The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: SamJ93 on November 21, 2025, 02:30:25 PM
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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?
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Y is treated as a consonant.
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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 (https://www.gameshowforum.org/index.php/topic,32069.msg415428.html#msg415428) 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
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Is the minimum Daily Double wager still $5? That gets mentioned almost never.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
I think the producers encourage the contestants to give some sort of reasoning behind their guess. One very good reason is to be sure they understand what's being asked. Sometimes I've seen a contestant misunderstand a question and give a reason that goes against the context of the question, in which the host advises the player what the question is asking as their reasoning doesn't match.
I also think there's someone that tells the players to look for a "speed up" signal. If they see it, be VERY brief... don't give a long winded explanation, just a number and that's all.
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I think contestants on Card Sharks were probably encouraged to explain their logic for another, more cynical reason as well. Longer explanations lead to longer questions. Longer questions lead to longer games. Longer games means fewer trips to the Money Cards each week. It's the same reason Password Plus and Super Password would air deadball puzzles - the fewer bonus rounds you play over the course of a week, the less money you have to shell out.
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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.
Dunno how heavily it was enforced, but for a show offering $30K a day when that could still buy you a condo, I imagine Goodson and/or Todman definitely didn't argue against the practice. I also imagine simply saying the number would get monotonous quick.
EDIT: meant to send this earlier but Tim and I are on the same page.
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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.
I don't think I've ever heard it explained before either--what is the reason? And I'm pretty sure I've never seen a 1-point answer in the front game, either, although I'm admittedly not a regular viewer of any version.
One more that I thought of: on Catch 21, Alfonso frequently glossed over the rule in the bonus round that the contestant is not allowed to quit the game immediately after power-chipping a card. It took a few episodes for me to figure that out.