The Most Underrated Game Show Sound Effect

[TimK2003]

Many game- and non-game show fans can identify certain game show sfx and apply them to their daily lives.

The TPIR losing horns is a great example, as is the CLANG for the FF reveals.

One sound effect that I don't think ever got it's full respect is the $xxx,xxx Pyramid clock.  That original cue has been used consistently.for over 50 years in the Pyramid incarnations, or used on other Bob Stewart shows.

That cue was so good, other producers had tried to imitate it in their shows.  The last $OTC end game as well as the Every Second Counts end game countdown clocks are examples of the "oftern imitated, never duplicated" category.  I think the Stewart family owned their countdown clock cue outright and never let anyone else use it.

Hence why I nominate it as the most underrated sound effect in game show history.

[BillCullen1]

My nominee for this is the "cuckoo" from Pyramid.

[chrisholland03]

The Hot Potato 'pass' sound

[parliboy]

Hence why I nominate it as the most underrated sound effect in game show history.

A sound effect that is so synonymous with a product that it's still being used over 50 years later and had other people copying it has a hard sell with me on being underrated.

[Brian44]

The BING when a contestant passed spins on PYL.

[TLEberle]

How would you even quantify underrated?

[BrandonFG]

The “only one letter left” sound from Scrabble. Honestly a lotta SFX from that show qualify. The Speedword sound effect comes to mind. Anything that sounds like it came from a synthesizer or Casio keyboard fascinates me…the X/O sound from Davidson’s Hollywood Squares also comes to mind.

The TPiR fail horn is too mainstream to be considered “underrated” IMO. That one is well-known even amongst non-diehards. The abridged Card Sharks (Perry) BUST horns on the other hand is somehow underrated for me. I think a lot of it is because I have to listen hard to realize it’s the same horn minus the first two notes.

I second the Pyramid cuckoo.

[Joe Mello]

Hence why I nominate it as the most underrated sound effect in game show history.

A sound effect that is so synonymous with a product that it's still being used over 50 years later and had other people copying it has a hard sell with me on being underrated.

I assume the argument is that, given the level of notoriety within the industry, the Pyramid tick should be as prominent in the public consciousness as the "Fail Horns" or "The Jeopardy Song" or any number of dings, buzzes, or womp womps.

[jcs290]

I think it’s a sound effect? The pla-dunk sound of someone inserting a scrabble tile into the slot on Scrabble. It’s subtle, but always made me think as a kid that something mechanical was happening under the desk to catch and sort the tiles for the next game.

All the sound effects on that show were unique and amazing, but mostly forgotten outside of diehard fan circles.

[That Don Guy]

Two from Celebrity Sweepstakes come to mind: the "scratch horn" when a question was scratched, which they didn't need in the final episodes as the contestants no longer wrote down their answers except in the Homestretch and All Or Nothing rounds, where scratches were edited out and replayed, and the "dinner bell" for when only one celebrity got a Homestretch question right (and the odds automatically doubled).

[Nick]

The "vowels only remaining" chirps from Wheel, as the rarity of their sounding these days typifies how the game has shifted from trying to spin and call every consonant possible in order to earn the cash to win prizes, to being able to win the game without much spinning at all thanks to there being no such concept as "score money" in the game with numerous Toss-Ups and bonuses tacked onto just solving puzzles.

[BrandonFG]

Another one: I love the reverberating sound made when someone freezes a window in Bullseye. Would love to know how composers and sound editors came up with some of the SFX.