meant that conceivably a challenger could go away having never spun. (I assume this did happen at some point.) I would call that a flaw, but I agree that with the challenger spinning first, it's merely annoying.
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The red categories, too many for me, ruined the flow of the game. I liked if a player missed, that gave the other player a slight advantage at times, not picking a red box to get 3 in a row in one turn essentially.
Again, I see this more as an "annoyance" rather than a flaw. Sure; I wasn't a big fan when they brought in more red boxes so that the two players would be forced to face-off for a box, but it did make for a more exciting game (for a viewer, IMO) and cut down on ties. And, for the "Bonus Category" that's alluded to in the second point, on the RARE instance the champion got 3 in a row on his/her first turn, the challenger was allowed to play again the very next game (they did the same thing on Bullseye if a champ simply won the game without ever giving up control). That took care of the only flaw I saw with that category.
Lucky Seven had a flaw, back when zeros (or is it zeroes?) were used in the car price.
Uh; correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this still possible? (Now that you mention it, I haven't really seen any cars ending in 0 lately in that game...) And I really don't see the flaw in this; after all, "Lucky Seven" is a game that requires you to know at least a little something about the price of a car. And, wouldn't the same "flaw" exist with 9's in the price?
\A real flaw: Chris Wylde being allowed to host a game show...
Anthony
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[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'210629\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 01:34 AM\']A real flaw: Chris Wylde being allowed to host a game show...[/quote]
That's not a flaw, that's a crime against humanity.
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[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'210629\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 02:34 AM\']
And I really don't see the flaw in this; after all, "Lucky Seven" is a game that requires you to know at least a little something about the price of a car. And, wouldn't the same "flaw" exist with 9's in the price?
[/quote]
L7 is eminently winnable. But not easy and not always automatic. All you have to do is don't take a major dump on the second number, and zig when the price of the car zigs, and zag when the price of the car zags. The way it's usually set up, there's a predominace of extreme numbers (1, 2, 9 and 8) in those middle two slots. Recipe for disaster.
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At one time, the champion spun first, which meant that conceivably a challenger could go away having never spun. (I assume this did happen at some point.) I would call that a flaw, but I agree that with the challenger spinning first, it's merely annoying.
It did happen occasionally (I think GSN even ran an episode or two when it did), but Jack would always mention that challenger would get to play another game. Nobody ever left without having at least one spin.
As for the three jokers rule, it kind of bugged me too. If the player who got the three jokers had one additional turn, I would have liked to have seen the other player also get a chance so that they had the same number of turns. However, the odds of three jokers coming up two spins in a row was pretty remote.
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[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'210629\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 01:34 AM\']
Again, I see this more as an "annoyance" rather than a flaw. Sure; I wasn't a big fan when they brought in more red boxes so that the two players would be forced to face-off for a box, but it did make for a more exciting game (for a viewer, IMO) and cut down on ties.
A real flaw: Chris Wylde being allowed to host a game show...
[/quote]
To me, ties causing good, long matches and large pots are what made Tic Tac Dough sort of interesting. Otherwise, the game was just the same thing over and over. Witty, interesting writing may have helped, of course.
And I hadn't thought of "Taboo-ooooooo" in ages. Damn them! It coulda been something!
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A "Split Second" question, from someone who only watched it for the cars: How often did the leader going into the Countdown Round, who only needed 3 answers to win, get all 3 on the first question?
It seems like that would happen a lot, or were the questions so hard a player could seldom all 3?
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[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'210645\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 11:25 AM\']It seems like that would happen a lot, or were the questions so hard a player could seldom all 3?[/quote]
It happened occasionally, but it was made clear on the air that that was the advantage you earned by winning the main game. That's compleetly different than someone being handed an advantage arbitrarily.
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'210651\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 11:57 AM\']
[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'210645\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 11:25 AM\']It seems like that would happen a lot, or were the questions so hard a player could seldom all 3?[/quote]
It happened occasionally, but it was made clear on the air that that was the advantage you earned by winning the main game. That's compleetly different than someone being handed an advantage arbitrarily.
[/quote]
Definitely. I just wonder if it would be less anti-climactic if it took 4 correct answers to win (raising the other two accordingly).
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[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'210653\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 10:08 AM\']
Definitely. I just wonder if it would be less anti-climactic if it took 4 correct answers to win (raising the other two accordingly).[/quote]
Well, that's how the Monty Hall version did it, wasn't it? 5, 6, and 7, I think?
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[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'210653\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 12:08 PM\']
Definitely. I just wonder if it would be less anti-climactic if it took 4 correct answers to win (raising the other two accordingly).
[/quote]
They went 4-5-6 in the '80s revival, which is about the only thing from that version I prefer. Unfortunately, they mixed up the order of the format, turning the game into a "buzz first, think later" affair.
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[quote name=\'Sodboy13\' post=\'210655\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 10:12 AM\']
They went 4-5-6 in the '80s revival, which is about the only thing from that version I prefer.[/quote]
That's right. My mistake.
Unfortunately, they mixed up the order of the format, turning the game into a "buzz first, think later" affair.
I'm not sure what you mean here.
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[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'210644\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 11:22 AM\']
And I hadn't thought of "Taboo-ooooooo" in ages. Damn them! It coulda been something!
[/quote]
I think Chris Wylde was the least of "Taboo"'s problems...
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'210657\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 01:24 PM\']
Unfortunately, they mixed up the order of the format, turning the game into a "buzz first, think later" affair.
I'm not sure what you mean here.[/quote]
I think I know what he's talking about, thought I don't remember enough about the Monty version to describe exactly what its problem was.
