The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: TheInquisitiveOne on February 11, 2021, 01:43:52 AM
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Good day to all of you.
In my years of watching random episodes of game shows on YouTube, there have been practices that I didn’t pay too much attention to in the past - which have been discontinued for a long time - but these practices ran longer than I thought. I personally chalk it up to lapsed viewing cycles or having school. Examples:
On The Price is Right, the rule informing contestants to “bid in dollars only” is considered ancient at this point. I thought it was done away with at the start of the 90s, but I was surprised to find an episode from 1996 with Bob still letting contestants know to do precisely that.
From season two onward in the early years of Trebek Jeopardy!, the camera would zoom in on the first clue on the board (in each round and after the first commercial break, not counting Daily Doubles). I thought that production technique was done away with when the set change happened in fall 1991. I saw that it went until some point in 1992 or 1993.
Finally, on Wheel of Fortune, it wasn’t uncommon for the show to come back from commercial break with the Final Spin (when Pat announces there’s not enough time for another round). I didn’t know this was a thing until all the way in 2000 (just before the toss ups were implemented...or was it because of them? I forget.)
Any examples like these come to mind? Let’s discuss. Thank you in advance for your responses, and stay safe.
The Inquisitive One
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I was shocked when I revisited the Jeopardy! set change from November 2002 and saw they were still shooting the real category screens at the top of the round, rather than the all-graphics pan. Every episode I could find online from early 2003 however indicates that didn't last long at all.
-Jason
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Speaking of Wheel, Pat still told players that "we're playing for cash" on the nighttime show well into the late '90s.
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Keeping with Wheel, after the list of consolation prizes but right before the credits, Wheel used to plug its ticket mailing address. I thought this ended during the Chuck and Susan era, but looking at Youtube recently, it at least went into the first syndicated season (http://youtube.com/watch?v=8UZ8H8ASDCs&t=21m6s). On GSN reruns, they abruptly cut to a GSN ad before going back to the credits, so I imagine they were covering up said ticket plug.
I swear they briefly brought back this plug not long after they switched to the video puzzle board.
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I can't remember the last time Sajak said, "I'd like to point out there's a used letter board, which the home audience can't see, but you players can..." I know they now have a monitor doing the job.
Also, more so on daytime WOF, the contestants would be asked to turn their backs toward the puzzle if it wasn't solved before going to a commercial.
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Keeping with Wheel, after the list of consolation prizes but right before the credits, Wheel used to plug its ticket mailing address. I thought this ended during the Chuck and Susan era, but looking at Youtube recently, it at least went into the first syndicated season (http://youtube.com/watch?v=8UZ8H8ASDCs&t=21m6s). On GSN reruns, they abruptly cut to a GSN ad before going back to the credits, so I imagine they were covering up said ticket plug.
I swear they briefly brought back this plug not long after they switched to the video puzzle board.
They did a different version of the plug on the new board, plugging the ticket phone line (seen at 19:41 here):
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7y5kxp
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That's the one I remember. Thank you!
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For The Price Is Right, I always associate the pricing game Give or Keep, with its unnecessarily labor-intensive staging and premature reveal, with the '70s and early '80s. I hadn't realized that the game lasted all the way to 1990. Similarly, my brain always thinks that Hurdles didn't last as long as it did.
As an example of the inverse of the question, I was surprised to learn that Wheel of Fortune has been spotting its bonus round players the RSTLNE since 1988. I thought that didn't come about until the mid-'90s.
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For The Price Is Right, I always associate the pricing game Give or Keep, with its unnecessarily labor-intensive staging and premature reveal, with the '70s and early '80s. I hadn't realized that the game lasted all the way to 1990. Similarly, my brain always thinks that Hurdles didn't last as long as it did.
As an example of the inverse of the question, I was surprised to learn that Wheel of Fortune has been spotting its bonus round players the RSTLNE since 1988. I thought that didn't come about until the mid-'90s.
Nope it was definitely the late 80s. I have a TV Guide that Jeered the change.
