The Game Show Forum > The Big Board
Alternate realities when it comes to game shows
chris319:
--- Quote ---On a Roll was WOF using dice instead of a wheel.
--- End quote ---
"On a Roll" was an amalgam of Number Please and High Rollers.
Ian Wallis:
--- Quote from: chrisholland03 on June 21, 2023, 10:57:27 AM ---
In an alternate reality:
Match Game and Tattletales remain at 3:30pm/4:00pm and run through 1982 when they're finally cancelled. There is no Tattletales v2, and no syndicated Match Game.
Hollywood Squares remains at 11:30am and runs through 1982 when it's finally cancelled. There is no syndicated Hollywood Squares
MG/HS hour still happens a few months later because NBC.
--- End quote ---
That's in interesting one. From what I've read over the years, it's widely believed Match Game's ratings started to fall quite swiftly after its ill-fated move to 11AM and the quick move back to afternoons couldn't stop the decline.
I've posted on here before that Match Game looked a bit tired to me by '78, but if it had stayed in the 3:30 time slot (rather than 4, which a lot of affiliates wouldn't clear live) how much longer could it have run? Most affiliates probably would have stayed with it which probably would have helped a great deal in the ratings. Early '80s sounds about right...and maybe Gene wouldn't have been so bitter about it.
chris319:
A glaring fault with On a Roll is the penalty for rolling a double. There is no knife edge to it. Sooner or later a double is going to come up. On a Roll offers the player no opportunity to make a strategic decision as to whether or not to roll.
Compare this to Card Sharks. The player makes a strategic decision when he calls higher/lower. This is amplified in the end game when the player makes his bet.
I came up with an idea a long time ago where a player would make a strategic decision which could result in a win or a loss. This gave it a "knife edge" as Frank Wayne used to call it.
JasonA1:
--- Quote from: chris319 on June 21, 2023, 04:08:44 PM ---A glaring fault with On a Roll is the penalty for rolling a double. There is no knife edge to it. Sooner or later a double is going to come up. On a Roll offers the player no opportunity to make a strategic decision as to whether or not to roll.
--- End quote ---
It may not have come up in the pilot you watched, but in at least one of them, David would bring up the option to pass the dice, but only after numbers became impossible to knock off. (If you rolled a 5 and a 6, and there was no 11 or 5 on the board, you got the 6, and the 5 was wasted.) It isn't the great tense decision offered by better game shows, but On a Roll wasn't one of the better game shows.
-Jason
chris319:
Were On A Roll, TKO and Star Words all commissioned by CBS?
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