Author Topic: what game show had the best end game? (Read 27339 times)

Craig Karlberg · « **Reply #30 on:** November 19, 2007, 05:12:13 AM »

Winner's Circle & the Golden Doors are the ones that are the best in terms of suspense, but to me, I need one with a play-along factor. Having said that, here are my choices in no particular order:

Scrabble Super Sprint
The Golden Run
Wonderwall(though it's hard to pick up on an answer when it's moving let alone finding all 20 in 3:00)
The WoF bonus puzzle
The Gauntlet of Villams

jmangin · « **Reply #31 on:** November 19, 2007, 09:02:04 AM »

Just as mostly everyone else has said, Winner's Circle is my favorite, but I thought the "stroll down Rodeo Drive" was a fairly good concept in the same vein as the Gauntlet of Villains.

Strikerz04 · « **Reply #32 on:** November 19, 2007, 09:41:42 AM »

My Choice: A Tie between the Winner's Circle and the Money Cards.

I grew up watching the Winner's Circle and was always exciting. It didn't matter who was the host, but it has been, and will always be tense to the last second. As for the Money Cards, I marveled at the sight of winning $28,000 just by calling the cards high or low. Then again, I was 14 when I first saw it on GSN and thought it was that easy (8 years later, doesn't seem that way).

Honorable mention: The Winner's Big Money Game. Yes, it had nothing to do with $ale, but it was a damn good attempt to make a "traditional" bonus game.
(EDIT: I'll go with the NYSI end game too. I can find most of the answers quicker than the contestants, regardless of how dated they are.)

The Ol' Guy · « **Reply #33 on:** November 19, 2007, 10:54:27 AM »

The Winner's Circle is the most exciting. Bob S's end games were often better than the Main Game. Two of my favorites remain the original Chain Reaction and Winning Streak bonus games.

toetyper · « **Reply #34 on:** November 19, 2007, 11:31:30 AM »

technical question

would you consider millonaire to be one giant end game?

tpirfan28 · « **Reply #35 on:** November 19, 2007, 11:37:51 AM »

No. Final Jeopardy is closer to an endgame than all of Millionaire is. And Final J! is just a "final round".

Neumms · « **Reply #36 on:** November 19, 2007, 12:19:44 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'169918\' date=\'Nov 19 2007, 01:36 AM\']
My top 5:

1) Winner's Circle
2) Wonderwall
3) Alphabetics / Super Password
4) Money Cards
5) Gauntlet of Villains
[/quote]

I don't know why anybody hasn't mentioned the trip to the Prize Vault on Rayburn's "Break the Bank" yet. (Just kidding.)

I'm not that wild about Alphabetics. I'd put the original Lightning Round in instead. Obviously the stakes were nothing to get excited about, but it was great fun to see the celebs get flustered. And it had the great name. Alphabetics, to me, just took that and made it more like "Pyramid."

I'm glad you put in Money Cards--that's what a Barry/Enright end game SHOULD be. I do like the "Now You See It" solo game, and love how challenging it is. (This is the Narz version now running on NYSI.) Nobody's mentioned the Golden Medley. And despite how stupid it is, the Big Showdown was fun to watch, at least to a seven-year-old.

tvmitch · « **Reply #37 on:** November 19, 2007, 12:33:02 PM »

Winner's Circle, #1. 75% of the time you have a nail-biter, and the play along element is fantastic. There are so many good things here: tough rules, tough writing, a countdown clock. Someone mentioned that the host doesn't count, and I agree in that the Donnymid WC was produced terribly. If Donny was at the helm for the original Pyramid, that would have been fine.

If there had been a better way to produce the Wonderwall, that's my #2. I love, love that endgame and it would be a great one to adapt elsewhere. And our version was superior to the UK version, because there wasn't as much to lose on the UK version.

My #3 is from the UK: The Vault had a great endgame if the player didn't dally on one question. I like how the player could posit as many guesses as they wanted...some answers were obtained by counting upwards.

clemon79 · « **Reply #38 on:** November 19, 2007, 01:05:56 PM »

[quote name=\'mitchgroff\' post=\'169965\' date=\'Nov 19 2007, 09:33 AM\']
Someone mentioned that the host doesn't count, and I agree in that the Donnymid WC was produced terribly. If Donny was at the helm for the original Pyramid, that would have been fine.
[/quote]
As I've said before: Donny was easily the BEST thing about that version of the Pyramid. It would have been completely tolerable if they had plucked him out and dropped him onto the 80's set with the 80's writers.

