The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Twentington on November 01, 2009, 11:46:59 PM
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Just recently, I dug up a couple DVDs that I thought I'd lost. One of them had the debut episode of Break the Bank 1976. Watching it, I saw yet another solid entry in the B&E catalog with one of my favorite GS themes. I saw nine lower-than-HSq-level celebs playing a rather interesting and fairly original game. I saw some rather strong writing, both in the questions and the bluffs. It's a shame this didn't catch on; no doubt the similarity to HSq did it in, as did ABC's sudden pulling of the plug to expand the soap opera block. I heard Johnny Jacobs announce more dynamically than ever before. Basically, I saw a rather well-executed game that deserved much better.
Are there any fans of BtB'76, or am I on my own here?
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I'm with ya. I always thought it was a very unique and entertaining show. Wish more eps would pop up on YT. Do they still exist?
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I've only seen a couple of episodes on YouTube, being too young for its original run, and too cable-deprived in the '90s to have seen it on GSN. But what I've seen, I've certainly liked. There's no doubting the game's source material, but it's a well-done original twist with a great bit of strategy thrown in.
I know the syndie version offered a standard-issue B&E dumb-luck bonus game. A while back, I concocted this:
- The bonus board consists of 15 prize cards (3 each of 5 different prizes), and 5 money bags.
- Player selects a box, and borrowing from the last couple seasons of HS, the host reads a factual statement. The player must decide to which of the two celebs that statement applies.
- If the player guesses correctly, the prize or money bag in the box is revealed. If incorrect, a strike goes up, and the contents remain unknown.
- If the player successfully reveals 3 boxes containing the same prize, he/she wins that prize.
- If the player successfully reveals 3 money bags, he/she "Breaks The Bank", winning all 5 prizes plus the current cash jackpot.
- If the player makes 3 strikes, the game is over, and he/she receives $_00 for each captured box.
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A common myth is that the show was a ratings winner when it was canceled by ABC in July 1976, to make way for soap operas on their daytime schedule. In actuality, that season comprised of approximently 3 weeks. Someone here even said something about the ratings tanking by the end of the game.
Hey don't blame me, Mark Odor said this one time. He also said that it had 0 meat to it.
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One thing I thought stuck out was the fact that claiming three moneybags won the game instantly, no matter how much work the other contestant did. In the debut ep, the female contestant answers way more questions right, but the male contestant ends up winning just because he stumbled into all three bags.
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[quote name=\'Twentington\' post=\'229660\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 11:09 PM\']One thing I thought stuck out was the fact that claiming three moneybags won the game instantly, no matter how much work the other contestant did. In the debut ep, the female contestant answers way more questions right, but the male contestant ends up winning just because he stumbled into all three bags.[/quote]But you can't "stumble into all three bags." You have to give up your turn twice to do so.
One of the things I like about BTB that I wish would be more prevalent in game shows is the spatial strategy. If you know that the three matching amounts connect on an edge and blanks don't touch, you can plot what you want to do more than if all twenty items were scattered randomly.
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[quote name=\'Twentington\']Not who I used to be
Bobby
You've seen me before.[/quote]
You're TenPoundHammer, aren't you?
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[quote name=\'Allstar87\' post=\'229664\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 05:36 AM\'][quote name=\'Twentington\']Not who I used to be
Bobby
You've seen me before.[/quote]
You're TenPoundHammer, aren't you?[/quote]Last post for TenPoundHammer was March 13. Twentington signed up March 27. I'd reveal his full identity..but I promised 'Zink that I wouldn't.
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[quote name=\'Allstar87\' post=\'229664\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 02:36 AM\']
Not who I used to be
Bobby
You've seen me before.
[/quote]
Where are you quoting this from?
[quote post=\'229665\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 02:49 AM\']I'd reveal his full identity..but I promised 'Zink that I wouldn't.[/quote]
Which a) makes one wonder why you were sworn to secrecy, and b) makes me wonder why you would post this at all, since it boils down to "I know but I'm not telling."
