Quote from: SamJ93 on January 17, 2024, 05:10:35 PM

The bonus round on Double Dare was pretty easy to manipulate for this purpose--any time they put the dreaded "find the flag buried in a giant pool of glop" obstacle in the 2nd, 3rd or 4th slot, you knew they were in budget mode.

There were some 1990 Family Double Dare episodes where Inside Out, Toe Jam, and Pick It were in the same obstacle course that day.

One of the DD interviews or oral histories said that the obstacle course was the same lineup for any given taping day- they'd just start in different places. So whenever I'd see Ant Farm in the opening set and the Sundae Slide at the end, my first thought was "I feel bad for the winners that have to run this course backwards".

Nope, they DID use footage from the NBC show.to promote the Mike Darrow version. 

I'll second "The Girl in My Life."  Also, the promos for "That's My Line," hosted by Barker and done in 33, made it hard to believe it wouldn't be a game show.

But the one that stands out to me (although not quite on topic) was the old game show that turned out to be a new one.  When what was then CBN began airing "Jackpot!" in the afternoons, TV Guide used the same description used in 1974 when the show premiered (including the reference to $50,000), so I was elated that I'd finally get to see the show, as the Atlanta affiliate didn't carry the show back then.  Imagine my disappointment when that was not the case.

Not exactly an example, but when reading TV Guide at 5 years old, for some reason it didn't gel with me that "To Be Announced" wasn't the name of an actual show. I was always left curious as to what a show named that would be like.

This actually happened to me as well…I might’ve been about 7.

I vaguely recall seeing that “That Girl” under the USA listing and thinking it was along the lines of what Matt described. Didn’t find out for a few years that it was Marlo Thomas’s sitcom.

To Travis' point, I remember when VH1 made "Name That Video", offered a car as the grand prize, and then kept stacking videos of barely-hit songs from obscure bands like Wall of Voodoo and The Waitresses in order to make sure the car was practically never won.

And My Generation gave away a long weekend at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel/Cafe for a comparatively walk-in-the-park seven of ten.

I think this illustrates my consternation with the "Things That Are Incapacitated" situation. Because mom was a teacher she had custody of my sister and me during summers. I had Match Game '90 on and we get to the Super Match. For $some amount, the contestant is given the lay-up of BART ___. Mom said "That's easy!" (no fan of The Simpsons, even she knew it was the hotness). The contestant did not and won her Audience money.

Instead of having BART ___ and ___ JONES, find some phrases that are fifty-fifty propositions and let the law of averages let everything come out in the wash. Yes, it's more work but it feels to me like a fairer exercise where somebody is told "No ten grand for you, Bunky," because he happened to be on a particular time in the budget window.