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Author Topic: Trebek's "Double Dare"  (Read 9263 times)

Neumms

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« on: September 24, 2007, 04:10:50 PM »
I believe the consensis view is that the original, slime-free "Double Dare" was doomed to failure given the general environment for morning game shows, but how was the game itself? If you changed the name and ran it at night, would it work? Please comment.

Maybe it's just the novelty of it, but now that GSN is showing it I get a kick out of it.

And I love the Spoilers--it's like a Gauntlet of Villians for academic-hatin' red staters. Some of the bonus round clues are way too easy, but maybe that got better as the show went on.

Chief-O

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #1 on: September 24, 2007, 04:34:02 PM »
Like most Jay Wolpert creations, it was clever and underrated. Unfortunately, it was, IMO, a little too clever and too intellectual for daytime TV.

Then again, J! was fairly intellectual for its time back then.....
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SRIV94

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #2 on: September 24, 2007, 05:49:06 PM »
[quote name=\'Chief-O\' post=\'164687\' date=\'Sep 24 2007, 03:34 PM\']
Like most Jay Wolpert creations, it was clever and underrated. Unfortunately, it was, IMO, a little too clever and too intellectual for daytime TV.

Then again, J! was fairly intellectual for its time back then.....
[/quote]
That's a pretty fair assessment.  I didn't appreciate it way back then (I have a tendency to do that with some Wolpert shows--WHEW! being another, for example, although I dug HIT MAN from the get-go), but I'm enjoying it now.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2007, 05:52:17 PM by SRIV94 »
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PYLdude

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2007, 06:47:52 PM »
[quote name=\'Chief-O\' post=\'164687\' date=\'Sep 24 2007, 04:34 PM\']
Like most Jay Wolpert creations, it was clever and underrated. Unfortunately, it was, IMO, a little too clever and too intellectual for daytime TV.

Then again, J! was fairly intellectual for its time back then.....
[/quote]

Yeah, but I think that Double Dare was a little more intellectual that J! was...a little too far ahead of its time.

I caught one of the eps last week and was watching with my brother...I enjoyed it, my brother was wondering what the hell was going on.
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mcsittel

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #4 on: September 24, 2007, 07:11:55 PM »
One of my all-time favorite shows.  Great opening, unusual set, cool sound effects (gotta love the opening/closing booth noise) and a challenging game.  And Trebek was still enjoyable to watch (must be the hair).  Too bad the next 4 shows will be the ones GSN aired not too long ago.  Hopefully this schedule lasts long enough to see past episode #7... this and Beat the Clock (always liked that opening too-one of my favorite GS themes) are the high point of GSN's schedule for me!

Matt

davemackey

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #5 on: September 24, 2007, 07:32:28 PM »
[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'164684\' date=\'Sep 24 2007, 04:10 PM\']
And I love the Spoilers--it's like a Gauntlet of Villians for academic-hatin' red staters.
[/quote]
Ralph Doty, Ph.D. in particular scared the living crap out of me. A hard thing to do when you're 15, but man was that man scary.

BrandonFG

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2007, 07:44:21 PM »
I think we discussed this before, but by 1977, wasn't the "cerebral" trivia game more or less done for the decade? J!, Split Second, and TJW had been canceled for almost two years, and it seems to me most of the shows were word-based in one way or another, or dealt with deciphering clues/riddles.

There weren't any true Q&A types of shows, and when Joker returned that fall, they watered down the material considerably.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2007, 07:46:17 PM by fostergray82 »
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mmb5

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2007, 07:56:38 PM »
[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'164684\' date=\'Sep 24 2007, 04:10 PM\']
And I love the Spoilers--it's like a Gauntlet of Villians for academic-hatin' red staters.
[/quote]
Don't know why politics has to be involved here.

However, I wouldn't call last night's show "academic".  Practically every subject asked for was a movie figure or some other figure known for an entertainment career.  The previous show's spoiler answer was "The Beatles" -- hardly Harvardesque.


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WhammyPower

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2007, 08:56:15 PM »
[quote name=\'mmb5\' post=\'164708\' date=\'Sep 24 2007, 06:56 PM\'] [quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'164684\' date=\'Sep 24 2007, 04:10 PM\']
And I love the Spoilers--it's like a Gauntlet of Villians for academic-hatin' red staters.
[/quote]
Don't know why politics has to be involved here.

