The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: bwood on November 17, 2003, 10:04:18 PM
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Hi Everyone,
I produce a local, non-profit, low/no budget comedy show in my town and was thinking of doing a Pyramid type Winner's Circle spoof. Since we have no real "writers" and nobody but me on the "staff" is game show fluent, I need some help with a few things:
-A different title for the "show". We will not use "Pyramid" for obvious copyright reasons.
-Some crazy, hard, nearly impossible, and/or funny WC subjects. I think we're gonna pull an early pre 10K and have 10 subjects so it wont be an exact copy of the WC
-Any other suggestions on how to execute the skit
Credit will be given on-air if your ideas are used.
The show is as G/PG rated as it can get so nothing can be dirty.
Any help would be much obliged. Thanks A Million!
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I don't see why you should need a new title for it. It seems you're parodying the show and that's protected. It's how Saturday Night Live can make fun of game shows like Jeopardy! and Family Feud and MadTV can go after TPiR. So, don't worry about a new name.
As for the rest, well, I'd have to think up some funny ideas. My brain needs some sugar before it'll give me funny.
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Yeah, generally, as parody, you can get away with it. In 1998, the cable access show I was doing at the time did a redneck Family Feud sketch, and we used the show name, format, and music with no problems, which was actually one of our funnier skecthes. Nobody's gonna mess with a cable access production for the most part.
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[quote name=\'bwood\' date=\'Nov 17 2003, 08:04 PM\'] -A different title for the "show". We will not use "Pyramid" for obvious copyright reasons.
[/quote]
Call it "The $37 Trapezoid." People will get the joke easily enough.
-Some crazy, hard, nearly impossible, and/or funny WC subjects.
How about "Things Tom Cruise's Dentist Might Say?"
Oh, wait.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Nov 17 2003, 10:44 PM\']
How about "Things Tom Cruise's Dentist Might Say?"
Oh, wait. [/quote]
Hey, Chris might be on to something here.
Maybe you could do something REALLY absurd like: "Things Tom Cruise's Left Toe Would Say" something like that !
Possibly OT: Anyone ever see the final episode of the $20K Pyramid ? They used some hillarious "Rejected" Catagories as a farewell.
-Joe R.
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[quote name=\'JRaygor\' date=\'Nov 17 2003, 11:07 PM\']
Possibly OT: Anyone ever see the final episode of the $20K Pyramid ? They used some hillarious "Rejected" Catagories as a farewell.
-Joe R. [/quote]
Hit SHows on NBC TV in 1980, in 2003 its Hit Shows on PAX TV(SUpermarket Sweep may be their highest rated show, and they didn't bother to make new episodes of it)
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[quote name=\'bwood\' date=\'Nov 17 2003, 10:04 PM\'] Hi Everyone,
I produce a local, non-profit, low/no budget comedy show in my town and was thinking of doing a Pyramid type Winner's Circle spoof. Since we have no real "writers" and nobody but me on the "staff" is game show fluent, I need some help with a few things:
-A different title for the "show". We will not use "Pyramid" for obvious copyright reasons.
-Some crazy, hard, nearly impossible, and/or funny WC subjects. I think we're gonna pull an early pre 10K and have 10 subjects so it wont be an exact copy of the WC
-Any other suggestions on how to execute the skit
Credit will be given on-air if your ideas are used.
The show is as G/PG rated as it can get so nothing can be dirty.
Any help would be much obliged. Thanks A Million! [/quote]
How about Triangle or Cylinder then?
Also, can't he use "Pyramide" or something--and have it fall under "parody fair use"?
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Hey, why don't you call it "The $12,000 Triangle" with Cick Dlark !
This is fun !
-Joe R.
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How about "Jackie Rogers Jr.'s $100,000 Jackpot Wad"? :-)
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[quote name=\'Fedya\' date=\'Nov 18 2003, 07:31 AM\'] How about "Jackie Rogers Jr.'s $100,000 Jackpot Wad"? :-) [/quote]
Chocolate babies.
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[quote name=\'JRaygor\' date=\'Nov 18 2003, 12:47 AM\'] Hey, why don't you call it "The $12,000 Triangle" with Cick Dlark !
This is fun !
-Joe R. [/quote]
You don't even have to go to that much trouble. "With your host, Clark Dick!"
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[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' date=\'Nov 18 2003, 12:02 PM\'][quote name=\'JRaygor\' date=\'Nov 18 2003, 12:47 AM\'] Hey, why don't you call it "The $12,000 Triangle" with Cick Dlark !
