The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Kent Broyhill on June 30, 2003, 02:21:33 AM
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I ran across this downloadable video for NBC's \"Fun in the Morning\" game show promo (circa 1975; judging from the lineup) on The World of Soap Themes website. http://www.wost.org (http://\"http://www.wost.org\") This promo highlights NBC's (then) game show lineup; Celebrity Sweepstakes, Wheel of Fortune (with Chuck Woolery, includes a shot of Chuck standing behind an sideways-spinning wheel; perhaps from the second pilot that he hosted-- the first was hosted by Ed \"Kookie\" Byrnes formerly of 77 Sunset Strip), High Rollers (GREAT shot of Alex Trebek in front of the original number board!), Hollywood Squares (with Peter Marshall), Magnificent Marble Machine, and Jackpot (hosted by Geoff Edwards)!
Enclosed below is a download of this great promo:
http://www.wost.org/ffpromo2.ram (http://\"http://www.wost.org/ffpromo2.ram\")
Enjoy! :-)
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Neat! Thanks for the link!
Cheers,
Ryan V.
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Yeah...seen that before...I would really like to have 1 day of that schedule...Always Wanted to see CS and Trebek HR, plus MMM would be interesting...Wouldnt mind shopping WOF(And The $50 and Buy A Vowel Spaces!), and HS is just a great classic!
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[quote name=\'Hiroland\' date=\'Jun 30 2003, 10:40 AM\'] Yeah...seen that before...I would really like to have 1 day of that schedule...Always Wanted to see CS and Trebek HR, plus MMM would be interesting...Wouldnt mind shopping WOF(And The $50 and Buy A Vowel Spaces!), and HS is just a great classic! [/quote]
If you ever get to NYC or Beverly Hills, make a stop at the Museum of TV and Radio. You can find just about all those shows you mentioned (I think they have Marble Machine as well), and you can watch up to two hours worth, all for $10.
It's worth the investment. :-)
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Where I live...it will take a LONG time to get to either...now an Atlanta or a Nashville Museum would be fine!
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[quote name=\'Kent Broyhill\' date=\'Jun 29 2003, 11:21 PM\'] Enclosed below is a download of this great promo:
[/quote]
Actually, what you posted is a link to the file. The file itself can be downloaded at:
http://www.wost.org/ffpromo2.rm (http://\"http://www.wost.org/ffpromo2.rm\")
You should just be able to right-click on the above link and select Save Target As...
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Great download!
Was the sideways wheel just for the photo or was it on a pilot? And if it was ever used, where did they put the players?
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I believe the sideways wheel was a part of the early pilots Peter Marshall describes in his book. IIRC, he said the set was done like French museum of some kind.
D'oh! Just checked the book, and he said the overhead camera shot was developed during that particular pilot. Randy A. way back when suggested the vertical wheel was a prop. It simply wasn't the regular wheel put upright since the spaces were done differently. Hmmm...
-Jason
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Was the sideways wheel just for the photo or was it on a pilot? And if it was ever used, where did they put the players?
I'm guessing that it was a promotional shot. Those who've seen the first \"Shoppers' Bazaar\" pilot I believe can vouch that the wheel was in a position similar to the actual series--and, as has been documented, the problem with the first pilot wasn't the set--it was the host.
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The sideways wheel still is from the Shopper's Bazaar pilot. The other still in the promo is actually from the Wheel pilot with Edd Byrnes, and it appears that Edd's face was blurred out.
To my knowledge, Woolery never hosted a pilot under the Wheel of Fortune title. He hosted at least one pilot for Shopper's Bazaar in 1973, while Byrnes hosted at least two pilots for Wheel of Fortune in 1974.
As for your staging question, Neumms, the wheel was upstage center (at 12 o'clock). Chuck was positioned at a Dating Game-esque lectern at roughly 1 o'clock. The contestants were seated in chairs at 3 o'clock, directly opposite the puzzle board (9 o'clock). There was no hostess; the puzzle board consisted of pull cards (think the old Jeopardy! board, only smaller).
Interestingly enough, there was a variation on the used letter board that was actually visible on camera; the very bottom row of the puzzle board would display any letters that were called, similar to a typical pen-and-paper game of Hangman.
The wheel was not spun by the contestants, but rather was in continuous motion. The contestants would signal for Chuck to \"stop the wheel\", and Chuck would press a button that would interrupt the current that was keeping the wheel in motion. The wheel would slow to a stop, and whatever was under the one singular pointer (think Star Wheel) was what the player would play for.