However, I wouldn't call last night's show "academic".  Practically every subject asked for was a movie figure or some other figure known for an entertainment career.  The previous show's spoiler answer was "The Beatles" -- hardly Harvardesque.[/quote]
See now, this description makes me think that these are just a bunch of $ale's Fame Games.  That's not so hard.

JasonA1

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2007, 09:07:56 PM »
You could probably argue Alex's rather subdued performance, amongst all the pop culture topics and flashy set to boot, did not help to make the proceedings feel any less staid. He was also very wordy, making some rather simple options and situations (and thus the entire show) seem more complex than they really were.

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TLEberle

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #10 on: September 24, 2007, 10:30:12 PM »
[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'164710\' date=\'Sep 24 2007, 06:07 PM\']You could probably argue Alex's rather subdued performance, amongst all the pop culture topics and flashy set to boot, did not help to make the proceedings feel any less staid. He was also very wordy, making some rather simple options and situations (and thus the entire show) seem more complex than they really were.[/quote]It really was a stop-and-start Fame Game or College Bowl toss-up, with a little bit more strategy to it. (Though that strategy amounts to "will a complete stranger be able to answer by this point?" But it's something).

I think that the presentation could have been much faster than it was, and it was needlessly overexplained as well. And that's a bad combination if you're going after the housewife/sick kid demo. "Here's the next clue. You can either force the other guy to guess, or keep your money and we'll move on." Not hard.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2007, 10:30:56 PM by TLEberle »
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clemon79

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #11 on: September 24, 2007, 11:04:00 PM »
Which brings me to a question, if anyone here remembers:

For some reason, I remember seeing an episode / clip / whatever of this show where the "Here's the next clue:" bell didn't ring until after it was already off-screen, so people at home could play along. We're really early on in this run, and as such the bell is sounding immediately. Am I misremembering or did this start happening partway through the series?
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beatlefreak84

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #12 on: September 24, 2007, 11:39:29 PM »
Quote
For some reason, I remember seeing an episode / clip / whatever of this show where the "Here's the next clue:" bell didn't ring until after it was already off-screen, so people at home could play along. We're really early on in this run, and as such the bell is sounding immediately. Am I misremembering or did this start happening partway through the series?

You're not misremembering...I know this happened on at least one of the episodes Jamie put up on his website (IIRC, from its final week, if not the finale).  I have no clue when they started doing that, though...

I also seem to recall that the show started moving a LOT faster near the end; they showed each contestant on a split-screen, Alex didn't constantly explain that somebody was sealed off, and I thought his reading got a little faster as well.  So, for those of you complaining about the pace, it will get better...even if you may have to wait a long time for it to happen...;)

/really wishing I had GSN right now...BTC with Monty, Trebek DD, even Trivia Trap...;)

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clemon79

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #13 on: September 24, 2007, 11:59:58 PM »
[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'164721\' date=\'Sep 24 2007, 08:39 PM\']
You're not misremembering...I know this happened on at least one of the episodes Jamie put up on his website (IIRC, from its final week, if not the finale).  I have no clue when they started doing that, though...
[/quote]
That's where I remember it. And it was the finale, I remember Trebek mentioning that if they ran out of time in the last game, the leader would take home an extra couple grand. Thanks for the push. :)
Quote
/really wishing I had GSN right now...BTC with Monty, Trebek DD, even Trivia Trap...;)
Trivia Trap didn't age well. I dunno if it's my realization over time that Eubanks is a poor host, or what, but I Tivoed one episode, watched half of it, said "Ya know what? I don't care about this." and deleted it.
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ChuckNet

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Trebek's "Double Dare"
« Reply #14 on: September 25, 2007, 01:34:55 AM »
I also found DD to be a very underrated show...great theme, had that play-at-home factor, and you gotta love the iso booths...even the cosmetic touches, such as the opening graphics and the way the end credits were supered over the blank maingame clue board (followed by the show logo forming and flashing on the board until fade-out), were cool as well.

My main gripe was that if you were stuck w/a rather obscure subject during the maingame, it could drag watching incorrect guess after incorrect guess and tended to slow down the whole show (no kidding...I have an ep where a game that begins just after the 1st break doesn't even finish b/c of the "dumb-off" going on).

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