This is fun !
-Joe R. [/quote]
You don't even have to go to that much trouble. "With your host, Clark Dick!"[/quote]
Well, Clark tells a story in one of his books about when he was doing a prime-time variety show on ABC in the late 50s on Saturday nights. When they did a remote from Florida, the producer talked the Beech-Nut Gum people, the show's sponsor ("Dressed in green and made for a teen, Beech-Nut Spearmint Gum--it's FLAVOR-IFIC!"), to pay up to have two ad airplanes carry banners with Dick's name on them for the opening--one saying "DICK" and the other behind it saying "CLARK." Unfortunately, the planes flew in the wrong order when the live telecast started and what the viewers saw was--"CLARK DICK." The crew in the remote truck had a big laugh over that one.
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If you're still working on the idea - here are six evil categories you would hate to have to guess or give clues to - starting from bottom left box-
1) Odd numbers between 1 and 307
2) Things not found in a bucket
3) Hit Tim Conway TV Shows -or- names of Seinfeld episodes
4) Words that can be spelled two ways (hire, higher)
5) Names of Miss America Runner-Ups
and the biggie at the top:
6) Middle Initials
and for the crude laugh, you could always go with - Things A Person with Tourette's Syndrome might say.
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[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Nov 18 2003, 09:16 PM\'] Well, Clark tells a story in one of his books about when he was doing a prime-time variety show on ABC in the late 50s on Saturday nights. When they did a remote from Florida, the producer talked the Beech-Nut Gum people, the show's sponsor ("Dressed in green and made for a teen, Beech-Nut Spearmint Gum--it's FLAVOR-IFIC!"), to pay up to have two ad airplanes carry banners with Dick's name on them for the opening--one saying "DICK" and the other behind it saying "CLARK." Unfortunately, the planes flew in the wrong order when the live telecast started and what the viewers saw was--"CLARK DICK." The crew in the remote truck had a big laugh over that one. [/quote]
I just had to bring up this Randy West gem from ATGS:
[quote name=\'tvrandywest\' date=\'Dec 7 2000\']The great Bruce Burmester told me the funniest story about the years on
Pyramid when Dick Clark was host, and Jack Clark announced. Because both
gentlemen share the name Clark, the crew referred to them by first name
only. When it was time to cue the announcer to wrap the warm-up so they
could roll tape, the word from the booth was. "Get Dick out and Jack off"!
[/quote]
And Ol' Guy, don't forget the ultimate evil category:
WORDS THAT RHYME WITH "ORANGE"!
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Door hinge?
(BUZZZZZZZZ!!!!)
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[quote name=\'The Ol' Guy\' date=\'Nov 18 2003, 11:22 PM\'] Door hinge? [/quote]
[BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ]
That's two words!
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..so I can't use the senility excuse? :-)
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[quote name=\'GS Warehouse\' date=\'Nov 18 2003, 10:18 PM\'] And Ol' Guy, don't forget the ultimate evil category:
WORDS THAT RHYME WITH "ORANGE"! [/quote]
Lunge
Grunge
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Regional dialects (or just lazy pronunciation) notwithstanding, "lange" and "grange" would theoretically rhyme with "orange", not "lunge" and "grunge".
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[quote name=\'The Ol' Guy\' date=\'Nov 18 2003, 11:00 PM\']If you're still working on the idea - here are six evil categories you would hate to have to guess or give clues to - starting from bottom left box-
1) Odd numbers between 1 and 307
2) Things not found in a bucket
3) Hit Tim Conway TV Shows -or- names of Seinfeld episodes
4) Words that can be spelled two ways (hire, higher)
5) Names of Miss America Runner-Ups
and the biggie at the top:
6) Middle Initials
and for the crude laugh, you could always go with - Things A Person with Tourette's Syndrome might say.[/quote]
Not to mention a ridiculous category that Dick once threw out on the show--Things That Taste Like Lima Beans.
Back when GS-L was more active, when I tried to use Variety headline-ese in a post and caled a "Pyramid" variant "$100G Pyramid" (as in 100 grand), somebody pointed out that in actual numberical abbreviations (like "K," "M," "B") "G" would be an obscenely huge number. Someone else then came up with a possible Winner's Circle for that mega-heavy coin (to use more Variety-ese)--one of them I remember being Extras in the Chariot Scene in "Ben Hur."
