"Monopoly"

[Neumms]

As I type, I'm sampling a bowl of General Mills' new Monopoly cereal, which if it had Mike Reilly's picture on it rather than Rich Uncle Pennybags' would qualify--I assume--as the first game show to break into the sweetened breakfast food market. Which makes me think of a couple of questions.

How was the pilot different from the game that ran? I mean, besides Peter Tomarken and the midget? (What exactly did he do, by the way?)

Was it ever considered as an hour-long show?

And does anyone remember the week they called the \"yellow\" player the \"gold\" player instead, which happened to coincide with said player being an Asian-American man? Did they revert back to yellow player the next week, or stick with gold? (Or was it the last show?)

I'm a big fan of the board game, and liked the TV version, warts and all. I even thought Reilly did a pretty good job, especially considering his inexperience.

Thank you heaps.

[J.R.]

Having acquire two eps. of Monopoly, I can answer some of these.

The Yellow-shaded area was always refered to as \"Gold\". I guess it sounded cooler.

All 12 shows were 30-min. though, IMO, they should of been a hour-long affair, the format was WAAAAAY too busy to squeeze-into a half-hour, this resulted in Rielly becoming nothing more than a motormouthed robot, he had no choice

I've always felt that if Monopoly was a hour-long from the begining, then Merv would of had a trifecta of hits.
-Joe R.

[zachhoran]

13 tapes of MOnopoly were TAPED, but ABC preempted the 13th episode, which would have aired 9/8/90 after the Super J! championship finale. They decided to show either an AMerica's Funniest People or Home Videos special(I think People)

[PeterMarshallFan]

FYI, the midget was used in the pilot as a \"game piece\" of sorts and to mark the players' position on the board.

[HSquares2003]

Maybe GSN should try something like Monopoly again instead of this \"Game Sauce\" crap that is gonna infest the airwaves in the fall

[PeterMarshallFan]

[quote name=\'HSquares2003\' date=\'Jul 16 2003, 09:59 AM\'] Maybe GSN should try something like Monopoly again instead of this "Game Sauce" crap that is gonna infest the airwaves in the fall [/quote]
 Won't happen. Cronin's made his decision, now (hopefully) he'll pay for it in ratings.

[zachhoran]

They have recently done a second pilot for the \"Scrabble Challenge\" game they shelved this past Spring. It will resemble the board game more than the 80s NBC show did.

[GS Warehouse]

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Jul 16 2003, 07:20 AM\'] 13 tapes of MOnopoly were TAPED, but ABC preempted the 13th episode, which would have aired 9/8/90 after the Super J! championship finale. They decided to show either an AMerica's Funniest People or Home Videos special(I think People) [/quote]
Having seen all 13 eps of SJ! and all 12 of Monopoly, I can tell you that Sept. 8, 1990 was the premiere of America's Funniest People, an AFV spinoff starring Dave Coulier and Arlene Sorkin (Days of Our Lives).

ObGameShow: Dave Coulier was not only a frequent panelist on TTTT2K, he was also once an imposter.

Yes, Monopoly would have worked better as a one-hour show.  The thing is, back in 1990, sixty-minute game shows (not counting one certain show based on guessing how much things cost, of course) was unprecedented.  [shameless self-promotion]Check the revival page on my site to see it done right.[/ssp]