Fedya · « **Reply #39 on:** November 19, 2007, 02:15:06 PM »

Craig Karlberg wrote:

Quote

Winner's Circle & the Golden Doors are the ones that are the best in terms of suspense, but to me, I need one with a play-along factor.

You don't yell clues at the screen during the Winner's Circle?

Neumms · « **Reply #40 on:** November 19, 2007, 02:15:58 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'169968\' date=\'Nov 19 2007, 01:05 PM\']
[quote name=\'mitchgroff\' post=\'169965\' date=\'Nov 19 2007, 09:33 AM\']
Someone mentioned that the host doesn't count, and I agree in that the Donnymid WC was produced terribly. If Donny was at the helm for the original Pyramid, that would have been fine.
[/quote]
As I've said before: Donny was easily the BEST thing about that version of the Pyramid. It would have been completely tolerable if they had plucked him out and dropped him onto the 80's set with the 80's writers.
[/quote]

Except that he didn't play out the subjects like Dick Clark did.

One of the things that was so cool was the trademark clock tick. I can't imagine why they Harry Friedman didn't use it, or start with that and build a soundtrack around it.

How cool to see those early episodes when the money was big and the celebrities were almost as excited as the players.

tpirfan28 · « **Reply #41 on:** November 19, 2007, 02:22:31 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'169968\' date=\'Nov 19 2007, 01:05 PM\']
[quote name=\'mitchgroff\' post=\'169965\' date=\'Nov 19 2007, 09:33 AM\']
Someone mentioned that the host doesn't count, and I agree in that the Donnymid WC was produced terribly. If Donny was at the helm for the original Pyramid, that would have been fine.
[/quote]
As I've said before: Donny was easily the BEST thing about that version of the Pyramid. It would have been completely tolerable if they had plucked him out and dropped him onto the 80's set with the 80's writers.
[/quote]If Dick hosted the '02 version, would have been better? Or would it have been a bright red bow on a steaming hot pile of crap?

[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'169981\' date=\'Nov 19 2007, 02:15 PM\']
Except that he didn't play out the subjects like Dick Clark did.
[/quote]
OT: Last night's Family Guy had a Pyramid spoof, complete with Mr. Clark playing out a fake category...and the 80's theme too.

clemon79 · « **Reply #42 on:** November 19, 2007, 03:23:40 PM »

[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'169981\' date=\'Nov 19 2007, 11:15 AM\']
Except that he didn't play out the subjects like Dick Clark did.[/quote]
No, but that was his own decision, and I don't think it would have affected the overall show that much.
[quote name=\'tpirfan28\' post=\'169982\' date=\'Nov 19 2007, 11:22 AM\']
OT: Last night's Family Guy had a Pyramid spoof, complete with Mr. Clark playing out a fake category...and the 80's theme too.[/quote]
And I found this morning that Fox posts their episodes on the website the next day, so if you haven't seen it, watch it on the website. All it was missing was "two, four-fifty, five, six, seven-hundred and fifty dollars."

That Don Guy · « **Reply #43 on:** November 19, 2007, 03:58:45 PM »

The first thing that came to mind when I saw this thread was the $10,000 Dash from The Moneymaze. However, to be honest, I can't definitely put it above the Winners Circle.

Other choices: the Mystery Tune from $100,000 Name That Tune in its first two seasons. and the bonus round from All-Star Baffle (a contestant from the studio audience had to get nine words in 30 seconds from three-letter clues).

Honorable mention - not for how exciting it was, but for going against the flow; on the Bill Cosby version of You Bet Your Life, you had to pick one of three envelopes to see whether or not you were playing for $10,000, and you had to answer one final question - but in this case, the question came first, so if you got it wrong, you didn't have to suffer the humiliation of finding out you would have been playing for the $10,000. (Imagine if somebody was to even suggest doing something like that with the Wheel of Fortune bonus round.)

-- Don

Chief-O · « **Reply #44 on:** November 19, 2007, 04:07:14 PM »

Indeed, I believe both Alphabetics and the Winners Circle to be the best. Lots of suspense, lots of play-along factor, yet simple and tied to the rest of the game.

I'll also put in another vote for the NYSI Solo Round. Of course, though, NYSI's been a favorite of mine altogether lately, so I'd have some bias.....