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'229671\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 11:29 AM\'][quote name=\'Allstar87\' post=\'229664\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 02:36 AM\']
Not who I used to be
Bobby
You've seen me before.
[/quote]
Where are you quoting this from?
[/quote]
My sig.
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I loved Break The Bank. The game didn't really need a bonus round. Heck, you could win $5000 or more during the main game. The syndicated version seemed to have a bonus game just to have a bonus game. And that theme music (ah!) orgasmic.
[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'229671\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 11:29 AM\']makes me wonder why you would post this at all, since it boils down to "I know but I'm not telling."[/quote]
Yes. Dontcha just love that breed?
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[quote name=\'Don Howard\' post=\'229677\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 12:04 PM\']The syndicated version seemed to have a bonus game just to have a bonus game.[/quote]
That's B&E for you.
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[quote name=\'Don Howard\' post=\'229677\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 01:04 PM\']And that theme music (ah!) orgasmic.[/quote]
I always use the original Hollywood Squares secret square sounder for a nooner.
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[quote name=\'dale_grass\' post=\'229679\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 11:24 AM\'][quote name=\'Don Howard\' post=\'229677\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 01:04 PM\']And that theme music (ah!) orgasmic.[/quote]
I always use the original Hollywood Squares secret square sounder for a nooner.
[/quote]
Bang. Zing. Ahwooooooo-gah.
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[quote name=\'Twentington\' post=\'229676\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 08:57 AM\']My sig.[/quote]
Curious.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'229662\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 02:19 AM\'][quote name=\'Twentington\' post=\'229660\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 11:09 PM\']One thing I thought stuck out was the fact that claiming three moneybags won the game instantly, no matter how much work the other contestant did. In the debut ep, the female contestant answers way more questions right, but the male contestant ends up winning just because he stumbled into all three bags.[/quote]But you can't "stumble into all three bags." You have to give up your turn twice to do so.
[/quote]
Travis is right here; there was some strategy to the three bags element of the game. I remember an episode when there was basically a deadlock between both contestants and their color-money squares, and they both started to look for the moneybags (or the wild card), which made for a very interesting hide-and-go-seek match. I think, more often than not, those money bags were what a contestant turned to when he/she wasn't going anywhere with the regular color-money cards.
Agreed with most everyone else, aside from the bonus-game-just-to-have-one, this was a fun show. Kennedy and Barry both hosted it well.
I may have to dig around in my tapes...I think I might have 3-4-5 episodes laying around...
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[quote name=\'Twentington\' post=\'229655\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 11:46 PM\']I saw nine lower-than-HSq-level celebs[/quote]
What show were you watching? The show had about the same level of celebs as The $20,000 Pyramid, which was right on par with HSq
And I enjoyed BTB as well...it did require some strategy in winning and presented a bit of risk. Deserved a longer run.
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'229694\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 04:43 PM\'][quote name=\'Twentington\' post=\'229655\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 11:46 PM\']I saw nine lower-than-HSq-level celebs[/quote]
What show were you watching? The show had about the same level of celebs as The $20,000 Pyramid, which was right on par with HSq
And I enjoyed BTB as well...it did require some strategy in winning and presented a bit of risk. Deserved a longer run.
[/quote]
I meant slightly lower. Usually I recognize the stars on even 30some-year-old HSq eps, but I didn't recognize most of the guys on this show.
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I'm with ya. I always thought it was a very unique and entertaining show. Wish more eps would pop up on YT. Do they still exist?
The whole run exists, save for a couple of episodes. GSN ran about a third of the run when it was on the schedule in '97-98. Wish they'd bring it back...
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A common myth is that the show was a ratings winner when it was canceled by ABC in July 1976, to make way for soap operas on their daytime schedule. In actuality, that season comprised of approximently 3 weeks. Someone here even said something about the ratings tanking by the end of the game.
The part about 3 weeks is true, but the rest isn't. Somebody (I believe it might have been Jimmy) posted some numbers from Variety for the summer of 1976, and Break the Bank still held its strong ratings all the way through. It was cancelled despite the high ratings because Fred Silverman was more interested in longer soap operas. I believe it could have worked in syndication had Jack Barry not been more interested in reviving Joker's Wild the following fall.