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Well into the debut year of the WoF Jackpot round (96-97), Pat was still saying "we're playing for cash" before the first puzzle.
-Jason
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Well into the debut year of the WoF Jackpot round (96-97), Pat was still saying "we're playing for cash" before the first puzzle.
Probably a product of me not being a regular viewer, but I didn't realize the Jackpot lasted all the way till 2013.
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Nope it was definitely the late 80s. I have a TV Guide that Jeered the change.
I remember this............They jeered it, if I recall, because it made the puzzles (at the time) way too easy.
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Does wiping count for this discussion? I thought the practice had pretty much ended by the late 70s/the advent of cable, when program distributors realized they could make a little cash by selling game show reruns in syndication. But then, there’s the matter of the swaths of missing 80s $otC episodes.
More pointed to the question: the Feud theme as a car cue on TPIR. I actually thought they had stopped using it shortly after FF became a hit on its own (at least by around ‘80 or so), but it’s still showing up on the ‘82-83 eps on the TPIR Pluto channel.
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I thought that the camera pan left/right to award the bank on Family Feud lasted until they brought the show back in ‘99, but it looks like the Combs version removed it by ‘93, and it was never a thing on the Dawson revival.
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A conversation about Super Ball!!’s camera blocking led me to Youtube. I thought the game was retired in the mid-90s at the latest, but apparently its final playing was January of ‘98.
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A conversation about Super Ball!!’s camera blocking led to me going to Youtube. I thought the game was retired in the mid-90s at the latest, but apparently its final playing was January of ‘98.
And even though it was apparently retired because it took up too much time, they still played both it and 3 Strikes on its last show. Utterly unthinkable today, but it doesn't seem all that long ago that such a thing was possible.
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Going in the other direction, I would have sworn that Wheel only started editing out Final Spins that landed on Bankrupt/Lose A Turn/whatnot in the early 2010's, but apparently the last time they actually aired Pat landing on one was like 1998.
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I always have it in my head that Janice and Kathleen left Price shortly after Holly, rather than sticking around until 2000.
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A conversation about Super Ball!!’s camera blocking led to me going to Youtube. I thought the game was retired in the mid-90s at the latest, but apparently its final playing was January of ‘98.
And even though it was apparently retired because it took up too much time, they still played both it and 3 Strikes on its last show.
It's a bit more than that. All the interviews, etc. indicate Super Ball was retired because it took up too much time for the reactions it was getting. Which IMO was a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the prizes they put in the game rapidly declined by the '90s. The earlier playings were more in line with what I think the game needed - a prize in every door worthy of being played for on its own (hot tubs, trips, etc.) In the '96-'97 season, it was only played for a car once out of 10 appearances. The first playing I drummed up on YouTube from '96 had small appliances (microwave/mini-fridge/bread maker), a dining room and a gazebo behind the doors. Given contestants' rapidly growing apathy towards "regular" prizes, this wasn't helping (again, IMO).
-Jason
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All the interviews, etc. indicate Super Ball was retired because it took up too much time for the reactions it was getting. Which IMO was a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the prizes they put in the game rapidly declined by the '90s. The earlier playings were more in line with what I think the game needed - a prize in every door worthy of being played for on its own (hot tubs, trips, etc.) [...] The first playing I drummed up on YouTube from '96 had small appliances (microwave/mini-fridge/bread maker), a dining room and a gazebo behind the doors.
Even in that example, though, two of the three doors did contain a prize that would normally be used as the featured prize in Grocery Game, Cliff Hangers, etc. -- the problem in that case was that even though it was an expensive gazebo, nobody in 1996 cared about winning a gazebo.
What has struck me about seeing Super Ball in the season 11 episodes is that the total value of all three doors was often the same as or better than a showcase. In that 1996 example, however, the total value was $7,954, and I suspect that showcases were always more than $10,000 by that time. Which goes back to your point about all three doors needing to be valuable.