On the original series, one of the things that made the game interesting from a strategy perspective was that you didn't have to wait for Kennedy to finish the question. The first person to buzz in would interrupt the question and could answer based on what he thought the question was going to be. Regardless of whether the first player was right or wrong, Kennedy would then finish the question for the other two players. That is a tricky thing to do right in a high-speed game, which is one of the reasons he was so justly praised for his work on that show.
Monty's version was different. He finished the question before he took any answers. I can't remember whether players had to wait for the entire question to be finished before they could signal or if, even worse, they could buzz in early and still get to hear the entire question. If it was the latter, that would certainly be a "buzz first, think later" scenario.
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'210665\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 12:12 PM\']
Monty's version was different. He finished the question before he took any answers. I can't remember whether players had to wait for the entire question to be finished before they could signal or if, even worse, they could buzz in early and still get to hear the entire question. If it was the latter, that would certainly be a "buzz first, think later" scenario.[/quote]
Oh, right, they could buzz early and hear the whole thing ('cuz at the end the shot of the board would zoom out and the players would already be lit up in 1-2-3 order), no matter what, as opposed to first-one-in-interrupts-and-other-two-queue. Yes, that makes total sense and is a very valid complaint.
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Actually, that's not true. On a couple of mtiller's Split Second clips, Monty said up front that you couldn't buzz until he finished the question, or you'd be locked out (and generally end up third). The reason the lights were usually on by the time the camera was on the contestants was that there was about a half-second from the time Monty finished the question to when the answers were actually shown on the screen. The daring rang in during that gap.
Another thing about Split Second (which is probably more annoyance that outright flaw) was that you didn't a bigger advantage for having a bigger lead.
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[quote name=\'CarShark\' post=\'210672\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 01:35 PM\']
Actually, that's not true. On a couple of mtiller's Split Second clips, Monty said up front that you couldn't buzz until he finished the question, or you'd be locked out (and generally end up third). The reason the lights were usually on by the time the camera was on the contestants was that there was about a half-second from the time Monty finished the question to when the answers were actually shown on the screen. The daring rang in during that gap.[/quote]
Ah. Still, though, interrupting the question was a key bit of strategery on the Kennedy version. I dunno if it matters if the buzzer race is at the start of the question or at the end.
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On some of the episodes I have, you couldn't buzz in until he finished the question, but you could as soon as the 3 parts appeared on the board. Usually when Monty was reading the 3 parts, you'd hear the buzzes.
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'210685\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 04:54 PM\']On some of the episodes I have, you couldn't buzz in until he finished the question, but you could as soon as the 3 parts appeared on the board. Usually when Monty was reading the 3 parts, you'd hear the buzzes.[/quote]
It struck me then and it strikes me now that the producers didn't know their own game as well as they should. Because either way, it's the same three-way buzzer race for every single question, since there's no penalty for being wrong. At least with the original version, there was a bit of strategy to it and a smarter or more daring player was rewarded.
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'210642\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 10:30 AM\']
At one time, the champion spun first, which meant that conceivably a challenger could go away having never spun. (I assume this did happen at some point.) I would call that a flaw, but I agree that with the challenger spinning first, it's merely annoying.
It did happen occasionally (I think GSN even ran an episode or two when it did), but Jack would always mention that challenger would get to play another game. Nobody ever left without having at least one spin.
As for the three jokers rule, it kind of bugged me too. If the player who got the three jokers had one additional turn, I would have liked to have seen the other player also get a chance so that they had the same number of turns. However, the odds of three jokers coming up two spins in a row was pretty remote.
[/quote]
Didn't they lift that rule during all of the T of Cs so that each player would get the same number of spins?
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[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'210689\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 07:51 PM\']
[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'210642\' date=\'Mar 18 2009, 10:30 AM\']
At one time, the champion spun first, which meant that conceivably a challenger could go away having never spun. (I assume this did happen at some point.) I would call that a flaw, but I agree that with the challenger spinning first, it's merely annoying.
It did happen occasionally (I think GSN even ran an episode or two when it did), but Jack would always mention that challenger would get to play another game. Nobody ever left without having at least one spin.
As for the three jokers rule, it kind of bugged me too. If the player who got the three jokers had one additional turn, I would have liked to have seen the other player also get a chance so that they had the same number of turns. However, the odds of three jokers coming up two spins in a row was pretty remote.
[/quote]
Didn't they lift that rule during all of the T of Cs so that each player would get the same number of spins?
[/quote]
Indeed they did.
-
The potential flaw with Lucky Seven using zeros is, if the player guessed 7, and the number was 0, would that be judged as missing it by 7, or by 3? Because of that possibility, I believe the show has not used zeroes in car prices in decades. If any Lucky Seven car has had a 0 in the price in the last 20 years, I'd like to see it or hear about it, but I think it's been a very long time since that was the case.
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[quote name=\'wdm1219inpenna\' post=\'210764\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 04:47 PM\']
The potential flaw with Lucky Seven using zeros is, if the player guessed 7, and the number was 0, would that be judged as missing it by 7, or by 3? Because of that possibility, I believe the show has not used zeroes in car prices in decades. If any Lucky Seven car has had a 0 in the price in the last 20 years, I'd like to see it or hear about it, but I think it's been a very long time since that was the case.
[/quote]
I think that's a hogwash argument, myself. 7 is not 3 away from 0, it is 3 away from 10. It is 7 away from 0, period. If you call a 9 against a 2, that's a $7 penalty, not a $3 penalty. Wraparound can't count.
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[quote name=\'wdm1219inpenna\' post=\'210764\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 04:47 PM\']The potential flaw with Lucky Seven using zeros is, if the player guessed 7, and the number was 0, would that be judged as missing it by 7, or by 3? [/quote]
My guess is that it would be judged as missing it by 7, considering 7-0 is not 3.
