NEW PYRAMID CASTING.

[Strikerz04]

I guess its a sign of the times (still) that they're going for $1 Million, but its still a turnoff. I was expecting a $100,000 payoff in tournament play myself.

The one thing that I am hoping for is the judging to be consistent and the celebrities to play more like Cullen, Cook, Lawrence, and Polic the II this time around. One can only hope.

[BillCullen1]

[quote name=\'chad1m\' post=\'217161\' date=\'Jun 2 2009, 07:36 PM\']The ticketing site for the program has four taping dates scheduled and confirms that it will indeed be The $1,000,000 Pyramid. While I trust the show in Davies's hands, $1M, even at the end of a tournament, is still a LOT for daytime Pyramid.[/quote]

I tried to get tickets, but the site says I need to submit a photo. There was a time when they didn't care what you looked like to sit in the audience. Hopefully I can get the tickets somehow, since I live in the NYC area.

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'217193\' date=\'Jun 3 2009, 12:36 PM\']I tried to get tickets, but the site says I need to submit a photo. There was a time when they didn't care what you looked like to sit in the audience. Hopefully I can get the tickets somehow, since I live in the NYC area.[/quote]
Perhaps to confirm it's you? Not sure, but that's the first thing I thought of.

/Unless you have to now be pretty enough to simply sit on camera. :-P

[Tony Peters]

I would have been okay with a $250,000 tournament myself.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'217190\' date=\'Jun 3 2009, 09:23 AM\']If this goes as tournament mode, just don't make it anticlimactic like Donnymid. Have the contestants earn their big money...would be great to see this recorded at the Sullivan Theater, but then I remembered that Michael Davies loves his audience in the round sets. ;-)[/quote]
There, fixed that for you.

[Card Shark]

[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'217193\' date=\'Jun 3 2009, 12:36 PM\'][quote name=\'chad1m\' post=\'217161\' date=\'Jun 2 2009, 07:36 PM\']The ticketing site for the program has four taping dates scheduled and confirms that it will indeed be The $1,000,000 Pyramid. While I trust the show in Davies's hands, $1M, even at the end of a tournament, is still a LOT for daytime Pyramid.[/quote]

I tried to get tickets, but the site says I need to submit a photo. There was a time when they didn't care what you looked like to sit in the audience. Hopefully I can get the tickets somehow, since I live in the NYC area.
[/quote]

I tried to set this up last night and each time I tried to submit a jpg, being 2 mb, it told me the pic must be in jpg file only. Gee, why didn't I think of that! So, I think there was something wrong with the site last night.

[MST]

[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'217193\' date=\'Jun 3 2009, 12:36 PM\'][quote name=\'chad1m\' post=\'217161\' date=\'Jun 2 2009, 07:36 PM\']The ticketing site for the program has four taping dates scheduled and confirms that it will indeed be The $1,000,000 Pyramid. While I trust the show in Davies's hands, $1M, even at the end of a tournament, is still a LOT for daytime Pyramid.[/quote]

I tried to get tickets, but the site says I need to submit a photo. There was a time when they didn't care what you looked like to sit in the audience. Hopefully I can get the tickets somehow, since I live in the NYC area.
[/quote]

It looks to be a website mostly used for casting purposes, so the picture is probably for that. I figure they didn't plan on using their system for people who want tickets and yet don't want to be cast on "Real World / Road Rules Challenge".

[bandit_bobby]

$1 Million for the new daytime Pyramid? If they want to offer that much money, they should air the new version in syndication, not on CBS Daytime. $100,000 would be a more suitable top prize for daytime.

[Loogaroo]

Does anyone have any confirmation whether the $1M prize will be given out as a tournament purse or a money ladder-ish progression? If it is a tournament, they should really consider doing a three-stage thing: have three tournaments within the year for $100K, with the three winners of each tournament qualifying for the grand final at the end of the season.

Wishful thinking, I know, and maybe a bit too complicated for a casual audience to grasp, but it's a thought.

[chad1m]

[quote name=\'Loogaroo\' post=\'217224\' date=\'Jun 4 2009, 03:25 AM\']Does anyone have any confirmation[/quote]Nope, still speculation. We wouldn't have even known it was the $1M Pyramid if it hadn't been posted on the audience site. But Alex Davis will be at one of the tapings, so I'm sure we'll get some good info.

[Craig Karlberg]

The 3-stage thing regarding the tournaments sounds good in theory, but how far apart are you gonna do this?  Probably 6-8 week cycles is the best possible time frame since most of the 80's tournaments usually lasted close to 2 weeks on average.

As for the $1M prize, it's much too expensive for network daytime unless CBS did away with its winnings cap.  We'll see what comes out this weekend.

[NickS]

I look at it this way, regarding the point of budget:  Every 26 weeks or so, a certain show gives away $1 million to survive being stranded in a desolate location and what's partly for staged circumstances.

If CBS does the same for a daytime game show tournament, what's the difference?

Now - one (or more) will say, "But it's the daytime, the ratings are different!"  True, but aren't the production costs as well?  If you can splurge for a million every quarter and be under budget (vs. a soap's budget), I don't see a problem.  If it is, then ok - there's a bigger issue there.

