Tic Tac Dough's randomization limitations

[MSTieScott]

When Chelsea posted the link to the entirety of Thom McKee's run, I decided to embark on a little project: How random was the Tic Tac Dough bonus round?

As it turns out, not very random (but random enough that it probably wasn't worth memorizing patterns in order to win moderately desirable merchandise). Whether this was the result of the computer being programmed with predetermined patterns or simply the fact that the "random" function in early computer languages wasn't particularly random, I don't know.

During the 46 episodes that Thom appeared in, a contestant faced the dragon 45 times. Across all those bonus rounds, there were only 14 different configurations that were seen, ranging in frequency during that 45–bonus round span from one to seven times. Once in a while, the same configuration would show up twice in a row (B-175 and B-177; C-011 and C-012; C-013 and C-014).

One interesting anomaly is that during the 45 bonus rounds, the dragon never appeared in box 7. Jenny accidentally discovered this when she began making a habit of always offering 7 as her first pick. We saw Thom find the dragon on his first pick a couple of times during his run, so we know it was possible to immediately hit the dragon -- it just plain wasn't in box 7.

Of the 14 different configurations seen, the dragon was in...
...box 1: 2 times
...box 2: 1 time
...box 3: 2 times
...box 4: 1 time
...box 5: 1 time
...box 6: 3 times
...box 7: 0 times
...box 8: 2 times
...box 9: 2 times

Of the 43 times Thom McKee faced the dragon, the dragon was in...
...box 1: 7 times
...box 2: 4 times
...box 3: 5 times
...box 4: 3 times
...box 5: 5 times
...box 6: 8 times
...box 7: 0 times
...box 8: 5 times
...box 9: 6 times

The category shuffling in the main game was also subject to technology limitations, but because of the effort involved in tracking those patterns (especially once Xs and Os started showing up), I didn't bother. I did note that in episodes B-168, B-172, B-184, B-185, and B-192, the very first shuffle of a round left all nine categories in the exact same place they started.

[Blanquepage]

A rare event, but Dragon in #7 did indeed happen on occasion.



(Example from B-087 for the super particulars  )

[wdm1219inpenna]

I was 13 back in 1980 when Thom went on his tremendous run.  Whenever a player chose box #6 I would immediately cringe because it seemed like the Dragon was under 6 a lot more often than other places.  This extensive breakdown proves 45 years later that I was right to cringe at that moment!

I wonder too about the placement of the other 8 though, like where TIC and TAC were in relation to the dragon.

Technically speaking of course, there should have been a total of 362,880 possible combinations on the bonus board, and to that end, the same number of potential combinations where the categories would have landed as well.

This was done by doing 9 times 8 times 7 times 6 times 5 times 4 times 3 times 2 times 1.

A second very odd Tic Tac Dough coincidence within the last 4 weeks of my life.  I was watching Kit Salisbury win his 20th match of Tic Tac Dough when Wink mentioned his terrible luck at the bonus game, and I hop onto this game show site only to find this as a topic!

Sadly the first and more eerie coincidence was I was listening to an old Wink Martindale interview at about 6:45pm on April 15th when I learned from another game show website that Wink had died!  I was in the mood to listen to Wink as I was eager to see the new version of Tic Tac Dough on GSN, never expecting to be blindsided by the news of his sudden passing.

That is at least the third time in my life where I was thinking about a certain celebrity only to discover later that very same day that they had passed away!  The other two were Mary Tyler Moore and Yvonne Craig.  Yvonne portrayed Barbara Gordon and Batgirl on the 1966 ABC series Batman.