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[quote name=\'CJBojangles\' post=\'210768\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 08:17 PM\']
[quote name=\'wdm1219inpenna\' post=\'210764\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 04:47 PM\']The potential flaw with Lucky Seven using zeros is, if the player guessed 7, and the number was 0, would that be judged as missing it by 7, or by 3? [/quote]
My guess is that it would be judged as missing it by 7, considering 7-0 is not 3.
[/quote]
Precisely why they no longer have 0's in car prices, to avoid any guessing or any possible argument from a player.
If the car was $17,059 and the player guessed 8 for the 3rd #, 8-0=8, however, the player could argue "well I thought the 3rd digit was 8, as in $800, and that 0 could be $1,000 therefore 10-8 = 2. A very lame argument I agree, and I'm inclined to agree with you, if someone guessed 8 and the digit was 0, 8 minus 0 equals 8, the player loses, too bad so sad. Unfortunately with our "modern" society, plagued by ADHD due to much over-saturation of "information" and having to keep track of stuff, passwords, voice mails, e-mails, phones, ipods, i phones, now flying cars, it's small wonder more and more "thinking" games for Price is Right have been axed. Very sad commentary on our modern "high tech" society.
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[quote name=\'wdm1219inpenna\' post=\'210770\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 05:27 PM\']
If the car was $17,059 and the player guessed 8 for the 3rd #, 8-0=8, however, the player could argue "well I thought the 3rd digit was 8, as in $800, and that 0 could be $1,000 therefore 10-8 = 2. [/quote] The easy way to solve this point is to say "For every dollar away that you are away on the number line, you lose a dollar. Numbers stretch in two directions, not form a clock face, like Kevin said.
So why haven't TPTB done this? My guess is that it's easier to add options to the car to weed out the noughts rather than have someone complain "I thought the numbers wrapped around!". They seem to take the path of least resistance in cases like this.
Unfortunately with our "modern" society, plagued by ADHD due to much over-saturation of "information" and having to keep track of stuff, passwords, voice mails, e-mails, phones, ipods, i phones, now flying cars, it's small wonder more and more "thinking" games for Price is Right have been axed. Very sad commentary on our modern "high tech" society.
I would suggest that every game on TPIR requires "thinking" to some extent. You lost me with the rest of that rant there. That was a whole bunch of unfounded clacking of keys.
-
Deep inhale...
[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209038\' date=\'Feb 27 2009, 11:02 PM\']
They were referring to the One-And-Done way of handling contestants in the 70s. If you get a bad celeb, too bad.
[/quote]
There was an article in TV Guide once by a contestant who was the victim of "one and done" because, in a tiebreaker, the celebrity giving the clues said, repeatedly, "It tilts, and it's in France" for the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'209076\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 09:51 AM\']
[quote name=\'GameShowGuru\' post=\'209063\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 10:15 AM\']You just answered a question that I had for years regarding the remaining 1 in a main game round: If a 1 is the last number remaining on the board, it is essentially a tie game. The toss-up question serves as the tie-breaker whereby whoever "wins the question" will win the game by default.[/quote]
In the spirit of full disclosure, I can't say I ever saw it happen.[/quote]
I did, and that's how it was handled - whoever controlled the next roll automatically won.
(Leaving just the 1 in Big Numbers was not as big of a problem in the show's earliest days, when you won a car for removing 8 numbers.)
[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'209131\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 04:40 PM\']
IIRC, On Fleming J! you'd usually hear someone ring in as soon as the card was pulled.
[/quote]
Even before it was pulled, on occasion, at which time Art would remind the contestants not to ring in until the question had been revealed.
[quote name=\'alfonzos\' post=\'209278\' date=\'Mar 1 2009, 04:41 PM\']
Celebrity Sweepstakes started as a three-player game and then became a two-player game. A contestant started with $20 and could bet $2, $5 or $10 on which celebrity could answer a trivia question correctly. The flaw was if a contestant ended a round with no money both contestants were given $20 to continue the game. The result was that every bet was for $10 because the contestants would just get their money back if they were wrong twice. The producer's solution was restrict bets to $2 if a player's score was $10 or less. My solution would have been to start the contestants with $19.
[/quote]
It might have been done that way in the earliest days - or perhaps you're confusing it with the couples version of Sale of the Century, where this did happen (at least on the syndicated version) - but every time I saw a contestant down to zero on Sweepstakes, both contestants were given $2. (If one was down to $1, both were given $1 because of the $2 minimum bet.)
I remember one show where the score was something like 350 to zero after the Homestretch Round, so both contestants were given $2; they both picked celebrities who missed the All or Nothing question, and the $2 contestant bet nothing while the $352 contestant bet it all (in part because the prize for betting everything and losing it was usually worth over $1000 in the days of $3000 cars), so the contestant won $2 to $0 - and won something like $12,000 the next day.
Speaking of Celebrity Sweepstakes, I can think of two flaws:
One - the "$2 maximum bet if you have $10 or less" rule when the players began with $20 (note that when they first switched from three players to two, and again in the last few months of the show, the starting amounts were $50), which meant that the players tended to bet $5 on their first bets.
Two - in the last few weeks, the celebrities didn't have to write down their answers, so there was no guarantee that anybody had the correct answer.
[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'209436\' date=\'Mar 3 2009, 01:59 PM\']
Having gone to see the show fairly often, three other weeks feauturing two male celebs on $20K Pyramid were:
Sal Viscuso vs. Billy Crystal
Tony Randall vs. Jack Klugman
Tony Randall vs. Dick Cavett - the one week Clark was afraid they'd do - and they did
[/quote]
Randall vs. Klugman was also on the CBS 10K version. I'm fairly certain that on one of those shows, they had three $10K wins (if a tiebreaker ran long, they played the WC at the start of the next show), all with Klugman.
