The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Jeremy Nelson on April 29, 2020, 01:22:54 PM
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Starting a new thread to avoid tangents on another:
It's been pretty well documented that the Press Your Luck board in '83 was the envy of its time for being a visual and technogical marvel. What are some other big technological leaps that you thought were pretty cool or beneficial?
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I imagine what TTD did with its Apple II computers was pretty high-tech for 1978, esp. for Beat the Dragon. Same for the setup on Bullseye.
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I thought the Scrabble set was pretty amazing for its time, the huge cube with the game board on one side, the Sprint board the other side. That set had to have cost a fortune then.
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Family Feud ranks up there with the Ferranti boards. Many game shows after Feud incorporated that technology into their scoreboards and displays.
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Nick Arcade was the first to showcase interactive chroma key technology. A few years later, Secrets of the Crypt Keeper's Haunted House took the idea and made it look more three-dimensional. That was followed by shows such as My Generation and Paranoia, which shot entirely in a big green room to facilitate a virtual set.
I'm glad that virtual game show sets were short-lived.
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The Magnificent Marble Machine was the never-again-reached height of technology.
Beside the huge and hugely expensive cube, Scrabble had such clean graphics, with slick motion and fully rendered type. The system on Classic Concentration and Henry Now You See It looked 10 years behind.
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Even with its flaws, I'd say Paranoia deserves a place on this list.
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wB0j4lixWYI/hqdefault.jpg)
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That was followed by shows such as My Generation and Paranoia, which shot entirely in a big green room to facilitate a virtual set.
Well I'll be. I learned something today. I assumed the Paranoia set was rear-projection or something.
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I'm glad that virtual game show sets were short-lived.
Considering the things you can do with LED's these days, I could see it getting a sort of reboot.
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I imagine what TTD did with its Apple II computers was pretty high-tech for 1978, esp. for Beat the Dragon. Same for the setup on Bullseye.
I was about to submit Wheel of Fortune for the biggest technological upgrade for one show, with the puzzleboard going from trilons to monitors. But then I remembered that the original 50s TTD board was a scrolling piece of paper.
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I'd have to think the TJW slot machine was quite interesting by 1972 standards. Heck, I doubt computer technology was even able to handle such a task by the time the show went out in 1986.
The 1990 reboot's machine seemed a bit primitive for that time; in contrast, the TTD reboot that same year had a rather nice CGI board.
/probably the only good thing about that show!
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When the current Jeopardy! premiered, that electronic game board had everyone talking. All of the sets used on that version, have, for the most part, been built on that foundation (although the JEOPARDY! letters are long gone).
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When the current Jeopardy! premiered, that electronic game board had everyone talking. All of the sets used on that version, have, for the most part, been built on that foundation (although the JEOPARDY! letters are long gone).
Jeopardy! came to mind for me after my initial post, esp. when you consider the computer set pilot from '83 still used pull cards.
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I think Classic Concentration took a huge leap from a nine-year absence between 1978 and 1987. Having to go from trilons to a computer-generated board. Plus you have to believe that game shows in the 1980s were moving with the times as well.
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Pyramid comes to mind......$20K and $50K used solari for the score, but by $25K's arrival in 1982, they went LED.
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I was about to submit Wheel of Fortune for the biggest technological upgrade for one show, with the puzzleboard going from trilons to monitors.
Considering that it also had a significant effect on the amount of production stopdowns, this would be a valid answer as well.
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I'll just troll the room and say that in 1990's Supermarket Sweep, being able to scan in the groceries at check-out rather than hand-calculate must have done wonders for production.
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Pyramid comes to mind......$20K and $50K used solari for the score, but by $25K's arrival in 1982, they went LED vane.
FTFY
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Pyramid comes to mind......$20K and $50K used solari for the score, but by $25K's arrival in 1982, they went LED vane.
FTFY
Thank you!
For further clarification on my post, $50K was vane for the clock during non-tournament play, including the very odd "1 00" when the winner's circle started.
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Was Double Dare 2000 one of the first game shows filmed in HD? And was the set built with that in mind? I feel like it's a bit of a stretch, but could see consideration being made in its leap to make the colors pop and that the set fits on screen for that format. It's set was far more elaborate than what the panel shows had to adjust when they started going to color in the 60s.