But yeah, short of it becoming a dedicated car game (and even that would have its problems -- "You won the car! Now try to win the super ball to pick up the two prizes you don't care about!"), Super Ball was eating up too much time for the fun it was capable of putting out. And I know some people here really love skee-ball, but watching somebody else play skee-ball four times isn't that compelling, in my opinion. Hole in One would be a slog if it were "Hole in One or Two or Three or Four."
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But yeah, short of it becoming a dedicated car game (and even that would have its problems -- "You won the car! Now try to win the super ball to pick up the two prizes you don't care about!")
They could have simplified it by playing the four small prizes at once then playing for one prize—a car—rather than three. Maybe you’re earning chances to hit the middle hole once or you’re playing to some score to win.
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And I know some people here really love skee-ball, but watching somebody else play skee-ball four times isn't that compelling, in my opinion.
I think this is a major point. For the most part, the most memorable moments of Superball were the players who failed spectacularly at it.
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But yeah, short of it becoming a dedicated car game (and even that would have its problems -- "You won the car! Now try to win the super ball to pick up the two prizes you don't care about!"
I agree - Master Key suffers from this with this just 1 less step involved, and it is less likely to occur. But at least the reveal is a bit more controllable. If a person chooses the car key and the master key, I assume Drew is told to start with the master key? I can't remember any recent playing where the player got the car key and the master key, but I assume that is what would happen? Otherwise it plays out exactly as you described.
Super Ball is visually entertaining, and I think it would be great fun to play. But the payoff isn't as big as the presentation would suggest.
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I agree - Master Key suffers from this with this just 1 less step involved, and it is less likely to occur. But at least the reveal is a bit more controllable. If a person chooses the car key and the master key, I assume Drew is told to start with the master key? I can't remember any recent playing where the player got the car key and the master key, but I assume that is what would happen?
Are there marks on the back of the keys to indicate which key is which? Or is Drew told ahead of time? I know the envelopes in Pocket ¢hange have amounts on the back to help guide the host on how to reveal them or build suspense.
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I agree - Master Key suffers from this with this just 1 less step involved, and it is less likely to occur. But at least the reveal is a bit more controllable. If a person chooses the car key and the master key, I assume Drew is told to start with the master key? I can't remember any recent playing where the player got the car key and the master key, but I assume that is what would happen? Otherwise it plays out exactly as you described.
It's only happened once in the last ten years (and was unsurpisingly done by a Golden-Road regular who knew where the producers would hide the car and master key). Drew gave him the car key first.
There are several playings from the first three Drew seasons where both keys were won and the Master Key was used first, so obviously we don't know what the other key was, but I don't think those would be representative of anything in the present anyways.
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Without going into specifics, Bob/Drew had/has a way of knowing where the car and master keys are before walking to the locks, although the specific method is different for each host.
It's up to the host to decide which key the contestant should try first, and because it's so rare for a contestant to find both the car and the master keys, it isn't surprising that in the heat of the moment, he wouldn't remember to do the nonintuitive thing and have the contestant use the master key first. I'd be willing to bet that there's at least one episode out there where Bob did that, too.
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I checked the records I saved from seasons 35 through 40. During that span, a contestant found both the car and master keys twice: in the episodes that aired November 2, 2006, and November 4, 2009. Cross-referencing those dates against online recaps, the master key was placed in the locks first in the 2006 playing while the car key was placed in the locks first in the 2009 playing.
I'm sure the situation had come up many times in the years prior to that, but I don't have those statistics.
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I remember Super Ball being pitched by Marc Breslow during a game meeting in January, 1980. Breslow wanted a game with a prize behind each door. There was some trepidation about having a stage game with prizes more valuable than the showcases.
Breslow didn't have a mockup of the game but simply described it. He made reference to Skee Ball as played at Santa Monica pier.
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Interesting to note: Marc Breslow still had his on-screen "Creative Consultant" credit in fall 1997, but by the 5,000th show the next April, his name was gone (while Ted Cooper remained). The last playing of Super Ball!! was in January '98.