[quote name=\'wdm1219inpenna\' post=\'210592\' date=\'Mar 17 2009, 05:19 PM\']
Way back in the day, when Chuck hosted Wheel of Fortune, the wheel had a "Buy a Vowel" space on it. I believe if a player landed on it, but had less than $250, they lost their turn. If they had $250 or more, they were forced to buy a vowel. I wonder if someone landed on it when all the vowels were already revealed? That would have probably caused them to lose their turn. Subsequently, that space was ditched very fast!
[/quote]
You remember correctly about the "lose your turn if you don't have the $250". I never saw a situation where somebody landed on it after all of the vowels were gone.
Here are a few more flaws:
On Password Plus (and possibly Super Password as well), the producers took their time in deciding whether or not a clue was illegal. As a result, a player would guess the word before being informed that the clue was illegal, and as a result, the other team was given the chance to solve the puzzle.
On Cullen $25,000 Pyramid, in early episodes, it was possible for nobody to have the chance of winning the $25K; if they ran out of time to have another tiebreaker and a Winner's Circle, the players would split $2500.
And don't get me started on all of the TPIR games where, even if you know every price, there's a chance you won't win the main prize (back in the days of "Hole in One (Just One)", I saw two contestants miss from the closest line).
-- Don
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[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'210783\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 10:13 PM\']
Randall vs. Klugman was also on the CBS 10K version. I'm fairly certain that on one of those shows, they had three $10K wins (if a tiebreaker ran long, they played the WC at the start of the next show), all with Klugman.
[/quote]
According to an article in several newspapers from 1973, Jack Carter was the first celeb to give away $30,000 in one week on "Pyramid," and it was a few months after the Klugman/Randall week. I'm not saying you recall incorrectly; maybe they forgot about Klugman's streak.
Brendan
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[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'210783\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 09:13 PM\']
Deep inhale...
[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209038\' date=\'Feb 27 2009, 11:02 PM\']
They were referring to the One-And-Done way of handling contestants in the 70s. If you get a bad celeb, too bad.
[/quote]
There was an article in TV Guide once by a contestant who was the victim of "one and done" because, in a tiebreaker, the celebrity giving the clues said, repeatedly, "It tilts, and it's in France" for the Leaning Tower of Pisa.[/quote]
I think I read that it was Cloris Leachman in her only appearance.
[quote name=\'wdm1219inpenna\' post=\'210592\' date=\'Mar 17 2009, 05:19 PM\']
Way back in the day, when Chuck hosted Wheel of Fortune, the wheel had a "Buy a Vowel" space on it. I believe if a player landed on it, but had less than $250, they lost their turn. If they had $250 or more, they were forced to buy a vowel. I wonder if someone landed on it when all the vowels were already revealed? That would have probably caused them to lose their turn. Subsequently, that space was ditched very fast!
You remember correctly about the "lose your turn if you don't have the $250". I never saw a situation where somebody landed on it after all of the vowels were gone.[/quote]
If you say you saw it, I'll trust your recollection. I thought I once saw a scoreboard with a negative figure on it, though, which would make sense if they still forced you to buy a vowel in that situation.
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[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'210783\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 09:13 PM\']
On Password Plus (and possibly Super Password as well), the producers took their time in deciding whether or not a clue was illegal. As a result, a player would guess the word before being informed that the clue was illegal, and as a result, the other team was given the chance to solve the puzzle.[/quote]That's not a rule flaw, that's merely bad producing/judging.
-
Hit Me on TPIR had a huge flaw when it came to dealing with aces in the house's hand -- there were no rules that spelled out what to do when the hand would fall into a different range (1-16, 17-21, 22+) depending on whether the ace was a 1 or an 11. This lead to Barker handling the same situation in different ways on different episodes, because there really was no "right" way to do it.
[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'210776\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 09:16 PM\'][quote name=\'wdm1219inpenna\' post=\'210770\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 05:27 PM\']If the car was $17,059 and the player guessed 8 for the 3rd #, 8-0=8, however, the player could argue "well I thought the 3rd digit was 8, as in $800, and that 0 could be $1,000 therefore 10-8 = 2.[/quote]The easy way to solve this point is to say "For every dollar away that you are away on the number line, you lose a dollar. Numbers stretch in two directions, not form a clock face, like Kevin said.
So why haven't TPTB done this? My guess is that it's easier to add options to the car to weed out the noughts rather than have someone complain "I thought the numbers wrapped around!". They seem to take the path of least resistance in cases like this.[/quote]
I don't really think avoiding the wraparound argument had anything to do with this -- there were certain game setups that Roger just wouldn't use because he considered them "cheating," and I believe putting zeros in Lucky $even was one of them.
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[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'210857\' date=\'Mar 20 2009, 04:50 PM\']
[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'210783\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 09:13 PM\']
On Password Plus (and possibly Super Password as well), the producers took their time in deciding whether or not a clue was illegal. As a result, a player would guess the word before being informed that the clue was illegal, and as a result, the other team was given the chance to solve the puzzle.[/quote]That's not a rule flaw, that's merely bad producing/judging.
[/quote]
It's really neither, just taking the time to make sure.
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Another $otC flaw, also during the NBC shopping era, was offering the cash jackpot as a separate prize. Except for Barbara Phillips, virtually every champ who made it to that plateau opted to take the money and run...understandable, considering how more often than not, the value of all the other prizes on offer added up to less than the value of the jackpot. This was corrected w/the syndie version, which replaced it w/an option to buy the lot, sans cash jackpot, and basically guaranteed a champ who made it that far would go for everything.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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[quote name=\'PYLdude\' post=\'210888\' date=\'Mar 21 2009, 12:28 AM\']It's really neither, just taking the time to make sure.[/quote]The problem is, it's inconsistent. An obvious illegal clue gets buzzed immediately and the offenders lose a turn. If there's uncertainty and you buzz after a wrong guess, then the offenders lose a turn AND the competition gets the extra advantage of knowing one word that isn't right when they guess. If you buzz after a correct guess it's even worse, for the reasons TDG stated. It seems to me that the best way of going about that would have been to penalize ALL illegal clues (two words, going Paar, etc.) at all times the same by putting the word up and giving the option to the other team.
