Shows That Would Quickly End Mid-Game

[TimK2003]

Watching a few episodes of Talk About lately came up with this poser of a question:

What shows sometimes ended mid-game without any kind of warning?

This would NOT include shows where a commercial would separate game play from the closing act with a commercal.
I'm talking about shows that would play the game right up until they did a quick wrap up, "we're out of time, can you come back" & goodbye.

A few shows that on occasion went right from gameplay practically into the closing theme:

Talk About
Password Plus
Jokers Wild (ISTR it happening more on the original CBS version).

Others?

[Adam Nedeff]

During Jim Perry's run, Card Sharks had that kind of ending, and yeah, "abrupt" is apt. I can see the appeal because it keeps your audience there until the very, very end, but it gets you back into the groove of watching the game and suddenly "We're out of time, goodbye!" I think if I was producing I would have had Jim throw to the final commercial by saying "We'll play one more question after this!"

[jlgarfield]

WWtbaM?

[wdm1219inpenna]

Scrabble in 1984 - 85, before they went to the self-contained episodes.  A school bell sound would ring.

High Rollers, both Trebek and Martindale.

Gambit and Las Vegas Gambit.

[BrandonFG]

The H^2 era of “Hollywood Squares” did that. They played until that weird horn played.

It looks like early-“Feud” intended to straddle, when they only played to 200 points. There’s one episode where they introduce the next family right before the closing credits.

Not really a game show, but Chuck Woolery ended a few “Love Connection” episodes mid-interview and said they’d continue on the next episode (much to the audience’s chagrin).

[TimK2003]

Love Connection was a lot like the later syndicated years of Match Game where an episode during the week would usually end/straddle at a certain point in the show (which varied M-Th), but by Friday, the show would end at a natural break between contestants.  I don't know if LC was bicycled between stations in its earliest years, but it pretty much followed that rule of thumb, just like the 5 night/wk Match Game did just a few years prior.