Two real anomalies on the wheel: a $0 space (where a contestant could keep her turn by calling an appropriate letter, but would earn no money for it) and a \"Your Own Clue\" space. Your Own Clue allowed the player to pick up the clue phone on the table in front of them and hear (along with the studio audience, but not her opponents) whether the puzzle was a person, place, or thing, because that information wasn't given at the outset of the puzzle like on Wheel.
The shopping format was a little different. Players selected the four prizes they wanted to play for before the show, and in which order. If a player earned enough for prize #1 and solved the puzzle, that prize was won and the remaining money would be applied to prize #2, etc. All money carried over to each subsequent puzzle (even by the contestants who didn't solve the previous puzzle), but the only way to apply that money toward the prizes a player selected would be for her to solve a puzzle.
The Wheel pilots had the format and set that we all grew to know and love, just with different music (similar in style to \"Big Wheels\", but very minor, detective drama-sounding) and a frightening host (Byrnes).
I don't have any record of Woolery hosting a Wheel of Fortune pilot, and it's entirely conceivable that when the decision to scrap Byrnes was made, Merv might have felt comfortable going straight to series with Woolery, given all the similarities between Bazaar and Wheel. Can anyone back this up or refute it with something other than internet urban legend?
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Now we finally get Chuck's joke about the \"Wheel\" pilots!
\"...we had people on telephones. It was bizarre!\"
Thanks SplitSecond, fascinating read! Sounds really cheap and odd. How was a winner determined? Prizes bought? Strategy would dictate putting cheap-o prizes at the top of your list so you could be ahead. But I'll just wait for your answer ;-p
-Jason
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Your earlier quote about the set looking like a French museum is pretty accurate, Jason.
As for the prizes, it was a pilot so everything in that regard was staged, but I get the impression that how it would have worked out for series is that the players each choose one prize from among four levels. On the pilot, the players did start working on the cheaper prizes first (which were actually at the bottom of their lists; they would work their way up).
The prize structure seemed very complex; in fact, Chuck would toss to the announcer (Michael _______?) to recap where the players stood with their prizes after each puzzle.
\"Darlene has all $750 she needs to buy that dining set and $400 toward her next prize, but she'll have to solve a puzzle to claim either of them. Marlene's already won that $600 luggage set and has $600 built up on her way to that trip. Harlene has $500 on the way to her first prize.\"
This was all recapped on an elaborate off-stage board - three columns of four squares each. Each square contained an art card with the name and value of the prize, with a numeric display below each card displaying how much a contestant has earned toward that particular prize, as well as a star, indicating that the player has earned enough money to buy that prize and has then solved a puzzle.
That's the long way around to saying that yes, the winner is the person who has bought the most valuable prizes (cash built up toward any unclaimed prizes didn't count and probably wouldn't have been given to the contestants).
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Thanks for all that history. Safe to say, the game got refined a lot.
I must admit, though, I kind of like the idea of letting money carry over to the next round even if you didn't solve. If they retained that when they moved to the familiar shopping format, they could simplify the game and lose \"on account.\" A player could opt to save their money, and it would just stay in the till in front of them.
A shopping question, then: why do you suppose, if a player elected to purchase something, they wouldn't let him or her spend part of their money and put the rest on account--why did they make them either bank all of it or just the spare change?
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[quote name=\'Neumms\' date=\'Jun 30 2003, 02:52 PM\'] If they retained that when they moved to the familiar shopping format, they could simplify the game and lose "on account." [/quote]
I would guess a lot of the reason that \"On Account\" existed was aesthetic...if they just kept the money on their scoreboard, they would be playing with uncomfortably un-round numbers fairly quickly. \"Five T's, you're up to $4,522.\" Works for Press Your Luck, does not work on WOF.
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Sorry to innundate this thread with extra posts and more questions, but, was the \"Buy a Vowel\" space on the wheel part of the pilot? In that promo clip, I did see \"Free Spin\" distinctly, but no idea on really anything else ($350, $550 were among the values on the wheel, FYI)
-Jason
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Shopper's Bazaar did have Buy a Vowel spaces, as well as a Free Vowel space (where one may call a vowel and not have to pay for it - personally, I think that should have stayed on instead of Buy a Vowel). On the other hand, I don't seem to remember there being a Bankrupt space (though there was the aforementioned $0 space, which had a different function altogether).
The Wheel of Fortune pilots had the standard Lose a Turn, Bankrupt, and Free Spin spaces, as well as two Buy a Vowel spaces. For the fourth round, there were 6 special spaces - two Lose a Turns, two Bankrupts, and two Buy a Vowels. Lowest value on the wheel on both Wheel and Bazaar was $25 (not counting the $0 space on Bazaar), and highest value on both was $1,000.