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[quote name=\'pyrfan\' post=\'210793\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 08:37 PM\']
[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'210783\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 10:13 PM\']
Randall vs. Klugman was also on the CBS 10K version. I'm fairly certain that on one of those shows, they had three $10K wins (if a tiebreaker ran long, they played the WC at the start of the next show), all with Klugman.
[/quote]
According to an article in several newspapers from 1973, Jack Carter was the first celeb to give away $30,000 in one week on "Pyramid," and it was a few months after the Klugman/Randall week. I'm not saying you recall incorrectly; maybe they forgot about Klugman's streak.
[/quote]
Didn't Randall and Klugman have more than one week together?
Then again, Klugman was on other times; it's possible I'm thinking of one of those.
(Also, was there a time when the contestant didn't have a choice as to whether to give or receive in the Winners Circle? I remember thinking that a Klugman-Randall week was the first time the contestant got the choice.)
[quote name=\'Steve Gavazzi\' post=\'210887\' date=\'Mar 20 2009, 08:58 PM\']
Hit Me on TPIR had a huge flaw when it came to dealing with aces in the house's hand -- there were no rules that spelled out what to do when the hand would fall into a different range (1-16, 17-21, 22+) depending on whether the ace was a 1 or an 11. This lead to Barker handling the same situation in different ways on different episodes, because there really was no "right" way to do it.
[/quote]
I remember two times:
First, the player had something like 15, and the house had 16, and Barker said that the player lost because "the house wouldn't hit when it's ahead", but somebody offstage told him that "House Hits to 16" means the house doesn't have a choice, even if it's ahead; the house took another card and busted.
Second, the player had, let's say, 19, and the house had A-7; Barker said, "Since the house would lose by counting that as 11, the house will count that as 1", took a couple of more cards, and got 20.
(One problem is, even Vegas has two different rules - some casinos hit a soft 17, while others stand. If you ever see a list of casinos that have 21 online and see the terms "H17" and "S17", this is what they mean - hit/stand a soft 17.)
-- Don
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[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'211086\' date=\'Mar 23 2009, 08:01 PM\'](One problem is, even Vegas has two different rules - some casinos hit a soft 17, while others stand. If you ever see a list of casinos that have 21 online and see the terms "H17" and "S17", this is what they mean - hit/stand a soft 17.)[/quote]Right, but those casinos post the rules. Price did not.
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[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'211099\' date=\'Mar 23 2009, 08:38 PM\']
Right, but those casinos post the rules. Price did not.[/quote]
The problem isn't even there, it's consistency in enforcement. It seems that the rule for whether to hit soft 17 was "does Barker feel like it that day."
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[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'211086\' date=\'Mar 23 2009, 09:01 PM\']
[quote name=\'pyrfan\' post=\'210793\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 08:37 PM\']
[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'210783\' date=\'Mar 19 2009, 10:13 PM\']
Randall vs. Klugman was also on the CBS 10K version. I'm fairly certain that on one of those shows, they had three $10K wins (if a tiebreaker ran long, they played the WC at the start of the next show), all with Klugman.
[/quote]
According to an article in several newspapers from 1973, Jack Carter was the first celeb to give away $30,000 in one week on "Pyramid," and it was a few months after the Klugman/Randall week. I'm not saying you recall incorrectly; maybe they forgot about Klugman's streak.
[/quote]
Didn't Randall and Klugman have more than one week together?
Then again, Klugman was on other times; it's possible I'm thinking of one of those.
(Also, was there a time when the contestant didn't have a choice as to whether to give or receive in the Winners Circle? I remember thinking that a Klugman-Randall week was the first time the contestant got the choice.)
-- Don
[/quote]
An Internet friend who was in the studio for the Klugman/Randall episodes said that they played a 5-5 tie for the week but Jack hit for $10,000 twice and Tony had no big wins. It's possible that they faced each other again and I just don't have a record of it. The tapings that my friend saw took place in late June of 1973 and would have aired a few weeks later.
I know that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy made repeat appearances together, playing against each other in 1976 and 1977. This same source -- very reliable -- also says that he saw them play against each other in the show's first year, in the Ed Sullivan Theater.
You're right about the contestants giving the clues in the Circle, by the way: verboten for the first 13 weeks or so. Noreen Wald's book confirms this.
Brendan
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This isn't quite what we're calling a flaw, but I never liked requiring the celebrity to give the clues. If you're going to have a rule at all, I'd rather it be the opposite.
I always said that if I were producing a version of Pyramid that used the 2-players-2-games/day format, I'd stipulate that a player who wins both games has to give once and receive once.
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I believe that on Password Plus and Super Password, the celeb always gave the clues. So if you got a less than stellar celeb, you weren't going to win big money. On MDP with Regis, the contestants had the option of giving or receiving in the money round, and most chose to give.
If this was already brought up, I apologize. I don't have the time or patience to go through all the previous pages.
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Originally, Three on a Match's gameboard had four prizes in each column. This resulted in a guaranteed win for whomever scored $270. There was no reason to try for three-on-a-match if a contestant had less than that. The fix: place a "No Match" card somewhere on the gameboard. Now that there are no guaranteed victories, players risked the gameboard with as little as $150.
