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Author Topic: Host mistakes (edit or not?)  (Read 4937 times)

Casey

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Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« on: June 05, 2020, 11:07:35 AM »
I’ve been watching a lot of Scrabble lately and then watched some episodes of Password Plus over the weekend and this kind of got me thinking...

Is it up to the host if their mistakes are edited from the program?  From casual observation, it seemed like Allen Ludden’s mistakes (blown puzzles, etc) were never shown, but Tom Kennedy’s were left in, and Bert Convy always had his mistakes left in.  Ditto for Chuck Woolery on Scrabble - any of the clumsy things he said were just left in and laughed about.  I would throw in Gene Rayburn as well, but any of his mistakes just felt like part of the overall zaniness of the show, so it makes sense to leave them in.

MOD: I posted this in the wrong forum - Can this be moved to The Big Board?  It won’t let me delete this post.  Sorry!

PYLdude

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2020, 04:26:39 PM »
One thing I notice with Tom Kennedy is that he's so smooth with what he has (doesn't really matter the show) that in the rare instance he does mess up, even he gets a laugh out of it.

That's why I don't think the famous Dick Martin clue incident is as overhyped as so many think. The humor is in seeing that a polished professional gets caught off guard by something in a humorous manner and no matter how much he tries to hold it together it's just not happening. So he just gives into it.
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Ian Wallis

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2020, 05:17:26 PM »
I watched an interview with Chuck Woolery once (I think this was in the Wheel days) where he said if he made a mistake, he wanted it left in the tape.
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Kevin Prather

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2020, 11:57:49 PM »
One thing I notice with Tom Kennedy is that he's so smooth with what he has (doesn't really matter the show) that in the rare instance he does mess up, even he gets a laugh out of it.

That's why I don't think the famous Dick Martin clue incident is as overhyped as so many think. The humor is in seeing that a polished professional gets caught off guard by something in a humorous manner and no matter how much he tries to hold it together it's just not happening. So he just gives into it.

The thing I'll never understand about that incident was the desperate need for a pickup. Why not just let it play?

knagl

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2020, 11:52:04 AM »
The thing I'll never understand about that incident was the desperate need for a pickup. Why not just let it play?

I haven't watched the clip in a while, but based on memory, wasn't there a significant delay in them deciding that "France" was an unacceptable clue for the word "French", and presumably they just wanted to clean that up?

Kevin Prather

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2020, 12:20:24 PM »
I haven't watched the clip in a while, but based on memory, wasn't there a significant delay in them deciding that "France" was an unacceptable clue for the word "French", and presumably they just wanted to clean that up?

You remember the delay correctly, but they never tried to redo that part in the pick up.

Unrealtor

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2020, 08:07:07 PM »
I haven't watched the clip in a while, but based on memory, wasn't there a significant delay in them deciding that "France" was an unacceptable clue for the word "French", and presumably they just wanted to clean that up?

Tom kept trying to pick up from the start of the explanation that it was an illegal clue, because he got some prompting from off camera that it had been ruled illegal. I assume that, since Dick Martin's partner said "French" and was dinged correct before the illegal clue SFX sounded, the delay would have had to have been left in.
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Loogaroo

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #7 on: June 09, 2020, 08:53:22 PM »
It might also have something to do with the fact that if you air a puzzle that gets inadvertently blown by the host, that's one less puzzle's worth coming out of the show's budget that week. I'm sure they'd let Bert blab the answer to every puzzle if they thought the viewers wouldn't notice, because when your show has a fixed average payout of $7000, the only way you can save money is by slowing the game down.
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Joe Mello

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #8 on: June 09, 2020, 09:02:41 PM »
That's why I don't think the famous Dick Martin clue incident is as overhyped as so many think. The humor is in seeing that a polished professional gets caught off guard by something in a humorous manner and no matter how much he tries to hold it together it's just not happening.
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whewfan

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #9 on: June 10, 2020, 08:25:35 AM »
Allen blew puzzle solutions, but was apparently not very smooth about it, so they felt it was better to edit it out. So, I guess, it's a matter of, if the host comes off more flustered and it impacts the game, you want to make the host look good despite the mistakes. Louie Anderson apparently made many mistakes hosting Feud, and they were always edited out, because he couldn't find a smooth way out of his mistakes. Tom Kennedy's classic "French" incident was an instance where an illegal clue mishap, paired with Tom not knowing how to handle the mishap, only got funnier and funnier, thanks to Dick Martin. Tom kept trying to start over because he was assuming that none of this was going to be seen and tried to regroup, but each time it just seemed more hopeless, but of course they did manage to get back to the game, only for it to briefly derail again when Dick gave ANOTHER illegal clue for LOST.  It was a good call to leave in the whole thing, because then the audience wouldn't understand why they are still unglued with laughter when they're having difficulty with the other passwords in the puzzle.

TimK2003

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #10 on: June 10, 2020, 09:47:02 AM »
I seem to recall many of the Barry/Enright shows also let things roll when you'd have Judge von Erik or someone on the PA jump in with a correction or decision.



Otm Shank

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #11 on: June 13, 2020, 04:18:11 PM »
Specifically with the "French" incident, I think they wanted to do a pickup because there were too many compounding errors. After the nuh-uh-nuh-uh sound, Tom was first going to wipe the puzzle, not just that password. Even in the "unedited" version that aired, there is a noticeable edit. Probably a good deal of offstage voices that could not be heard clearly, so Tom just went into pickup mode.

JMFabiano

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #12 on: June 13, 2020, 05:01:05 PM »
OT but not...MrMatchGame made an edit of what the France/French scene would be like if edited for broadcast...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-OnGOWM5ZRo
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MikeK

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #13 on: June 13, 2020, 11:29:06 PM »
So he took the first 30 seconds of the clip and combined it with the last 30 seconds.  Yay?

whewfan

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Re: Host mistakes (edit or not?)
« Reply #14 on: June 14, 2020, 12:11:02 PM »
Specifically with the "French" incident, I think they wanted to do a pickup because there were too many compounding errors. After the nuh-uh-nuh-uh sound, Tom was first going to wipe the puzzle, not just that password. Even in the "unedited" version that aired, there is a noticeable edit. Probably a good deal of offstage voices that could not be heard clearly, so Tom just went into pickup mode.

There IS an unedited version on YouTube someplace (I'm too lazy right now to find it) and there were a couple of edits done... you can hear one of the producer's voices at a couple points, and extra pacing around the set from Tom.