The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: rebelwrest on July 22, 2020, 01:06:38 PM
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We may have to adjust the qualifications as to what made a great pilot for the show, but for now I will provide the following conditions: It felt like the closest to an episode of the series, did the best at explaining almost all aspects of the game, and the game on the pilot itself was pretty exciting.
If you want you can pick the best pilot for a series that went to air and a pilot for a show that didn't get picked up.
I always seem to go back to the pilot for Press Your Luck. With the only changes to the game being four questions per round rather than five, that was an exciting game and almost every normal possibility for a game was there.
Let's get the debate started.
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The second Trebek pilot for Jeopardy! Only difference is they modified the dollar values when it went to series.
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My favorite that didn’t get picked up is King of the Hill. Great set and I loved that the categories weren’t the Barry-Enright type but types of questions. The end game went far better with Card Sharks. Maybe the battle with the King could have played more like an end game.
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Really don't know if I have a favorite that went to series, as most feel like they're in that final stage where you're just working out minor kinks. But one of my favorite unsold pilots was Decisions Decisions. Sans wood paneling galore, I think the front game only needed a few small changes in order to make it interesting.
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Wheel of Fortune's pilots were pretty close to what aired apart from that whole Edd Byrnes thing. Details, details.
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I cannot help myself--I love Oddball. There's a way to speed up the game and to make it not a stupid race to $500, but I love the fusion of Match Game and Super Password. It's a great party game too.
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Oddball is a good one.
I'll now add Second Guess to my list. I love the strategy of deciding to play for two smaller prizes, or go for the biggest one, and seeing if that overrides your opponent's two. And I love any prize-based game show that allows contestants to win some cash to offset the taxes.
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For a show that made it to air, I'll go with Blockbusters. For one that didn't, I'll go with Puzzlers.
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I also enjoyed Second Guess.. Another I liked and would have watched had it gone to series was Twisters.. One I’d like to see but have never come across - Face the Music.
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Always loved watching the PDQ pilot. I'll never forget David Schwartz replying to an email of mine years ago in which he confirmed the entire run still exists in Four Star TV's vaults. Wish it finally made its way out! As for unsold, Temptation from '81 is still one of my favorites, thought it was pretty neat.
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Al reminded me of another good one...Kevin O'Connell's Keynotes pilot from 1986. I'm still surprised that one didn't sell, although I'm not sure what show gets the axe to make room. PYL was close to cancellation, but I doubt CBS tries another show at 4:00 pm; the morning games all pulled respectable ratings. Maybe they shuffle a few things around when Capitol gets canceled?
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Al reminded me of another good one...Kevin O'Connell's Keynotes pilot from 1986. I'm still surprised that one didn't sell, although I'm not sure what show gets the axe to make room. PYL was close to cancellation, but I doubt CBS tries another show at 4:00 pm; the morning games all pulled respectable ratings. Maybe they shuffle a few things around when Capitol gets canceled?
Card Sharks, at the time, was losing out to $ale and Michael Brockman (head of CBS Daytime) made mention in a Broadcasting article that he wanted to see some improvement by the fall in order for it to survive. That being said, I'm of the understanding that a network would often shoot a pilot simply to avoid writing off the budgets they had devoted to test shows. For example, Blackout wasn't picked up until over a year after shooting the pilot.
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When it comes to ones that didn’t sell, I kinda enjoyed Matchmates. Thought the gameplay was fun, and the bonus was cool. The pacing annoyed me a little but it seemed like an easy enough fix if it was to sell.
I also was a fan of the Jim Lange 21 pilot, except for the bonus round which I just felt was tacked on and didn’t really serve much purpose; why would you have me play for the standard B&E prize package of a handful of cash and a cheap vacation when I’m already likely to win at least twice that in the main game if I’m lucky? (I say “cheap vacation” because it doesn’t always seem like the trip has a high value in itself; I will also freely admit I’m not an expert in what $2k-3k worth of merchandise would be worth in today’s figures as opposed to 1982.) It wasn’t the worst bonus idea ever, just didn’t feel like it fit.