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Pretty interesting to watch, really, especially with subtle movements toward overhyping MMM. Then in retrospect, looking at how dismal that show really was in viewer turnout.
~C
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Pretty interesting to watch, really, especially with subtle movements toward overhyping MMM. Then in retrospect, looking at how dismal that show really was in viewer turnout.
1. \"MMM\" was the baby of the bunch, meaning it would get the most hype.
2. To be more precise, it was Lin Bolen's baby. Going by her mixed track record up to that point, she seemed to have bet her job on the success of that show. Both she and \"MMM\" barely made it into 1976.
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MMM at least was undismal enough in viewer turnout to make the $100 Answer to The Magnificent ________ on one of Monday's MG76 vertivision airings.
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[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Jul 1 2003, 12:08 PM\']MMM at least was undismal enough in viewer turnout to make the $100 Answer to The Magnificent ________ on one of Monday's MG76 vertivision airings.[/quote]
And I would've had a hard time on that one. The only other THE MAGNIFICENT __________ I could think of was an LA R&B disk jockey named The Magnificent Montague (one of the \"hey lawdy mama\"-type DJs who would shout encouragement to the singer over the records)--and I know damn well that unless a church group from Watts was in the audience that day, it would not show up on a \"MG\" Audience Match.
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[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Jul 1 2003, 12:28 PM\'][quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Jul 1 2003, 12:08 PM\']MMM at least was undismal enough in viewer turnout to make the $100 Answer to The Magnificent ________ on one of Monday's MG76 vertivision airings.[/quote]
And I would've had a hard time on that one. The only other THE MAGNIFICENT __________ I could think of was an LA R&B disk jockey named The Magnificent Montague (one of the \"hey lawdy mama\"-type DJs who would shout encouragement to the singer over the records)--and I know damn well that unless a church group from Watts was in the audience that day, it would not show up on a \"MG\" Audience Match.[/quote]
So, Zach, do you know what the $250 and $500 answers were?
I can think of The Magnificent Seven (which I would guess was the $500 answer); The Magnificent Ambersons, an old Orson Welles movie; and The Magnificent Mile, Chicago's shopping district.
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Thanks for sharing that. I very much enjoyed it.
I wish there were more game show rarities online, though. Maybe one day...maybe one day. :)
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Great look at what NBC was airing in 1975 for Game Shows, after all 1975 is known also as The Year of The Game Show.
Frank J. Genovay III
Trenton, NJ
http://community.webtv.net/FrankJGenovay/W...omeToFranksGAME (http://\"http://community.webtv.net/FrankJGenovay/WelcomeToFranksGAME\")
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Also on the site is a \"Love in the Afternoon\" promo from the same year, when NBC had FOUR soaps in their block (Days of our Lives, The Doctors, Another World, and its spinoff Somerset) instead of the two they have now (Days and Passions). Funny we'd notice that of those four soaps, only Days has managed to survive for so long.
\"Fun in the Morning\", \"Love in the Afternoon\"...don't get me started about the evening.
Jonathan Allen
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$500 was the Magnificent Seven, $250 was I think the Ambersons.
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Many thanks to Kent and to Chris for posting the links to this file. Very cool!!
and a frightening host (Byrnes).
You said a mouth full! I saw this pilot recently and Byrnes was beyond atrocious. He made Patrick Wayne look good and that's no exaggeration.
ITSBRY
itsbry@juno.com
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I must admit, though, I kind of like the idea of letting money carry over to the next round even if you didn't solve.
This is actually what they do on the Australian version...however, if you hit a Bankrupt, you lose that money, whereas the money earned from winning a round is safeguarded.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious \"Chuckie Bbay\")
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You said a mouth full! I saw this pilot recently and Byrnes was beyond atrocious. He made Patrick Wayne look good and that's no exaggeration.
And you could kinda tell he was drunk in the pilot clip shown on WoF's 3000th ep a few yrs ago...watch him as he says \"Spin that wheel...give it a good spin, Roseanne!\"
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious \"Chuckie Baby\")
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watch him as he says \"Spin that wheel...give it a good spin, Roseanne!\"
The best part of this pilot came at one point where a contestant decided to solve the puzzle and he yelled something like (he yells through the entire show, btw), \"What??? You're kidding me? You're breaking my heart! You could win soooo much money.\" The contestant looks kind of flustered then says, \"well, OK\" and spins again. Weird!