-Jason
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Without going into specifics, Bob/Drew had/has a way of knowing where the car and master keys are before walking to the locks, although the specific method is different for each host.
So the keys are actually functioning keys? I always assumed the keys were just the equivalent of "pick a number", and someone just pushed a button backstage to do the reveal.
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Without going into specifics, Bob/Drew had/has a way of knowing where the car and master keys are before walking to the locks, although the specific method is different for each host.
So the keys are actually functioning keys? I always assumed the keys were just the equivalent of "pick a number", and someone just pushed a button backstage to do the reveal.
I'm sure I've heard somewhere (possibly multiple places) that there are magnets in the keys which do/don't trigger the locks opening? And if that's not the case I'd love to hear how they work.
Ryan
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Without going into specifics, Bob/Drew had/has a way of knowing where the car and master keys are before walking to the locks, although the specific method is different for each host.
So the keys are actually functioning keys? I always assumed the keys were just the equivalent of "pick a number", and someone just pushed a button backstage to do the reveal.
I'm sure I've heard somewhere (possibly multiple places) that there are magnets in the keys which do/don't trigger the locks opening? And if that's not the case I'd love to hear how they work.
Ryan
Correct. One magnet in each of the "single prize" keys (on the old keys, these magnets would've been located at the front end of the key, where the "teeth" of a real key would've been; not sure if the current keys work the same way). The master key had magnets in all three "teeth", and the dud key had no magnets whatsoever. When placing the key into the lock and turning it, the two magnets (one in the key, one in the lock itself) connecting would be what triggered the "WIN!" sign popping up.
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(and was unsurpisingly done by a Golden-Road regular who knew where the producers would hide the car and master key)
Huh?
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(and was unsurpisingly done by a Golden-Road regular who knew where the producers would hide the car and master key)
Huh?
I'm guessing someone who studies the game enough to notice a pattern of where they put each key.
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I'm guessing someone who studies the game enough to notice a pattern of where they put each key.
I don't know exactly what happened on the show in question, but for a long time, there was a pretty reliable rule that the second and fourth keys were, in no particular order, one of the first two prizes and the key that didn't open anything. As long as you were able to win both items, it worked well enough that you could pretty much guarantee yourself the car.
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I'm guessing someone who studies the game enough to notice a pattern of where they put each key.
I don't know exactly what happened on the show in question, but for a long time, there was a pretty reliable rule that the second and fourth keys were, in no particular order, one of the first two prizes and the key that didn't open anything. As long as you were able to win both items, it worked well enough that you could pretty much guarantee yourself the car.
I mean, that would have to just be dumb luck, right? Wouldn't S&P require the keys to be randomly placed before each playing?
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I mean, that would have to just be dumb luck, right? Wouldn't S&P require the keys to be randomly placed before each playing?
I don't see why -- the show has never claimed it was random. It's no different than deciding where the ball starts in Shell Game or where the $25,000 is in Punch a Bunch.
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Because I know someone knows...:)
On "classic" TPiR, after pricing game 4, is the shot of the audience and the announcer intoning "Stay tuned for more pricing games and the the fabulous showcases coming up on the second half of 'The Price is Right'". Nowadays, Drew just mentions it in passing. When did they do away with that?
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2003 or so. I remember asking the same thing a few years ago.
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2003 or so. I remember asking the same thing a few years ago.
I thought that when Drew took over, they started doing it again?
I know the practice did stop when Rod Roddy was still alive.
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(and was unsurpisingly done by a Golden-Road regular who knew where the producers would hide the car and master key)
Huh?
It's another one of those psychological tricks that producers can use to influence whether a game is won or lost. Humans, when presented with a set of five otherwise-identical options (keys in this case), will pick one of the middle options far more often than the outside two. Checking the TPiR stats page, over the last 20 years, contestants have selected key #1 only 11% of the time and key #5 16% of the time.
The producers know this, and in order to save on the budget, often put the car and master key in those positions to "hide" them. Out of the 21 times Key #1 was selected (and used), it unlocked the car lock **17** of them. Likewise, Key #5 won the car 20 of the 32 times it was selected.