This game change is one the precious few game changes in any game show that made its way into the home game by Milton Bradley.
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[quote name=\'alfonzos\' post=\'211129\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 12:15 PM\']
There was no reason to try for three-on-a-match if a contestant had less than that.[/quote]
Um, sure there is: You have, say, $200, and following your strategy, you yell "Play on, Bill!" I slime in on the next contract, and complete it with $150.
I go to the board and get lucky. Oh, and that was my third match. Enjoy your Rice-A-Roni.
(I question the math, too, but was the rule that you could only buy three of the four boxes in each column? The math works out, if so.)
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'211130\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 03:31 PM\']
[quote name=\'alfonzos\' post=\'211129\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 12:15 PM\']
There was no reason to try for three-on-a-match if a contestant had less than that.[/quote]
Um, sure there is: You have, say, $200, and following your strategy, you yell "Play on, Bill!" I slime in on the next contract, and complete it with $150.
I go to the board and get lucky. Oh, and that was my third match. Enjoy your Rice-A-Roni.
(I question the math, too, but was the rule that you could only buy three of the four boxes in each column? The math works out, if so.)
[/quote]
That was indeed the rule. Some categories offered two or three "free boxes." The obvious strategy here would be to use the free boxes in the $40 column and spend your money in the $20 and $30 columns.
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I know that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy made repeat appearances together, playing against each other in 1976 and 1977. This same source -- very reliable -- also says that he saw them play against each other in the show's first year
Too bad TVGuide listings from the early days of the show weren't more accurate. Even by 1976, the listings were pretty reliable - but the '76 Shatner-Nimoy week was never listed (the '77 matchup took place during "premiere week" for the primetime shows). Anyone know what week the '76 matchup occurred?
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[quote name=\'alfonzos\' post=\'211129\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 03:15 PM\']Originally, Three on a Match's gameboard had four prizes in each column. This resulted in a guaranteed win for whomever scored $270. There was no reason to try for three-on-a-match if a contestant had less than that. The fix: place a "No Match" card somewhere on the gameboard. Now that there are no guaranteed victories, players risked the gameboard with as little as $150.
This game change is one the precious few game changes in any game show that made its way into the home game by Milton Bradley.[/quote]
In the first place, as Chris pointed out, there is plenty of strategic sense in going to the board before you reached the guaranteed $270 mark. There was just enough random luck in the game that you couldn't count on scoring every round, and once you got close, oftentimes a gamble was worth it.
Secondly, I'm not sure how you can be positive, thirty-eight years later, that the "No Match" card wasn't something that was part of the show all along. The fact that it is part of the home game, when (as you rightly point out) Milton Bradley rarely addressed changes to a game, would be a pretty strong indication that it was there from the beginning.
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'211156\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 07:54 PM\']
Originally, Three on a Match's gameboard had four prizes in each column. This resulted in a guaranteed win for whomever scored $270. There was no reason to try for three-on-a-match if a contestant had less than that. The fix: place a "No Match" card somewhere on the gameboard. Now that there are no guaranteed victories, players risked the gameboard with as little as $150.
Secondly, I'm not sure how you can be positive, thirty-eight years later, that the "No Match" card wasn't something that was part of the show all along. The fact that it is part of the home game, when (as you rightly point out) Milton Bradley rarely addressed changes to a game, would be a pretty strong indication that it was there from the beginning.
[/quote]
Figured I should ask, do any of you who were actually around in the 1970s remember a "Stop sign" card that would immediately end a player's turn? I read about it on Wikipedia (insert Wikipedia joke here), and I was just curious if any of you could confirm or deny this.
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[quote name=\'rjaguar3\' post=\'211157\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 09:29 PM\']Figured I should ask, do any of you who were actually around in the 1970s remember a "Stop sign" card that would immediately end a player's turn? I read about it on Wikipedia (insert Wikipedia joke here), and I was just curious if any of you could confirm or deny this.[/quote]That sounds like "Eye Guess", another Bill Cullen show.
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'211143\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 05:52 PM\']
I know that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy made repeat appearances together, playing against each other in 1976 and 1977. This same source -- very reliable -- also says that he saw them play against each other in the show's first year
Too bad TVGuide listings from the early days of the show weren't more accurate. Even by 1976, the listings were pretty reliable - but the '76 Shatner-Nimoy week was never listed (the '77 matchup took place during "premiere week" for the primetime shows). Anyone know what week the '76 matchup occurred?
[/quote]
Almost exactly a year earlier than the '77 matchup -- the week of September 6, 1976. TV Guide mistakenly listed Jo Anne Worley as Leonard's opponent.
Brendan
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[quote name=\'rjaguar3\' post=\'211157\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 09:29 PM\']
Figured I should ask, do any of you who were actually around in the 1970s remember a "Stop sign" card that would immediately end a player's turn? I read about it on Wikipedia (insert Wikipedia joke here), and I was just curious if any of you could confirm or deny this. [/quote]
The memory's a little fuzzy after all these years, but I believe 3onM did have a STOP sign on the board.
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[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'211183\' date=\'Mar 25 2009, 09:26 AM\']
[quote name=\'rjaguar3\' post=\'211157\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 09:29 PM\']
Figured I should ask, do any of you who were actually around in the 1970s remember a "Stop sign" card that would immediately end a player's turn? I read about it on Wikipedia (insert Wikipedia joke here), and I was just curious if any of you could confirm or deny this. [/quote]
The memory's a little fuzzy after all these years, but I believe 3onM did have a STOP sign on the board.[/quote]
Boy, I sure don't. Then again, as we've said, Stewart changed the rules of some of his his games every other day or so, so who knows? The fact that a STOP card was featured prominently in the OTHER Bill-Cullen-hosted, Bob-Stewart-produced, three-year-running game-show-with-a-board-where-answers-were-revealed game that aired just ahead of 3OAM chronologically may be creating the confusion for us.