[Jay Temple]

[quote name=\'Loogaroo\' post=\'217224\' date=\'Jun 4 2009, 02:25 AM\']Does anyone have any confirmation whether the $1M prize will be given out as a tournament purse or a money ladder-ish progression? If it is a tournament, they should really consider doing a three-stage thing: have three tournaments within the year for $100K, with the three winners of each tournament qualifying for the grand final at the end of the season.

Wishful thinking, I know, and maybe a bit too complicated for a casual audience to grasp, but it's a thought.[/quote]
[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'217227\' date=\'Jun 4 2009, 03:03 AM\']The 3-stage thing regarding the tournaments sounds good in theory, but how far apart are you gonna do this?  Probably 6-8 week cycles is the best possible time frame since most of the 80's tournaments usually lasted close to 2 weeks on average.[/quote]
This is something I wanted to see on Clark's 100K, but in the second season. Bring back the winners of the first six or eight ToC's. Narrow that down to three or four who would play a normal tournament. For a network version, I'd do it like this:

• The first ($100K) ToC starts the Monday of November sweeps. The show would debut eight weeks prior.
• Two more tourneys have eight weeks +/- of actual qualifying time, but reruns pad the schedule.
• The third $100K ToC begins the first day of May sweeps. The winner joins the other two on the very next show for a $1,000,000 ToC that's played the same way.

If there's a second season, figure out which sweeps period benefits the most from the $1MT and schedule other $100KT's accordingly. (Future $1MT's could start with four, six or eight $100K winners and have elimination games.)

[SteveR]

[quote name=\'Loogaroo\' post=\'217224\' date=\'Jun 4 2009, 03:25 AM\']Does anyone have any confirmation whether the $1M prize will be given out as a tournament purse or a money ladder-ish progression? If it is a tournament, they should really consider doing a three-stage thing: have three tournaments within the year for $100K, with the three winners of each tournament qualifying for the grand final at the end of the season.

Wishful thinking, I know, and maybe a bit too complicated for a casual audience to grasp, but it's a thought.[/quote]
I was thinking along the very same lines. My first idea was to have eight qualify for the grand final. But I don't think there are enough weeks in a season to get that many (or the cycles would have to be ultra-short, like five weeks each).

I think you can make six work. Here's how. Each cycle would be seven weeks long. For the first six, you play the regular 10K/25K game. Most WC money stays on as champion. After six weeks, the top three MONEY WINNERS (including front-game bonuses) advance to the $100K tournament.

The top three play off in the usual way for the $100K (no bonuses here), with the top two getting first crack on Monday.

Now, at the end of 42 weeks, we have six $100K winners. The top two money winners (including WC money won in their 100K week) get a bye. The other four go into a very cut-throat quarterfinal on the Monday of $1M week. It's a one-GAME (not one-day) playoff. You have semifinals on Tuesday and Wednesday. (On these days, each WC is worth $10K) The final starts Thursday, with each WC being worth a possible million.

OK -- what if each semifinalist gets a $10K win? Do they come back for another day or do you use total front-game points as a tiebreaker?

But getting all six isn't enough to win the million. It's got to be under a certain time limit (35 seconds? 40?). If you win in longer than that limit, you get $250,000.

OK, I probably lost most of you in the second or third paragraph. You can probably just reply with a simple 'WTC' -- Way Too Complex -- and I'll know what you mean.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'SteveR\' post=\'217245\' date=\'Jun 4 2009, 12:37 PM\']OK, I probably lost most of you in the second or third paragraph. You can probably just reply with a simple 'WTC' -- Way Too Complex -- and I'll know what you mean. [/quote]
Don't need to, because you already know.

1) A one-game playoff sucks. Just sucks. There's no reason not to make it a full day. The world will not come to a screeching halt if it takes four days to come down to two people, especially for a million bucks. (But I like the bye into the second round.) It's gonna start on an odd day anyhow, since there is no guarantee that the preliminary tournaments will be over in exactly one week. (Unless you hack the tournament period such that tournaments always start on a Monday. But even then, that last one is very likely going to throw off the schedule.

2) Changing the WC payouts during the Big Tournament to a flat $10K is an unnecessary complication.

3) "But getting all six isn't enough to win the million" is a crappy copout. Bad enough you're naming your show for a top prize you only give away once a year. You're also making a $250K win feel like a loss.

As for breaking ties, simple: If one person makes it to the top of the pyramid, that's how much time the other gets should they make it, just like a front-game tiebreak. If they both get two-four-fifty-five-six-seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollars, well, then, I dunno. Play a traditional tiebreaker back at the desk? Bring 'em both back tomorrow? Play a third game the next day and straddle? I dunno. But I don't think you want to refer back to a number (aggregate front-game score) that your viewers have already long since forgotten. (And plus, what if that's a tie? I suppose you could do the math on who got their points in the least amount of time and be reasonably certain that won't tie, but now you're getting WAAAAAAY too deep into numbers people don't care about.)

The basic problem, of course, is that ONE MEEEEELION DOLLARS is too big of a number to resolve with a simple coin toss. And I bet you the people banding that number about at Embassy Row aren't even thinking about that.