So, obviously, if a contestant were actually to get on The Price is Right and play Master Key, it would be very much in their interest to take key #1 (and #5 to a lesser extent), but who outside of this little corner of game show fandom would even think to look for a pattern there?
TL;DR: If the keys were assigned randomly, each one would win the car 40% of the time, but they're not, and Key #1 wins the car over 80% of the time, though nobody outside of g-r would realize it
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I thought that when Drew took over, they started doing it again?
I know the practice did stop when Rod Roddy was still alive.
November 2005. Bob -- and later Drew -- throws it to break with "more pricing games coming up on the second half of The Price Is Right!"
-Jason
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TL;DR: If the keys were assigned randomly, each one would win the car 40% of the time, but they're not, and Key #1 wins the car over 80% of the time, though nobody outside of g-r would realize it
Right. I'm just completely baffled that S&P lets that stand when it's so easy to rent a monkey to pull pool balls out of a bag.
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Right. I'm just completely baffled that S&P lets that stand when it's so easy to rent a monkey to pull pool balls out of a bag.
Because, again, they've never claimed the keys are placed randomly. Much like how in the early days of Millionaire the 50:50 would be preprogrammed to keep the wrong answer that the producers thought would be most likely to be the one a contestant would be considering.
(If there's anything that baffles me as to how S&P is fine with it, it's how Family Feud prevents 3-round wins by changing the double round question based on the scores after the single questions.)
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Because, again, they've never claimed the keys are placed randomly.
That's a fair point.
(If there's anything that baffles me as to how S&P is fine with it, it's how Family Feud prevents 3-round wins by changing the double round question based on the scores after the single questions.)
That's no different than the Idiot Stack that Tomarken would go to on PYL if there weren't enough spins handed out to be interesting.
So, yeah, point well taken.
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That's no different than the Idiot Stack that Tomarken would go to on PYL if there weren't enough spins handed out to be interesting.
I suppose that's a fair point too. :)
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Without going into specifics, Bob/Drew had/has a way of knowing where the car and master keys are before walking to the locks, although the specific method is different for each host.
It's up to the host to decide which key the contestant should try first, and because it's so rare for a contestant to find both the car and the master keys, it isn't surprising that in the heat of the moment, he wouldn't remember to do the nonintuitive thing and have the contestant use the master key first. I'd be willing to bet that there's at least one episode out there where Bob did that, too.
I wonder if the "which key to try first" question boiled down to how the show was on time by that point. If the show was running long, go right to the master key and catch up by a minute or two....Need to stretch? Save the master key for last and milk the suspense for as long as you need to.
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Elaborating a bit on Price's mid-show bumper: It was cut because the show, not for the first time, lost 30 seconds of program time to ads, and they were getting close to the point where they thought it might start screwing up the format if they didn't find some unimportant stuff to make shorter. Off the top of my head, around the same time, they also cut about half length of the music on the closed-captioning plugs, stopped doing the ticket plug on Tuesdays and Thursdays, changed Safe Crackers to start with Door #2 already open, and stopped writing full-length copy for non-sponsored groceries.
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Elaborating a bit on Price's mid-show bumper: It was cut because the show, not for the first time, lost 30 seconds of program time to ads, and they were getting close to the point where they thought it might start screwing up the format if they didn't find some unimportant stuff to make shorter.
Not just the when, but the WHY, from someone that I know would know. Another mystery solved. Thank you!!
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TL;DR: If the keys were assigned randomly, each one would win the car 40% of the time, but they're not, and Key #1 wins the car over 80% of the time, though nobody outside of g-r would realize it
Right. I'm just completely baffled that S&P lets that stand when it's so easy to rent a monkey to pull pool balls out of a bag.
The one that surprises me is that they're allowed to present the stack of range cards in Card Game with the $5,000 card on the bottom (or is it top? I don't remember) almost every time. You could argue that someone presented with a stack of cards has a reasonable expectation that said stack has been shuffled, but they're clearly hiding the $5,000 card where contestants would never draw it.