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I'm not sure how you can be positive, thirty-eight years later, that the "No Match" card wasn't something that was part of the show all along. The fact that it is part of the home game, when (as you rightly point out) Milton Bradley rarely addressed changes to a game, would be a pretty strong indication that it was there from the beginning.
Okay, this is matter of your memory versus mine. But, I vividly remember the first 3oaM format having four prizes and no "No Match" card on the gameboard. I have nothing to gain by lying and when proven wrong, as I have been many times by you other fanboys (and fangirls), I apologize and stand corrected.
One indication that the home game was introduced late in the game's history is the copyright date on the home game is 1972. The show premered, according to TEoTVGS, on August 2, 1971.
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[quote name=\'alfonzos\' post=\'211207\' date=\'Mar 25 2009, 02:59 PM\']One indication that the home game was introduced late in the game's history is the copyright date on the home game is 1972. The show premered, according to TEoTVGS, on August 2, 1971.[/quote]And the series ended June 28, 1974 according to Wikipedia. Even if it was released in December of '72; that by no means is "late in the game's history".
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[quote name=\'alfonzos\' post=\'211207\' date=\'Mar 25 2009, 02:59 PM\']
Okay, this is matter of your memory versus mine. But, I vividly remember the first 3oaM format having four prizes and no "No Match" card on the gameboard. I have nothing to gain by lying and when proven wrong, as I have been many times by you fanboys (and fangirls), I apolgize and stand corrected.
One indication that the home game was introduced late in the game's history is the copyright date on the home game is 1972. The show premered, according to TEoTVGS, on August 2, 1971.[/quote]
OK, stand down. No one's accusing anyone else of lying. It's absolutely just a question of who remembers what. Still, I think it's important to note that there's no way you could have ever seen all four prizes complete on the game board, since they would never have revealed all twelve spaces. And to the larger point of whether the "No Match" card would have fundamentally changed the way contestants approached the game board, we have to disagree there too. Finally, in a forum where we're all members, and we all remember these old shows fondly, using the phrase "you fanboys" strikes me as a little odd. We're all in this together!
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One current show that has a rules "annoyance" to me is Catch 21- A player can be busted without ever answering a question, because cards can be passed AFTER they've been revealed. Either give the player who's about to be busted a chance to "rebound" the card back to the original player in a one-on-one question showdown, or go back to the original Gambit rules and not reveal the card value until the person in control decides if they want to take the card or pass it.
And another annoyance in the same genre- On Top Card, the Aces were always worth 1. (I prefered the 1st version of the frontgame rules and the 2nd version of the endgame rules on that show)
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The "you fanboys" remark was out of line and it has been edited. Again, this my memory at work, Cullen made a big deal about the "No Match" card being added to the game.
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[quote name=\'rjaguar3\' post=\'211157\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 06:29 PM\']
[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'211156\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 07:54 PM\']
Originally, Three on a Match's gameboard had four prizes in each column. This resulted in a guaranteed win for whomever scored $270. There was no reason to try for three-on-a-match if a contestant had less than that. The fix: place a "No Match" card somewhere on the gameboard. Now that there are no guaranteed victories, players risked the gameboard with as little as $150.
Secondly, I'm not sure how you can be positive, thirty-eight years later, that the "No Match" card wasn't something that was part of the show all along. The fact that it is part of the home game, when (as you rightly point out) Milton Bradley rarely addressed changes to a game, would be a pretty strong indication that it was there from the beginning.
[/quote]
Figured I should ask, do any of you who were actually around in the 1970s remember a "Stop sign" card that would immediately end a player's turn? I read about it on Wikipedia (insert Wikipedia joke here), and I was just curious if any of you could confirm or deny this.
[/quote]
I remember the "Stop" sign, but only near the end of the run (when they changed to the buzz-in format).
Also, this is probably a case of misremembering something (as I never remembered seeing the "No Match" card until I saw a clip with it being used - for that matter, until I saw another clip, I didn't know that if all three players put in different numbers and the player with the highest number missed a question, the next player could select one of the other two categories), but "the version I remember was," in the original prizes format of the gameboard, there were five prizes - three appeared in all three columns, one in two of them, and the third in just one - presumably to make sure nobody could have a guaranteed win.
-- Don
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[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'211138\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 02:23 PM\']
[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'211130\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 03:31 PM\']
[quote name=\'alfonzos\' post=\'211129\' date=\'Mar 24 2009, 12:15 PM\']
There was no reason to try for three-on-a-match if a contestant had less than that.[/quote]
Um, sure there is: You have, say, $200, and following your strategy, you yell "Play on, Bill!" I slime in on the next contract, and complete it with $150.
I go to the board and get lucky. Oh, and that was my third match. Enjoy your Rice-A-Roni.
(I question the math, too, but was the rule that you could only buy three of the four boxes in each column? The math works out, if so.)
[/quote]
That was indeed the rule. Some categories offered two or three "free boxes." The obvious strategy here would be to use the free boxes in the $40 column and spend your money in the $20 and $30 columns.
[/quote]
The thing was, you couldn't use your free boxes unless you couldn't afford to buy any remaining boxes. Of course, in that case, you start by buying just $20 and $30 boxes.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but when they had the prizes on the gameboard, didn't the losing players have to leave immediately if somebody won a prize (as opposed to the later "first to 3 games or getting a match on their first 3 picks wins $5000 in prizes" format)?
