Pyramid celebrity foul-ups

[carlisle96]

Here's what I admit is a strange question. It was something my son asked me. We were watching a $25,000 Pyramid and an actor named Howard Morton (who I never heard of, but anyway....) was disqualified for giving part of the subject in his list, costing the contestant $10,000. My son said he should give her the money because he screwed up, not her. Would they be breaking some kind of FCC quiz show regulation or written game show rules if he had put a check in the mail for $10,000 and apologizing for his mistake, or sent her some kind of gift? As I say, I know it's a bizarre question, but I also can't help but thinking about William Shatner throwing the chair and not able to forgive himself for his legendary screw-up.

[Long live Jeopardy]

This reminds me of when Rosie O'Donnell did a week of Bergeron Squares sometime around February 2000 when two contestants picked her for the bonus round and they lost the prize they were playing for; she invited both of them to come on the talk show she had at that time, and she ended up giving them free trips somewhere (not sure where).

[Kevin Prather]

Would they be breaking some kind of FCC quiz show regulation or written game show rules if he had put a check in the mail for $10,000 and apologizing for his mistake, or sent her some kind of gift?

Rosie O'Donnell did exactly this on Match Game when she failed to match the player in the head-to-head. She only did it once though as far as I remember, so she may have been told to knock it off.

Whether or not it's legal, there's also the fact that it's undermining the game, something the producers probably won't tolerate, and something that would likely get a celebrity uninvited in the future.

[mmb5]

Smartest thing Strahanamid does is forcing the contestant to do the heavy lifting, takes that problem away.

I do recall an episode of Donnymid where Colin Mochrie gave three illegal clues.

[whewfan]

This reminds me of when Rosie O'Donnell did a week of Bergeron Squares sometime around February 2000 when two contestants picked her for the bonus round and they lost the prize they were playing for; she invited both of them to come on the talk show she had at that time, and she ended up giving them free trips somewhere (not sure where).

Was this during the bonus game format that was implemented around the show's 4th year, which many thought was a terrible bonus game? When picked on the show, Rosie did bend the rules by making it fairly obvious when she was guessing, making it easy for the contestant to disagree with her and have an easy advantage. I think the same would apply to when a question was added to the first bonus game.

[Long live Jeopardy]

^No, this was still during the "pick a star and answer one main game-type question correctly to win" bonus game.

[BillCullen1]

Smartest thing Strahanamid does is forcing the contestant to do the heavy lifting, takes that problem away.

There was one time on Strahan Pyramid where a celeb gave the clues in the WC. The celeb was Rosie O'Donnell. The contestant did not win the big money.