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1975 NBC "Fun in the Morning" GS promo discovered!

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JasonA1:
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

SplitSecond:
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).

Neumms:
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?

clemon79:
[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.

JasonA1:
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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