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Matchmates is a great choice—Grundy’s knew how to make a show look professional, plus we know the genesis of the Winners Big Money Game.
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I’ll admit I also kinda liked Eye Q, even if Henry Polic II wasn’t great as a host and the combination of Eye Guess and Concentration was a little weird in execution.
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I also was a fan of the Jim Lange 21 pilot, except for the bonus round which I just felt was tacked on and didn’t really serve much purpose...
It sure looked cool, I'll give it that. I agree on the bonus round. I can see why they'd want one to break up the show, but if they're to do it, I don't know why they wouldn't play with cards. The number jumbler messed with long-standing blackjack strategy.
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Adding this since it came up in a conversation. The Name That Tune pilot from 1990 with Peter Allen is amazing. Unfortunately, we know how game shows did that year.
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The pilot for The Big Showdown is *great*. Exciting game, great set, great contestants, and similar to what another poster said, all of the unique gameplay elements/possibilities come to pass.
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The pilot for The Big Showdown is *great*.
I'd love to see the earlier pilot with the lock instead of dice in the endgame.
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I was flipping through my pilots folder last night and have to say that I greatly prefer the Body Language intro to what made it to air. Having the teams come through the mushroom felt more cohesive.
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Adding this since it came up in a conversation. The Name That Tune pilot from 1990 with Peter Allen is amazing. Unfortunately, we know how game shows did that year.
I got to see this during this past weekend's marathon, and boy, what a fun time. Peter Allen was a little uneven at times, and maybe the front game could use a few tweaks. But you could tell that once he settled into the routine of five-a-week, this could have been a perfect fit of host and format. It also had a bit of a UK feel to it, as it made the host more of a true "star" of the show.
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Having the teams come through the mushroom
So we've just given up entirely on phrasing, then.
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TKO with Peter Tomarken was a pretty good pilot. The two rounds of building up cash and then attempting to survive by "knockout" to the end in the third and final round. I would have loved to see the show go on 5-days-a-week to see who would have built up the most money for the week.
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Second Guess.
Twisters.
But TKO may have to be my most favorite of them all.
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TKO with Peter Tomarken was a pretty good pilot. The two rounds of building up cash and then attempting to survive by "knockout" to the end in the third and final round. I would have loved to see the show go on 5-days-a-week to see who would have built up the most money for the week.
I thought it was enjoyable as well, but unfortunately Q&A games generally didn't work in daytime, and this one modeled itself after Jeopardy!.
I thought Split Decision and Lucky Numbers were solid pilots that didn't need much tweaking to go to series. Were they both for ABC?
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Split Decision was for NBC.
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I think The Couples Race had a chance to get picked up if they didn't spend so much of their energy on a White Elephant gimmick that made it so time ran out before a couple could actually cross the finish line.
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I would have loved to see the show go on 5-days-a-week to see who would have built up the most money for the week.
The SFX and set were cool, but the game was Jeopardy without the jeopardy or good writing, and the initials bit that worked on Blockbusters only wasted time here.
Maybe there's a good gimmick in stealing opponents' money and added it to your score. That might heighten the competition, but otherwise, how much fun would it add to see three perfectly fine but dull contestants play the same dull game all week?
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I would have loved to see the show go on 5-days-a-week to see who would have built up the most money for the week.
The SFX and set were cool, but the game was Jeopardy without the jeopardy or good writing, and the initials bit that worked on Blockbusters only wasted time here.
Maybe there's a good gimmick in stealing opponents' money and added it to your score. That might heighten the competition, but otherwise, how much fun would it add to see three perfectly fine but dull contestants play the same dull game all week?
If you watch Jeopardy, you could have watched TKO. I disagree on the Blockbusters initials bit wasting time...the gimmick of TKO is the usage of initials. I think it was a thorough game for 1990. If folks were on the Q&A and game shows weren't declining so tough, this should could have had an interesting run. The contestants on that pilot weren't the best but you had to see what worked with that group. Peter was fine with the question-reading and his energy that he used on his other shows works fine here too. I can understand if there was a returning champion for each show though. As much as I would have liked to have a bonus game tied to it, it didn't need one. Just me.