I agree with what most have said...great show!
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BtB was one of my favorite shows from the B&E stable of games.
The questions were "harder" than many of the Q's that were used in TJW, TTD & Bullseye a few years later, but there was always a choice between Dis or Dat.
The theme was awesome, in fact it was the first theme I recorded onto cassette -- still have it, too!
I liked the gameplay -- especially when the players knew the whereabouts of at least 2 or 3 moneybags on the board, then you had to figure was it worth it to take a moneybag, lose control of the board, and risk your opponent blocking any 3-box win that you may be close to getting.
Tom Kennedy was the better host between the two. I would love to see an episode near the end of the run to see how the game's pace & rules played out -- all most have us seen of the daytime run was the first 3 weeks, so there is a good possibility that the show was looking even better by the time Fred stopped by to say, "You're Canceled".
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'229694\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 04:43 PM\'][quote name=\'Twentington\' post=\'229655\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 11:46 PM\']I saw nine lower-than-HSq-level celebs[/quote]
What show were you watching? The show had about the same level of celebs as The $20,000 Pyramid, which was right on par with HSq
[/quote]
For heavens' sake, no. Pyramid's were FAR worse. And while Jan Murray did both, he'd be the least funny of the four corner squares but the Paul Lynde of BtB. That's not par. (Not that I didn't like "Break the Bank," too.)
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I liked BTB, it was a great show,but that weenie at ABC, Fred Silverman took it off to put on two piece of crap soaps. Silverman's decision to dump BTB was a rehash of him taking off Password when he was at CBS. But I knew it would come back as a weekly nighttime show in Fall 1976.
I loved it when I seen TV favorites I haven't seen in a while on both versions, like Bob Crane, Barbara Eden, Mickey Dolenz, Craig Stevens, Bill Dana, and Alice Ghostley. I liked it when Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin guested on the Tom Kennedy version, and ABC had a movie about him at the time.
I wish someone would do a downloadable BTB with Tom Kennedy and Johnny Jacobs (or Ernie Anderson,the voice of ABC)'s voices, a Star Changer and a new bonus round like trying to win the money before getting 3 strikes or something.
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[quote name=\'BobbyLankford_83\' post=\'229821\' date=\'Nov 4 2009, 12:22 AM\']I liked BTB, it was a great show,but that weenie at ABC, Fred Silverman took it off to put on two piece of crap soaps.[/quote]
He is a weenie, isn't he? Not in the Lidsville sense of the word, but certainly he is one. Or he was. He may have reformed.
He attended The 2006 Game Show Congrefs, which was also attended by ABC Break The Bank host Tom Kennedy, Now You See It's Jack Narz (NYSI was also dinged by Herr Weenie), Peter Marshall [master of The Hollywood Squares, yanked in 1980 by Fred S. Weenie] and Henry Polic II, supporting cast member on the 1975 sitcom When Things Were Rotten, whose plug was pulled by The Weenster along with That's My Mama to make room for The Bionic Woman.
Was it you, Matt O., who told us afterwards that while Weenverman was been introduced that you were thinking, "Nobody boo. Nobody boo"?
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I just watched a bit of BTB on YouTube the other day. Looking back now, it seems that and "Rhyme and Reason" were both trying to catch on to the funny celeb Mojo of HS and MG'7x. When it was canceled, it seemed like the beginning of the end for afternoon games.
And yes, the theme song is glorious. That was the clincher for buying the TV game themes CD.
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[quote name=\'Don Howard\' post=\'229845\' date=\'Nov 4 2009, 12:58 PM\']Was it you, Matt O., who told us afterwards that while Weenverman was been introduced that you were thinking, "Nobody boo. Nobody boo"?[/quote]
Indeed.
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i am a fan of all game shws of all eras, i love BTB76!
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I love it too and with the ratings good, they should have just sticked with it.
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And yes, the theme song is glorious. That was the clincher for buying the TV game themes CD.
Agreed on the theme. Unfortunately the version included on the CD wasn't in the best of quality.
