My everpresent rambling train of thought has stopped at questions pertaining to the one feature that ties the two games at opposite ends of the game-show intelligence spectrum, Press Your Luck and Jeopardy!: The fact that on both programs, while all players accumulate actual, dollar-denominated cash (rather than game points) during the game, only the overall winner actually takes his winnings, and the losers' scores go to zero.
* I understand that because this was not the case on pre-1984 Jeopardy; players didn't necessarily need to compete to win any money, that it was essentially a bonus that the high-scorer got to come back, and that many people were content just to win whatever they'd accumulated. Whoever first thought up this idea, on whatever show it was, was brilliant, because it introduces a real element of competition that ends up making much better television.
* So, which show was the first to use this device? Did Press Your Luck's predecessor, Second Chance, utilize it, or did it use the Jeopardy! method of the day? Was there perhaps an even older show that used it? Are there other games before or after that I'm not thinking of?
* Incredibly, highly, ridiculously speculative, but perhaps worth asking: If PYL *was* the first show to have this device, is it possible that the J! producers were inspired by it in making their decision to do that there?
And now, I slumber.