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[quote name=\'GS Warehouse\' date=\'Nov 18 2003, 11:23 PM\'][quote name=\'The Ol' Guy\' date=\'Nov 18 2003, 11:22 PM\'] Door hinge? [/quote]
[BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ]
That's two words![/quote]
So? We're talking about Pyramid, not Password. Unless there's another joke of some sort in here that I don't get.
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[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Nov 19 2003, 11:36 AM\'] Back when GS-L was more active, when I tried to use Variety headline-ese in a post and caled a "Pyramid" variant "$100G Pyramid" (as in 100 grand), somebody pointed out that in actual numerical abbreviations (like "K," "M," "B") "G" would be an obscenely huge number. [/quote]
If I remember my metric abbreviations correctly, $100G is how much Dr. Evil demanded on two separate occasions.
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This thread's too much fun to stay out of...
Thanks for the laughs with the Dick Clark stories. And uncamark, that "Ben Hur extras" is neat. It takes me back to Maxine Fabe's book where she intimated that if the prize budget was heavily dented early in the week, it seemed that the original Pyramid producers picked very difficult top box categories to protect themselves for the rest of the week - not impossible, but close enough.
..and warehouse pal - you asked for WORDS that rhymed with orange, hence, door hinge. Now if it read "SINGLE words that rhyme with orange...." :-)
Ah- my prunes are stewed. Later -
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These are the categories I use for placeholders for Mike's Game Show Round (http://\"http://www.mikeburger.com/gsr.html\"):
$50-THINGS ON A CHECKER BOARD
$100-PRESIDENTS NAMED BUCHANNAN
$150-SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE "FOUR"
$200-MEDIOCRE FOODS
$250-THINGS ON NEPTUNE
$300-7 DIGIT PRIME NUMBERS
They're not as much as laugh out loud funny, they're just very, very hard.
--Mike
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[quote name=\'mmb5\' date=\'Nov 19 2003, 07:13 PM\'] $50-THINGS ON A CHECKER BOARD
[/quote]
This one isn't so bad, although it certainly isn't a $50 box, either: "The red squares, the black squares, the kings, the red pieces, the black pieces..."
$200-MEDIOCRE FOODS
This one tickles the hell out of me. :)
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Nov 19 2003, 10:19 PM\'] [quote name=\'mmb5\' date=\'Nov 19 2003, 07:13 PM\'] $200-MEDIOCRE FOODS[/quote]
This one tickles the hell out of me. :) [/quote]
Don't you mean "MEDIOCRE FOODS TOM CRUISE'S DENTIST MIGHT EAT"?
And how about "COLORS NOT IN THE OLYMPIC RINGS"? :-p
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Hi All,
Thanks for the suggestions so far, they are really good. I really appreciate it.
I've already described what we want as far as a WC pyramid to the people that do our very low budget props and they have 6 equally sized carboard boxes with the bottoms cut out of them that are going to be spray painted black. After that step is done, I have no idea what we're going to do. We have to find a way to present/reveal the subjects. We can't have trilons because we only have the panels cut from the bottoms of the boxes, "bilons" lol, and they're not cut perfectly straight (but pretty close, what can I expect they do it for free) so we cant put something down the middle of them and flip them from the back because of their shape, they rub the box. I said to hold off cutting the bottoms out until I thought of a plan but they did it anyway, oh well at least they saved the panels they cut out.
Probably just have someone pull the panels off with the subjects behind them (loaded in from the back of the boxes) as they go through them on the "show". Any suggestions are welcomed on how to do this, as I am lost.
As for subject suggestions, PLEASE keep them coming if you think of any more because not only will we pick some for this time, we may have the sketch recurring.
Thanks for all the help!
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[quote name=\'Fedya\' date=\'Nov 19 2003, 09:14 PM\'] [quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Nov 19 2003, 10:19 PM\'] [quote name=\'mmb5\' date=\'Nov 19 2003, 07:13 PM\'] $200-MEDIOCRE FOODS[/quote]
This one tickles the hell out of me. :) [/quote]
Don't you mean "MEDIOCRE FOODS TOM CRUISE'S DENTIST MIGHT EAT"?
And how about "COLORS NOT IN THE OLYMPIC RINGS"? :-p [/quote]
Ya know, sometimes the key to comedy is subtlety.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Nov 19 2003, 11:23 PM\']Ya know, sometimes the key to comedy is subtlety.[/quote]
"Subtlety."
"KEYS TO COMEDY?"
*ding!*