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The last time I saw Silverman, was on a TV program, can't remember what it was, but Fred has lost a hell of a lot of weight due to diabetes, forcing him to give up martinis. And I guess he gave up the Salem cigarettes he xhain smoked going back to his days at CBS .
Did you know that Silverman worked at WGN-TV Chicago from 1960-63? (He also breifly worked at WGN's sister station,WPIX-11 in NYC before going to CBS). At Chicago's Very Own Channel 9, he gave WGN viewers The Bozo Show, Family Classics with Frazier Thomas, Garfield Goose (not to be confused with Garfield The Cat in the funnies) and The Ray Rayner Show. These shows would later get national exposure when WGN went up on satellite on Halloween 1978 joining WTCG-17 Atlanta (later WTBS and now plain old TBS) as a superstation.
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Oh, how I loved this show. It's the only B&E show that I have a real fondness for. Tom Kennedy was always my favorite host, and I also taped and kept that great theme music - my favorite ever. It looks like I wasn't the only one blown away by the theme.
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[quote name=\'tvmitch\' post=\'229693\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 01:27 PM\']Agreed with most everyone else, aside from the bonus-game-just-to-have-one, this was a fun show. Kennedy and Barry both hosted it well.[/quote]
Did the daytime version ever have a bonus round?
-- Don
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[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'229872\' date=\'Nov 4 2009, 09:38 PM\']Did the daytime version ever have a bonus round?[/quote]
It did not.
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[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'229872\' date=\'Nov 4 2009, 10:38 PM\'][quote name=\'tvmitch\' post=\'229693\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 01:27 PM\']Agreed with most everyone else, aside from the bonus-game-just-to-have-one, this was a fun show. Kennedy and Barry both hosted it well.[/quote]
Did the daytime version ever have a bonus round?
-- Don
[/quote]
Nope; the daytime show had a "straddling" format.
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'229860\' date=\'Nov 4 2009, 05:50 PM\']
And yes, the theme song is glorious. That was the clincher for buying the TV game themes CD.
Agreed on the theme. Unfortunately the version included on the CD wasn't in the best of quality.
[/quote]
Funnily enough, I recieved a 45 dub of the theme on casette a good 3 years before the 2nd GSN CD was released (this is the version that was circulating on websites, etc. during that time), and despite the noticable vinyl crackle/hiss, it sounds MUCH better than the CD copy...go figure!
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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I have a pretty good version of the BTB theme on my site (http://\"http://home.comcast.net/%7Ecaseyleebuck/\").
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[quote name=\'BobbyLankford_83\' post=\'229865\' date=\'Nov 4 2009, 04:40 PM\']The last time I saw Silverman, was on a TV program, can't remember what it was, but Fred has lost a hell of a lot of weight due to diabetes, forcing him to give up martinis. And I guess he gave up the Salem cigarettes he xhain smoked going back to his days at CBS .
Did you know that Silverman worked at WGN-TV Chicago from 1960-63? (He also breifly worked at WGN's sister station,WPIX-11 in NYC before going to CBS). At Chicago's Very Own Channel 9, he gave WGN viewers The Bozo Show, Family Classics with Frazier Thomas, Garfield Goose (not to be confused with Garfield The Cat in the funnies) and The Ray Rayner Show. These shows would later get national exposure when WGN went up on satellite on Halloween 1978 joining WTCG-17 Atlanta (later WTBS and now plain old TBS) as a superstation.[/quote]
I didn't know that he worked at WGN and WPIX; as much as game show fans give him grief for cancelling BTB 76, he's cool in my book(even though I like game shows as much as everyone else here does) because he helped get one of my favorite tv shows on the air: Scooby Doo, spefically Scooby Doo Where Are You? There's info about this online but here's the basic cliff notes version: Silverman while he was on a flight from New York to Los Angeles after pitching Scooby Doo with another name which the network didn't like, heard the line Scooby Dooby Doo in Frank Sinatra's song Strangers in the Night, he then decided that Scooby Doo would be the perfect name for the main character of the show and as the saying goes The Rest Is History
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Funnily enough, I recieved a 45 dub of the theme on casette a good 3 years before the 2nd GSN CD was released (this is the version that was circulating on websites, etc. during that time), and despite the noticable vinyl crackle/hiss, it sounds MUCH better than the CD copy...go figure!
