The Game Show Forum

The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Mike Tennant on September 29, 2004, 04:16:01 PM

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: Mike Tennant on September 29, 2004, 04:16:01 PM

Well, now, here's (http://\"http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=201&item=4039989763&rd=1\") something you don't see (or say) every day:  a whole slew of postcards from Canadian viewers of Tom Kennedy's You Don't Say!

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: uncamark on September 29, 2004, 05:38:46 PM

[quote name=\'Mike Tennant\' date=\'Sep 29 2004, 03:16 PM\']Well, now, here's (http://\"http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=201&item=4039989763&rd=1\") something you don't see (or say) every day:  a whole slew of postcards from Canadian viewers of Tom Kennedy's You Don't Say![/quote]
The significance of the postcards is this:  The end game puzzles were supplied by viewers for most of the run.  You sent your postcard submission with the name broken up into three clues to the address announced and if your submission was used on the air, you won a prize like 100,000 trading stamps.  (Real big back then.)  After the end game, to prove that the submission actually existed, they always showed both sides of the postcard before Tom threw it to John Harlan to give out the address (and yes, back in those days the viewer's street address was shown to the entire world).

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: chris319 on September 29, 2004, 10:59:51 PM

Quote

The end game puzzles were supplied by viewers for most of the run. You sent your postcard submission with the name broken up into three clues to the address announced and if your submission was used on the air, you won a prize like 100,000 trading stamps. (Real big back then.)

Why hire writers? You can't pay them in trading stamps.

Did they plug the trading stamp company, thereby collecting a fee for the plug and getting their end game material written for free or close to it?

Bob Stewart may have been cheap, but there's cheap and there's Ralph Andrews.

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: uncamark on September 30, 2004, 04:31:34 PM

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Sep 29 2004, 09:59 PM\']

Quote

The end game puzzles were supplied by viewers for most of the run. You sent your postcard submission with the name broken up into three clues to the address announced and if your submission was used on the air, you won a prize like 100,000 trading stamps. (Real big back then.)

Why hire writers? You can't pay them in trading stamps.

Did they plug the trading stamp company, thereby collecting a fee for the plug and getting their end game material written for free or close to it?

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[/quote]

You betcha, Red Ryder.  John Harlan read the plug every day.

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: davemackey on September 30, 2004, 04:59:02 PM

Refresh my memory as to what kind of trading stamps. I remember my parents collecting Plaid Stamps when I was a wee tot, and I don't think that was it.

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: chris319 on September 30, 2004, 06:04:32 PM

Well, there were Green Stamps and Blue Chip stamps. My 40-year-old recollection of YDS isn't sharp enough to remember which one they used.

I'd like to know the cash value of those stamps, as well as the amount received for the plug.

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: Jimmy Owen on September 30, 2004, 06:54:38 PM

We had Top Value Stamps and S&H Green Stamps around my neck of the woods.

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: kurtinrod62 on September 30, 2004, 10:03:17 PM

IIRC, YDS! gave away Top Value, which I remember Kroger supermarkets in Pittsburgh used to issue.

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: byrd62 on October 01, 2004, 06:48:14 AM

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Sep 30 2004, 05:54 PM\']We had Top Value Stamps and S&H Green Stamps around my neck of the woods.

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I vaguely recall that it might have been Top Value Stamps that were given to people whose postcards were read on You Don't Say!

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: Jimmy Owen on October 01, 2004, 09:25:47 AM

S&H (http://\"http://www.greenpoints.com\") is still in business and from what I understand will reedeem old books of Green stamps and those of Top Value as well.

Title: YDS! items of note on eBay
Post by: uncamark on October 01, 2004, 12:43:36 PM

In another era, before the era of fast litigation, it seemed more common to do viewer submissions of material on game shows.  Back in the radio days of "T or C," the questions were submitted by listeners (and in those days, they were more often ridicuously obscure information than the bad puns of the Barker era).  If you're watching "The Name's the Same," you'll notice Robert Q. mentioning every so often that they're sending out a little token of appreciation to a person who submitted a contestant for the show.  Even "J!" did a home viewer contest where viewers were asked to submit an entire thirty-clue game board--of course stating that all entries would become the property of Griffin Productions.