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How about RGB LEDs? We've come a long way since chase bulbs. :)
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Even with its flaws, I'd say Paranoia deserves a place on this list.
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wB0j4lixWYI/hqdefault.jpg)
That show was so WAY ahead of it's time (Tomarken's shows seemed to have that curse). It would be a prime candidate for a reboot.
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Pyramid comes to mind......$20K and $50K used solari for the score, but by $25K's arrival in 1982, they went LED vane.
FTFY
Thank you!
For further clarification on my post, $50K was vane for the clock during non-tournament play, including the very odd "1 00" when the winner's circle started.
And Pyramid was not the first show to use that. Chain Reaction's bonus round switched to that supered vane clock from the electronically generated clock that it started with (and switched clock sounds around the same time). Weird to have Solaris together with vane displays (which I call Stavers, since the company that made them was called Staver-Signalex).
First use of Stavers that I know of on a game show was on the Spell Binders pilot in 1978. First time on-air might have been Mindreaders the following year.
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Anything that got rid of text on a piece of cardboard or slides in a carousel projector.
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Was Double Dare 2000 one of the first game shows filmed in HD? And was the set built with that in mind?
Based on my research, only five episodes were recorded in high-definition, and I don't think they were ever broadcast that way, since Nickelodeon didn't have an HD feed until years afterward. They were probably the first game show to film in the format, albeit in a limited capacity, though I doubt that held any consideration in set construction.
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Anything that got rid of text on a piece of cardboard or slides in a carousel projector.
Yes. But menu boards were even worse than cardboard or slides in my opinion.
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And Pyramid was not the first show to use that. Chain Reaction's bonus round switched to that supered vane clock from the electronically generated clock that it started with (and switched clock sounds around the same time).
Didn't Pyramid also have an eggcrate clock off stage? I distinctly recall a couple of cases where a contestant won the Winner's Circle with a fraction of a second and Dick would have the contestant look over at the clock
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Didn't Pyramid also have an eggcrate clock off stage? I distinctly recall a couple of cases where a contestant won the Winner's Circle with a fraction of a second and Dick would have the contestant look over at the clock
I'll back you up on this, I distinctly remember it too. I remember it showing "01".
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Didn't Pyramid also have an eggcrate clock off stage? I distinctly recall a couple of cases where a contestant won the Winner's Circle with a fraction of a second and Dick would have the contestant look over at the clock
I'll back you up on this, I distinctly remember it too. I remember it showing "01".
I’ll third this. It happened exactly the way you both described.
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I wonder if that explains when Dick had to ask if a team finished in 18 or 19 seconds during a tiebreaker - (how) did they sync the screen clock with the one offstage?
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The 2 clocks had to be electronically tied together to display the same thing. Or just programmed to start at the same time, even if they weren't directly tied to one another. I imagine the reason the one offstage was eggcrate is because it provided its own light source. "Vane" displays are flat white mechanical pieces you shine light at (like Family Feud's board being flat yellow disks).
This also recalls latter day (Nickelodeon) Double Dare episodes where the supered clock was different from the one behind Marc Summers, and sometimes they'd be out of sync, with Marc reminding us the music is timed to exactly 15/20/30/60 seconds, etc. etc.
When this thread said LEAPS in technology, my mind immediately went to the entire floor being a gameboard on Monopoly Millionaires Club. We haven't quite seen that used to full effect in America yet, as far as I can remember, although Jimmy Kimmel's Millionaire is making great use of it as their set floor. The overseas show 5 Gold Rings is a great example of what we could be doing.
-Jason
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When this thread said LEAPS in technology, my mind immediately went to the entire floor being a gameboard on Monopoly Millionaires Club. We haven't quite seen that used to full effect in America yet, as far as I can remember, although Jimmy Kimmel's Millionaire is making great use of it as their set floor.
Family Game Night??
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While we're talking about Pyramid: wasn't it the first game show to use a graphics computer? I know there was a Vidifont for the run of shows they did at Television City in 1973. Don't recognize the machine they started with at Sullivan.