I knew it was from vinyl because I heard the crackles...but a 45...wow! As a cut on a vinyl LP it wouldn't surprise me, but it was almost unheard of to release game show themes on 45s.
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I've been transferring my 1997 GSN recordings to DVD recently (we would have gotten the entire run if GSN hadn't aired it only once a week on Sunday nights!) and I've detected one flaw in the show that I don't think was ever corrected even by the time of the syndicated version. More than once, I notice how Tom keeps asking a celeb to repeat his answer before he turns to the contestant and in each case it's always the celeb who gave the "false" answer, because Tom evidently doesn't have what the "false" answer is on his card so he feels this need to check again (or else he's trying to guard against the celeb having given a "false" answer that doesn't match the one he has on his card). The problem is that this always gives away what the "false" answer is to the contestant and sure enough each time this scenario happens where Tom is asking a celeb to repeat him or herself, the contestant always knows to go the other way.
It might have helped if the celebs could have had monitors or something they could consult to verify what the "true" and "false" answers were (we even had one instance where both celebs failed to give the correct answer and the question had to be tossed out) in the tradition of what the celebs on "Battlestars" had several years later. That way, Tom wouldn't have any doubt about what was said and there wouldn't be these cases of inadvertent tip-offs to the contestant on which one to pick.
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I noticed that too. I also noticed that the celebrities did seem to have some sort of information in front of them because you can almost always see them looking down just before they give the answer. Maybe each celebrity had the right answer but the first celebrity called on had the option of giving it or not(?), then the other celebrity had to make something up.
I, too, am disappointed GSN never gave us the whole run. I keep hoping that somehow it will appear on their schedule again, but it doesn't look too hopeful does it?
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Sorry to repeat myself, but I remember Mark Odor (he posts here as modor) on the GSN boards saying that ratings for BTB '76 saying that ratings were very poor by the end of its brief.
He's also not a fan of B&E, and even though it's objective, he said that because it was a B&E game, it had 0% meat to it.
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Sorry to repeat myself, but I remember Mark Odor (he posts here as modor) on the GSN boards saying that ratings for BTB '76 saying that ratings were very poor by the end of its brief.
That's not true. I believe it was Jimmy Owen who posted ratings from Variety here a few years ago that showed BTB had strong ratings for its entire network run. Same for Rhyme and Reason which was also cancelled around the same time.
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Well, even with that said, it's highly doubtful that BTB '76 will ever come back to GSN, let alone any B&E shows, especially with the majority complaining about how poorly they've held up. I never judge an old show by today's standards, I just enjoy it for what it is.
I heard in another thread from Jamie Locklin titled "Find one episode" that TJW and TTD were never big hits on GSN, and because of that, they never acquired Bullseye. If they weren't, then how come they were on GSN for such a long time? Because they didn't have anything better to put on?
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It's also been stated that the '70s What's My Line and To Tell the Truth didn't get very good ratings either, and those also ran for years. I think they always had Bullseye but just never found a place on the schedule for it. There were rumours that only 80 episodes had been converted, but I'm not sure if I really believe that. Even if it were true, they could have used in on weekends for a while back then.
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I heard in another thread from Jamie Locklin titled "Find one episode" that TJW and TTD were never big hits on GSN, and because of that, they never acquired Bullseye. If they weren't, then how come they were on GSN for such a long time? Because they didn't have anything better to put on?
I'll speak to the early days of GSN and leave the rest for somebody else (in advance, I'm reserving the right to faulty memory -- it was almost 17 years ago). When the network started up, they did not have all of the masters for the shows they had clearance to air. My understanding is they started converting what they had in hand to DigiBeta (which was a year old at the time) about 9 months prior to launch.
