The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: TimK2003 on April 21, 2025, 06:09:56 PM
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While watching some Barker TPIR eps with family on Easter Sunday, this question came up...
When Keep or Give was to be played, you knew it was the next pricing game because it had to be installed along the wall where the Showcase podiums would be set up and it would usually be seen behind Bob during the next IUFB. This, because they had to use the turntable for the either/or prize choices.
I also know that if you saw the golden spheres laid out on the stage floor at the beginning of a show when Bob came out, you knew Golden Road was to be played as the first pricing game.
While practically every other pricing game would be hidden behind a door, giant price tag or turntable wall until the winning bidder came up, were there any other pricing games that were regularly exposed on stage before the IUFB?
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You could see the back of Bullseye sticking out above the turntable wall. Not sure if the new prop sticks out, too. Grand Game you can sometimes see above the giant price tag. I thought you could see the sign hangers for either Grocery Game or Shell Game, so was narrowed to two.
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Was the top of Blank Check/Check Game visible behind the turntable wall?
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You could see the back of Bullseye sticking out above the turntable wall.
No, you couldn't. Bullseye was a little bit larger than the old wall, sure, but not large enough that it was actually noticeable.
Not sure if the new prop sticks out, too.
Well, it's the same prop against a larger wall...so still no.
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Golden Road and Give or Keep were the only two where the game was fully exposed (defined as "the game's name being visible") before the item up for bids. Note that this is no longer true, as these days, the stagehands set up all of the Golden Road decor during the bidding on the item up for bids.
Grand Game, Check-Out, and Trader Bob are/were slightly taller than the giant price tag (although I think Check-Out might be set far enough back that you can't see it on camera?). For Grand Game, the show eventually started setting the tag to hover maybe a foot off the ground to conceal the top of the big flashing dollar sign.
Depending on where you're sitting in the audience, you might be able to see what's behind the giant price tag just because it isn't very effective at concealing games at angles other than the angles the cameras are at.
The signs for Now or Then and Master Key used to stick up higher than the top of the turntable wall, so if you knew their shapes, you could tell they were coming up. However, you wouldn't necessarily know in which act, because the games would be set as soon as the space became available, even if they were multiple acts away.
But maybe those two fall into the same "Does it count if you have to know what to look for?" category as things like the earliest days of the Plinko sign, when it would be set in the back of the audience but it wouldn't display "Plinko" during the come on down.
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Goldenspheres would roll off the stage.
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Grand Game, Check-Out, and Trader Bob are/were slightly taller than the giant price tag (although I think Check-Out might be set far enough back that you can't see it on camera?).
That probably explains why they started lifting the tag for Check-Out as well this season. I never noticed anything, myself, but there's probably a lot less space to hide the game now than there was in Studio 33, so maybe they just decided not to chance it any more.
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When Keep or Give was to be played, you knew it was the next pricing game because it had to be installed along the wall where the Showcase podiums would be set up and it would usually be seen behind Bob during the next IUFB. This, because they had to use the turntable for the either/or prize choices.
The odds of this happening are slim to none, but if they ever brought back Keep or Give, they could use the turntable and put the either/or prizes on a separate table, like they do now for Switcheroo and Half Off.
I'm still hoping that someday, they bring back Super Ball, but I'm not holding my breath.
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Were the Double Prices stand ever seen by the audience prior to the contestant coming up (I never saw it during the IUFB, but before Bob and the contestant got to the big doors, it was there)? All it was was a stand.with two prices -- about the simplest game they had, but you still didn't know "what" was up for grabs.
A lot of times, much of the audience already knew what was coming gamewise, as over by Finger's area there was a stand with slots that listed each show segment, including pricing games, the showdowns and the showcases.
Occasionally if the camera panned over that way, you could briefly see it on TV.
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With the awful new Shell Game set up, do you see the counter during the one-bid?
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With the awful new Shell Game set up, do you see the counter during the one-bid?
Fixed that for you. Also, no.
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With the awful new Shell Game set up, do you see the counter during the one-bid?
I guess I'm in the minority, but i don't mind the set up. I did, however, think the Davidson PIR way of putting the table on the stage in front of the door with the prize was clever.
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I also don't mind the new setup.
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The staging is fine. The blinding colors and distracting video loop in the background, less so.
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Count me in as another person who likes the setup, but wishes the logo would stop moving once the game has begun.
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I also know that if you saw the golden spheres laid out on the stage floor at the beginning of a show when Bob came out, you knew Golden Road was to be played as the first pricing game.
Somebody noticed this at one point, so they started keeping the camera pointed at Bob in such a way that you could not see the floor, but of course that just meant that if they didn't show the floor, then GR was being played. Later, when Bob started coming down from the audience (other than when he first did it, on an April 1 episode), that was almost always a sign that GR was going to be played. (I think he later started coming down through the audience whenever they started with a game that needed all three doors, like Superball, but I'm not entirely sure about that.)
There is at least one early episode where, just before he introduces the first item up for bids, he says something like, "You know, I think we're playing Golden Road today!".
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The staging is fine. The blinding colors and distracting video loop in the background, less so.
Same. I’ve never been a huge fan of the hexagon windows, unless it’s the nighttime show. But I’m with the others who like the new Shell Game setup.
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(I think he later started coming down through the audience whenever they started with a game that needed all three doors, like Superball, but I'm not entirely sure about that.)
Not quite. Super Ball!! and Triple Play didn't require audience entrances -- those were reserved for games that would somehow get in the way of Bob's entrance, which at the time basically meant Golden Road, Plinko, and 3 Strikes. Other games that would have caused such a problem just didn't get played first.