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.

[knagl]

It's interesting how many times Rosie O'Donnell has come up in this thread, and she was the first person that came to mind for me for yet another example.

Rosie was a big fan of Regis' Millionaire, and at one point made a public plea to be someone's "phone a friend". In the year 2000, that wish became a reality when contestant Jerry Halpin chose Rosie to be his lifeline for the $32,000 question. After providing her guess at the answer, Rosie said she'd pay the contestant if her answer was wrong. Here's a clip of it on YouTube for anyone interested.

[BrandonFG]

During the initial summer ‘99 run, when two of the players lost on the first five questions she had them on her show. I believe she gave one or both of them a Honda Civic.

[Loogaroo]

Hell, Rosie interjected on an episode of Thicketionary when her team was way ahead and the other team was struggling, first asking "can I help?" and then just outright giving the other team the answer when they were playing.

I'd be shooting daggers at Rosie if she did that as my teammate.

[Adam Nedeff]

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.

Without revealing too much...

I worked on a show that involved a timed round. The host made a mistake that required a stopdown and broke the momentum a little bit. The game ended up being close, and the feeling was that it played out fairly. The host, however, personally felt that their mistake had caused the game to swing in a certain direction. The host walked up to the S&P person and asked, "Can I take the losers to a restaurant and treat them to dinner? I feel really bad about this."

The S&P person replied, "Once the game has been played to completion, we can't tell you to do anything." So the losers got a free dinner that night.

So yes, theoretically, Howard could give them $10,000.

[carlisle96]

I worked on a show that involved a timed round. The host made a mistake that required a stopdown and broke the momentum a little bit. The game ended up being close, and the feeling was that it played out fairly. The host, however, personally felt that their mistake had caused the game to swing in a certain direction. The host walked up to the S&P person and asked, "Can I take the losers to a restaurant and treat them to dinner? I feel really bad about this."

The S&P person replied, "Once the game has been played to completion, we can't tell you to do anything." So the losers got a free dinner that night.

So yes, theoretically, Howard could give them $10,000.
[/quote]

I figured something like that...after all, who's going to know?

[JasonA1]

Carlisle96, I hate to have the appearance like I made an example out of somebody, but can you fix how the quote is formatted in your last post please? I can delete this communication once you do -- private messages around here aren't exactly a priority for people, so I didn't use that route to tell you. But I can help you understand how the quote function works if you can't get it yourself.

-Jason