-- Don
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[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'211314\' date=\'Mar 26 2009, 10:48 PM\']Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but when they had the prizes on the gameboard, didn't the losing players have to leave immediately if somebody won a prize (as opposed to the later "first to 3 games or getting a match on their first 3 picks wins $5000 in prizes" format)?[/quote]
Yep. Much like early Pyramid, it was one & out. The later shows (evidenced by the five in a row most of us have now) were much more enjoyable. Sorta like watching a set of tennis instead of just one game.
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The $100KP that aired on GSN today had an instance of what I think was a horrible flaw in the tournament. The two players split their games and won the exact same amount in the Winner's Circle, so they tossed a coin to see who came back.
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[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' post=\'211814\' date=\'Apr 1 2009, 08:46 PM\']
The $100KP that aired on GSN today had an instance of what I think was a horrible flaw in the tournament. The two players split their games and won the exact same amount in the Winner's Circle, so they tossed a coin to see who came back.
[/quote]
Good point. I wonder what would have been a better tie breaker though...
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[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'211818\' date=\'Apr 1 2009, 08:58 PM\'][quote name=\'Jay Temple\' post=\'211814\' date=\'Apr 1 2009, 08:46 PM\']The $100KP that aired on GSN today had an instance of what I think was a horrible flaw in the tournament. The two players split their games and won the exact same amount in the Winner's Circle, so they tossed a coin to see who came back.[/quote]Good point. I wonder what would have been a better tie breaker though...[/quote]No tiebreaker. If you lose the main game, you swap with the person in the wings. Play as normal, heat to 470 degrees. Serves an entire audience who is hungry after running up on stage.
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^ They could have counted players TOTAL winnings BEFORE the $100K tourney began in the event of a tiebreaker. Higher scorer plays on the next show. That's a fairer way to break the tie, IMO. They could have counted additional winnings on the show, like a Mystery 7, but IIRC, they eliminated those on the $100K tourney weeks.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'211820\' date=\'Apr 1 2009, 11:07 PM\']
[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'211818\' date=\'Apr 1 2009, 08:58 PM\'][quote name=\'Jay Temple\' post=\'211814\' date=\'Apr 1 2009, 08:46 PM\']The $100KP that aired on GSN today had an instance of what I think was a horrible flaw in the tournament. The two players split their games and won the exact same amount in the Winner's Circle, so they tossed a coin to see who came back.[/quote]Good point. I wonder what would have been a better tie breaker though...[/quote]No tiebreaker. If you lose the main game, you swap with the person in the wings. Play as normal, heat to 470 degrees. Serves an entire audience who is hungry after running up on stage.
[/quote]
Either that, or whoever reached their dollar amount in the WC faster. If it took Player A 38 seconds to get to $750 and Player B 43 seconds, Player A comes back tomorrow.
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It may have taken a little editing, but they could play a front game tiebreaker. Provided they hadn't played one that day already.
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I think a better option (which I think is mentioned earlier in this thread but not sure of the wording) is that after each and every round, the losing player leaves and the player swap occurs. This would reward contestants who do well in the front game.
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I've had a few ideas over the years of other ways to break a tie, some already mentioned:
1. Tie-breaker, as if it were a tied game (already mentioned)
2. time needed to achieve the score (also mentioned, but I question the fairness of comparing a round where categories are passed or buzzed)
3. Declare the winner of Game 1 the daily winner. The onus would be on the Game 2 winner to top the score.
4. Each of the tied players gets to play one game the next day. (The existing coin toss would determine who plays Game 1 and who plays Game 2.)
5. Play both games out completely, and use the combined score to break a tie. (This means that a regulation winner beats an extra-inning winner every time.)
6a. If it happens on Day 1, the player with the better qualifying time wins.
6b. After that, the player who was already the defending "champion" wins.
7. In the event of consecutive days with ties, ignore the above criteria, and do not allow one player to repeat on consecutive days by virtue of tying his opponents.
But I agree 100% with Mitch. The best idea would simply have been to sit players out one game at a time instead of one day at a time.
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Okay, this is going waaaay back but here goes...
Wordplay: In a procedure too tedious to describe, each correct answer is worth as much or more than the previous response. The gives the second player an advantage over the first player in each round. Unless the second player gets more definitions wrong than the first player, the first player is doomed. Solution: the player with more money goes first in each round. That should balance the score.
Showdown: The bonus round was called 'Triple Treat.' If each player chose the same multiple choice answer and that answer was correct everyone won the bonus prize. Otherwise, everyone loses. Before the game began, the wining team would chosen a number and hope that the number chosen was to be the correct answer. Solution: make the final question short answer rather than multiple choice. (Big deal! The game was cancelled after thirteen weeks anyway!)
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[quote name=\'alfonzos\' post=\'215263\' date=\'May 8 2009, 03:30 PM\']Wordplay: In a procedure too tedious to describe,[/quote] A correct answer is worth the amount of money on the box as well as any boxes connected to it.
Wow, I think I need to like down and have a pull from Grampa's oxygen tank*. Jeez.
You can slap whatever scoring you want onto the game, but if you have celebrities being funny, that's what viewers should pay attention to. Because I'm feeling lazy after typing out the old way, award each player 50 points for a correct judgment, and have some big Final Word thing. Don't take away from the reason people are watching.
Showdown: The bonus round was called 'Triple Treat.' If each player chose the same multiple choice answer and that answer was correct everyone won the bonus prize. Otherwise, everyone loses. Before the game began, the wining team would chosen a number and hope that the number chosen was to be the correct answer.
What kind of questions are we talking about? "What kind of cheese did I put on my sausage biscuit?" or something you could possibly know, like South American capitals? If you have a chance to know it, I'd rather cast my lot with hoping that we'll all know it.
Solution: make the final question short answer rather than multiple choice. (Big deal! The game was cancelled after thirteen weeks anyway!)
You must be knew here. This is what we do.
* I no longer have a grampa from which to commandeer his oxygen tank.