In the 201 playings of Card Game with the current range deck (which is only seven cards), the $5,000 card has been drawn a total of 13 times (as opposed to the 29 you'd expect by random chance).
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I thought J! runners-up stopped getting physical consolation prizes sometime in the late-90s. According to Wikipedia, the show didn't start giving away $1,000 and $2,000 until May of 2002.
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I thought the range for a Double Showcase Win wasn't changed from "less than $100 away" to "$250 or less away" happened somewhere around the time that the turntable changed from the purple/red/orange to the Hollywood mural design. Turns out the change happened four years earlier, on the first show of the '98-'99 season.
Likewise, I thought the Contestant's Row perfect bid bonus had changed to $500 earlier than it did. That change also occurred, per Steve's timeline, in November of '98.
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I thought J! runners-up stopped getting physical consolation prizes sometime in the late-90s. According to Wikipedia, the show didn't start giving away $1,000 and $2,000 until May of 2002.
“Physical consolation prizes” made me titter.
When did Barker stop inviting female contestants to reach in his pocket for the perfect-bid reward?
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I thought J! runners-up stopped getting physical consolation prizes sometime in the late-90s. According to Wikipedia, the show didn't start giving away $1,000 and $2,000 until May of 2002.
Just for fun, I wanted to see what the last set of consolation prizes were. As it turns out, the 2001-2002 season started with a regular pattern of trips for 2nd place and merchandise prizes for 3rd place (like a camera package, golf clubs, etc.). But shortly thereafter, trips started to go to 3rd place as well, with the last week of consolation prizes awarding a nice big trip to both 2nd and 3rd place contestants.
It all left me to wonder if they wanted to make the change much sooner, but could only do so after they burnt through all the agreed-to placements for trips.
-Jason
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When did Barker stop inviting female contestants to reach in his pocket for the perfect-bid reward?
I don't have an exact date, but as an aside, on Kennedy's version, he just handed it to them.
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When did Barker stop inviting female contestants to reach in his pocket for the perfect-bid reward?
I don't have an exact date, but as an aside, on Kennedy's version, he just handed it to them.
IIRC, it stopped happening around the time of the Dian fiasco. This was also around the time Bump was retired as well.
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I thought the range for a Double Showcase Win wasn't changed from "less than $100 away" to "$250 or less away" happened somewhere around the time that the turntable changed from the purple/red/orange to the Hollywood mural design. Turns out the change happened four years earlier, on the first show of the '98-'99 season.
Interesting. I would have guessed that happening way earlier than 1998.
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Interesting. I would have guessed that happening way earlier than 1998.
IIRC, the show had a season with zero DSWs, and the change was made subsequent to that.
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Just for fun, I wanted to see what the last set of consolation prizes were. As it turns out, the 2001-2002 season started with a regular pattern of trips for 2nd place and merchandise prizes for 3rd place (like a camera package, golf clubs, etc.). But shortly thereafter, trips started to go to 3rd place as well, with the last week of consolation prizes awarding a nice big trip to both 2nd and 3rd place contestants.
It all left me to wonder if they wanted to make the change much sooner, but could only do so after they burnt through all the agreed-to placements for trips.
Does anybody remember when Jeopardy! changed the rule so that the departing and returning flights for their consolation prize trips could only be from Los Angeles?
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I thought the Contestant's Row perfect bid bonus had changed to $500 earlier than it did. That change also occurred, per Steve's timeline, in November of '98.
It should be noted that the Kennedy version upped it to $500 pretty early on.
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I thought the Contestant's Row perfect bid bonus had changed to $500 earlier than it did. That change also occurred, per Steve's timeline, in November of '98.
It should be noted that the Kennedy version upped it to $500 pretty early on.
It should be noted that the Kennedy version lasted all of ten months and it's pretty clear I'm talking about the daytime show.
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Does anybody remember when Jeopardy! changed the rule so that the departing and returning flights for their consolation prize trips could only be from Los Angeles?
