Well, one thing to consider in the economics of any game is the amount of money the producers/networks get in plugging prizes. With Whammy - or any show that offers prizes as part of the take - anything the producers get either as straight trade or a fee for plugging small items like Rice A Roni - helps keep moolah in the till for the cash prizes. If a show has a pure cash outlay, like Greed or Twenty-One, it has to have the backing from somewhere, and most cable networks don't have that much cash. A lot of you make good points - the networks were so blinded by visions of ratings they thought would follow giant giveaway sums that they didn't think through the quality of the mechanics of the game itself. Enright himself said later on in life that Twenty-One was actually a pretty dull game. He mentioned Disney asked him to offer a proposal for a new version before he passed, and he was trying to work out ideas such as stacking categories and other gimmicks to add dazzle to the game. The point I'm working on is - if some of these games were to come back on a cable budget, would the mechanics of the game be strong enough to keep viewers glued to the set, since the money won't be there? Big money did nothing for the horrid $1,000,000 Chance Of A Lifetime game. If the programs were repositioned as challenges of contestant strategy vs. big money games, they might have a better shot.