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Anything that got rid of text on a piece of cardboard or slides in a carousel projector.
menu boards were even worse than cardboard or slides in my opinion.
You mean what they used for the 317? Those were text on cardboard slips which slid into a series of slats mounted on a board. Before that they used a board ribbed with black felt that you press plastic letters into.
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The ribbed felt jobbies. It was near impossible to get all the letters aligned quickly. And the font was ugly. Coming from someone who frequently changed them in a store.
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The overseas show 5 Gold Rings
... which triggers my memories of The Cube and its 75 high-speed cameras.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg1F5CstHFU
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The 2 clocks had to be electronically tied together to display the same thing. Or just programmed to start at the same time, even if they weren't directly tied to one another. I imagine the reason the one offstage was eggcrate is because it provided its own light source. "Vane" displays are flat white mechanical pieces you shine light at (like Family Feud's board being flat yellow disks).
Exactly. In addition, there were 2 eggcrates to the left of the front-game pyramid for the contestant's scores, seen here:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11o52z
I assume that the scores were synced up, but it would have been an absolute necessity for the clocks. As for the tiebreaker time with Dick calling off a margin of error of 1 second occasionally ... not sure how exact they called it, but technically it would be marked at the first syllable of the final answer, since the second team could answer on the buzzer in the same fashion. Also, the requirement was to do it in less time, which seemed to lead to a 1 second difference when they set the clock. (Although there was at least one circumstance where they allowed a 7-7 tie.)
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I'll back you up on this, I distinctly remember it too. I remember it showing "01".
They did, and it makes sense, since if it was in the wings it wouldn't be lit, and so a vane display wouldn't be useful there.
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When this thread said LEAPS in technology, my mind immediately went to the entire floor being a gameboard on Monopoly Millionaires Club. We haven't quite seen that used to full effect in America...
20-25 years earlier on ABC’s Monopoly, the floor was the gameboard. While the Club floor sure was amazing, the predecessor was pretty hot for its time.
Back to $10,000-20,000 Pyramid...I love them now, but Solari flippy numbers looked cheap and outdated compared to eggcrates. Why would they use those on camera? Also, if you look closely, the desk scores have a slightly different font from the timers, which because I’m anal about type, bugged me.
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Solari flippy numbers looked cheap and outdated compared to eggcrates. Why would they use those on camera? Also, if you look closely, the desk scores have a slightly different font from the timers, which because I’m anal about type, bugged me.
It was cheap and it worked. And unlike Eggcrate/19-S8, no pesky light bulbs to go out. It was exactly what producers needed...especially Bob Stewart after having to rebuild the Pyramid set when the show moved to ABC. Besides, it was the '70s, when millions of people had clock radios at home with that worked almost the exact same way - numbers just flipped down instead of over.
Side note: New York always seemed a little behind when it came to production value. Maybe the size of the converted theaters and radio studios had a little to do with it. Compare NBC's Concentration with Goodson-Todman's syndicated version just 6 months later. Or NBC's Jeopardy! with Wheel Of Fortune. Whole different world between NY and LA in the '70s.
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When this thread said LEAPS in technology, my mind immediately went to the entire floor being a gameboard on Monopoly Millionaires Club. We haven't quite seen that used to full effect in America...
20-25 years earlier on ABC’s Monopoly, the floor was the gameboard. While the Club floor sure was amazing, the predecessor was pretty hot for its time.
Then I guess I should have said an entire floor being a video screen, because The Video Game in the early '80s had a lighted floor too. I still think there's lots more to exploit with having that much video screen power.
-Jason
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You mean what they used for the 317? Those were text on cardboard slips which slid into a series of slats mounted on a board. Before that they used a board ribbed with black felt that you press plastic letters into.
I never knew that was referred to as "317". Given that that is my area code, TIL that I live in The Land of Parting Gifts. :D
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I think Classic Concentration took a huge leap from a nine-year absence between 1978 and 1987. Having to go from trilons to a computer-generated board. Plus you have to believe that game shows in the 1980s were moving with the times as well.
It's been said before, but the Classic Concentration game board was generated via an IBM PC.