Wow, that seems like a recipe for players to decline their prizes. (Which might be exactly what they had in mind.)
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Here's one that I've yet to see be mentioned, the act of having a hard cap on winnings where a contestant is "retired" and overages are either donated to charity or kept by the contestant.
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I thought only Barry & Enright did that as their way of complying with CBS's prize limits. Jack Barry took quite a lot of time to explain that when Joe Dunn retired on Joker's Wild. If any other producers did that, they didn't make nearly the big deal of it that Jack did.
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I thought only Barry & Enright did that as their way of complying with CBS's prize limits. Jack Barry took quite a lot of time to explain that when Joe Dunn retired on Joker's Wild. If any other producers did that, they didn't make nearly the big deal of it that Jack did.
Could've sworn Jeopardy! did that in the 80s (and it supposedly hit Frank Spangenberg hard when he won $102K in 1990).
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I thought only Barry & Enright did that as their way of complying with CBS's prize limits. Jack Barry took quite a lot of time to explain that when Joe Dunn retired on Joker's Wild. If any other producers did that, they didn't make nearly the big deal of it that Jack did.
Could've sworn Jeopardy! did that in the 80s (and it supposedly hit Frank Spangenberg hard when he won $102K in 1990).
This did occur, I believe it only affected Frank and Bob Blake? This applied to the few Wheel of Fortune contestants as well who won over $100,000 (later $125,000) over three days.
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Here's a practice that I did not know existed on the Tomarken PYL:
Until I saw a recently aired rerun on Buzzr, I did not know that in addition to the winnings caps of $25,000 (then later $50,000), there was also a 5-day appearance limit at play as well.
I don't ever remember seeing anyone being "retired" after 5 wins who didn't surpass the $25/$50K mark.
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I thought only Barry & Enright did that as their way of complying with CBS's prize limits. Jack Barry took quite a lot of time to explain that when Joe Dunn retired on Joker's Wild. If any other producers did that, they didn't make nearly the big deal of it that Jack did.
Pretty sure the "hard cap" was used on CBS Gambit as well; I vaguely remember Wink informing contestants that approached it that they had to give back cash/prizes if they exceeded it.
Besides TJW and Gambit, how many CBS shows had anybody come close to $25,000 before they let them keep the excess? TPIR didn't have this problem. Nobody on Match Game got to $25,000 until, what, 1979? $10,000 Pyramid and Now You See It both had "win the bonus round and retire" rules.
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One contestant on Match Game '75 got above $20,000, meaning her $5,000 Head-to-Head questions started to be worth whatever the difference between her total and $25,000 was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TchJ2WvGr4
-Jason
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On The Price is Right, the rule informing contestants to “bid in dollars only” is considered ancient at this point. I thought it was done away with at the start of the 90s, but I was surprised to find an episode from 1996 with Bob still letting contestants know to do precisely that.
The Inquisitive One
I wouldn't be surprised if they have to do this every time a new contestants arrives in contestants row nowadays. The FEW episodes I've seen of Drew's and last years of Bob, it seemed like they had to explain the rules of every game like it was the first time played. Just like the contestants who "watch the show every day" but never seen Clock Game before.
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I thought only Barry & Enright did that as their way of complying with CBS's prize limits. Jack Barry took quite a lot of time to explain that when Joe Dunn retired on Joker's Wild. If any other producers did that, they didn't make nearly the big deal of it that Jack did.
Could've sworn Jeopardy! did that in the 80s (and it supposedly hit Frank Spangenberg hard when he won $102K in 1990).
Officer Frank was less than a thousand bucks away from Chuck Forrest's total after four days. I think he had to know that the charity angle was a certainty if he won. Also he seemed rather happy to give the money to the hospice so I wouldn't say it "bit him".
On his fifth day Frank's FJ bet of $10,100 would have allowed for a co-champion if he were wrong and second doubled and was right. He also would have missed Bob Blake's total by just a teensy bit.