For those of us day 1 viewers, the first year was a bit repetitious-- but it was so awesome we didn't care. On memory, I remember seeing the same 6 month block of shows 3 times through before they gave us more eps. Even more memorable were the commercials - only by repetition. Sony/Tony Bennett singing 'In Other Words'. The PSA commercials for sunblock and AIDS. The Nutri-Nail / Wash N Curl Shampoo commercials. And the great original GSN commercials.
As far as Bullseye, when I last visited GSN in '97 (or was it '98...I can't remember) they had converted two L cassettes of episodes, one of which was the first week. GSN never aired the first episode because it had tracking issues -- the tape traders out there are probably familiar with that episode -- it made its way to the trading rounds courtesy of someone at GSN.
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Sorry to repeat myself, but I remember Mark Odor (he posts here as modor) on the GSN boards saying that ratings for BTB '76 saying that ratings were very poor by the end of its brief.
That's not true. I believe it was Jimmy Owen who posted ratings from Variety here a few years ago that showed BTB had strong ratings for its entire network run. Same for Rhyme and Reason which was also cancelled around the same time.
I'd like to see this. Usually when the ratings from Break the Bank are cited, it's from the EoTVGS book -- which encompassed the first three weeks' of the show's run. If the ratings had continued to hold up, I would think ABC would have bumped Hot Seat back a few months rather than shelving a popular show.
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I know it's late but on April 12, 1976, 35 years ago, BTB 76 premiered on ABC.
As a bit of an audio buff myself, one thing I noticed is that on the first episode, and only on the first episode, the theme song, for some reason was played a pitch lower. I actually prefer it that way.
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I know it's late but on April 12, 1976, 35 years ago, BTB 76 premiered on ABC.
As a bit of an audio buff myself, one thing I noticed is that on the first episode, and only on the first episode, the theme song, for some reason was played a pitch lower. I actually prefer it that way.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall that going into commercial (or after breaking the bank), the theme song was always in B major (and not C major), at least for the episodes I saw.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall that going into commercial (or after breaking the bank), the theme song was always in B major (and not C major), at least for the episodes I saw.
Same here. I recall the cues in the body of the show, like the contestant intro, were a pitch lower.
-Jason
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Same here. I recall the cues in the body of the show, like the contestant intro, were a pitch lower.
Back then, many shows took their themes from vinyl records, which could be pitch-controlled.
I noticed something similar on the '78 Jeopardy. In the last half of the run (and you can hear it clearly on the last episode, which is in the trade curcuit), the theme heading to commercial breaks went at a much faster pitch than the closing theme - despite the fact they were the same piece of music. At the beginning of the run it was all the same pitch.
Who knows why?... (retorical question)
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Is there any reason as to why they changed the way the game was explained? Originally, they showed the boards trilions turn over, but in the syndicated version, it was changed to Jack Barry holding a drawn recreation of the board.
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Back then, many shows took their themes from vinyl records, which could be pitch-controlled.
I noticed something similar on the '78 Jeopardy. In the last half of the run (and you can hear it clearly on the last episode, which is in the trade curcuit), the theme heading to commercial breaks went at a much faster pitch than the closing theme - despite the fact they were the same piece of music. At the beginning of the run it was all the same pitch.
Who knows why?... (retorical question)
I think someone else here said that it they were on tapes or cartridges, and the pitch variants owed to slight defects in the tape player, or something like that.
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Is there any reason as to why they changed the way the game was explained? Originally, they showed the boards trilions turn over, but in the syndicated version, it was changed to Jack Barry holding a drawn recreation of the board.
Per the Television Code, a prime time show could only have 3 spot breaks whereas a daytime show could have 4. No time to reset the board and no need to do an expensive tape edit.
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Actually, I don't think they had to reset the board on the Kennedy version. If you look closely at the shows that GSN ran, when they showed the sample board, the camera was so tight you couldn't see any celebrity names. Also, all the boxes seemed to turn the exact same way each time, which is next to impossible. I think that they just inserted a tape on the Kennedy version - probably live - instead of an edit.
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I checked a couple of the youtube daytime opens and they went to break immediately after explaining the rules, a luxury they did not have in the syndie version.