Unspoken rules on game shows

[SamJ93]

Watching Supermarket Sweep when it first aired, I always wondered why contestants didn't just go to, say, the medicine aisle and toss 5 of every single product on the shelf into their cart. It wasn't until years later that I learned the show actually had a rule that they could only pick up one product at a time from a given section (which certainly does make for much better-looking TV).

Besides this, are there any other examples of shows with rules that the contestants must know, but are rarely or never mentioned to the viewers?

[TLEberle]

Y is treated as a consonant.

[JasonA1]

It wasn't until years later that I learned the show actually had a rule that they could only pick up one product at a time from a given section (which certainly does make for much better-looking TV).

Linking to this post about the Sweep rules in case people didn't see it -- you could grab different things within the same section (see: the meat aisle), but the broad advice could be summed up as "be careful, what makes the limit of 5 for a type of item is up to the producer."

-Jason

[Matt Ottinger]

Is the minimum Daily Double wager still $5?  That gets mentioned almost never.

[Ian Wallis]

Is the minimum Daily Double wager still $5?  That gets mentioned almost never.

I don't watch the show every day anymore but I'm pretty sure there was a case earlier this year where a $5 wager was made on a Daily Double.

[MSTieScott]

I was surprised, watching the '90s Supermarket Sweep on Buzzr, how the show sometimes went out of its way to NOT show the contestants making a mess. Johnny would occasionally remark that an item left on the floor would occur a penalty, but usually only when the contestant avoided the penalty by picking the item up. In contrast, I saw a couple of instances where the show would do an awkward cutaway in the middle of one contestant shopping to conceal the products they knocked over -- one time, an eagle-eyed viewer could see dog food scattered across the floor in the background.

Perhaps not in the spirit of the question initially posed at the beginning of this thread, but I'm genuinely curious: When was the last time Drew explained what the double showcase parameters are before the Showcase round began? Related question: When was the last time, upon a contestant winning both showcases, did Drew explain that they won both showcases because they were within $250?

More in the spirit of the question initially posed at the beginning of this thread: I wonder whether Family Feud viewers ever wonder why a Fast Money answer is never worth 1 point. I don't think that's been explained for literal decades.

[TimK2003]

Is the minimum Daily Double wager still $5?  That gets mentioned almost never.

I don't watch the show every day anymore but I'm pretty sure there was a case earlier this year where a $5 wager was made on a Daily Double.

Most shows (Including J!) that don't allow players to buzz in until after the question is fully read rarely mention that rule, if ever.  Honestly, I think the only reason why I knew about Jeopardy's early buzz-in delay penalty was from first person accounts who played the game.

Did Card Sharks require contestants to explain their predictions before giving their answer?  I don't think I ever heard a CS host tell a player flat out to come up with a one- or two-sentence answer before giving a number of a higher/lower answer...sometimes the hosts had them expound on their reasoning, but that was at the host's discretion.

[Kevin Prather]

I recall watching several episodes of Fifth Grader before I heard Jeff mention the rule that using your Peek help committed you to answering the question.