The guy is very creepy...like a slimey 70's swinger or something. When the female players were shopping, he would stand uncomfortably close and kind of leer at them. :)
ITSBRY
itsbry@juno.com
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[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Jul 2 2003, 11:20 AM\']
This is actually what they do on the Australian version...however, if you hit a Bankrupt, you lose that money, whereas the money earned from winning a round is safeguarded.
[/quote]
That's what I was thinking, too.
I don't remember that from the Aussie version, though when I was there I was flipping channels between that and Burgo's Catch Phrase. The thing that struck me was that for winning one round, all the contestant took home was a leaf blower.
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This is actually what they do on the Australian version...however, if you hit a Bankrupt, you lose that money, whereas the money earned from winning a round is safeguarded.
IIRC, this is how the UK version was doing it in the mid nineties when I saw an episode. Also I believe that it was done it points, and the person that won NEVER solved a puzzle in said program! Go figure.
Cheers,
Ryan V.
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I can think of The Magnificent Seven (which I would guess was the $500 answer); The Magnificent Ambersons, an old Orson Welles movie; and The Magnificent Mile, Chicago's shopping district.
I am duly humbled. I'm especially peeved that I didn't think of \"Magnificent Mile,\" since I've only lived in the Chicago for 35 years.
Hate to think what would've happened if I were the contestant.
Lead me into that room where Larry Van Nuys says, \"In a moment...\"
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Just a quick FYI - I dug up a quote from FOX's internet chat w/ Chuck during the run of \"Greed.\"
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Chuck Woolery: I thought that Greed was the most imaginative--on the money concept--for a game show that I had seen in my career. I was that strong about it, and I still feel that strong about it. These things are extremely difficult to come up with, game shows are very difficult to come up with. And normally when you do a pilot it takes many twists and turns before it gets to the air. An example: Before Wheel of Fortune became Wheel of Fortune, it was called Shopper's Bazaar. I did the pilot, and it had people talking to each other on telephones. And it was bizarre! And it didn't make it. It evolved over a year into Wheel of Fortune. So they had a year to play with it.
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The entire chat can be found here:
FOX's Chat with Chuck (http://\"http://www.fox.com/community/chat/transcripts/greed_cwoolery.htm\")
-Jason
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A (WOF) shopping question, then: why do you suppose, if a player elected to purchase something, they wouldn't let him or her spend part of their money and put the rest on account--why did they make them either bank all of it or just the spare change?
I recall Chuck explaining the rule once on one of the WOF shows he had hosted: After a contestant won a round, he was allowed to put any part of his winnings \"On Account\" and apply it toward an available prize in a future round -- he did not have to either put all of it \"On Account\" or spend as much of it as possible before putting the remainder \"On Account.\" (Thus, for example, a contestant who won $1,000 in a round could buy a $500 prize in the shopping round and put $500 \"On Account.\")
However, because of the risks involved, few contestants during the \"shopping\" era of WOF even used the \"On Account\" option at all, electing to take one of those \"tift cergificates\" (or at least I thought that's how Chuck referred to them) for their remaining winnings in a round instead. (These could only be bought by a player for an amount that was less than the amount of the lowest-price prize available -- thus, if you had $100 left after buying other prizes after winning a round and their famous $79 ceramic Dalmation was still available, you could not have a $100 tift cergificate; you had to either 1) buy the ceramic Dalmation and then take a $21 tift cergificate with what you had left, 2) put the entire $100 \"On Account,\" or 3) split the remainder between the two so that neither portion is greater than the price of the lowest-price available prize -- say, $50 \"On Account\" and a $50 tift cergificate.)
If a contestant choose to put winnings from a round \"On Account,\" he had to win another game in order to get another chance to spend it, and do so without hitting a \"Bankrupt\" space on the wheel. If he did so, his \"On Account\" money was added back to his winnings for his subsequent win (for example; if he had $122 \"On Account\" and then won $4,000 in the next round, he now had $4,122 to spend on prizes after his second win). Then the same rule would be applied again, unless his subsequent win came in the show's final round, in which case his bankroll had to be all spent on either prizes or tift cergificates.
If a contestant who had money \"On Account\" did hit a \"Bankrupt\" space on the wheel in a later round, he lost that money in addition to whatever amount he accumulated in that round. Also, if he failed to win the show's final round and had money \"On Account\" from previous rounds, that amount was lost as well. So that made for quite a risk for a player who wanted to try to win an especially valuable prize on the show, which is why few players during the \"shopping\" era of the WOF show even used the \"On Account\" option.
Michael Brandenburg
(And you know something? Chuck Woolery needs to learn how to talk slower -- someone just pointed out to me that those \"tift cergificates\" he gave away on WOF for so many years were really Tiffany gift certificates!)