I've been lucky enough to see a tape of the 1989 pilot and the big surprise of watching it is that Peter really WANTS to be there, is infectiously happy through the entire half hour, and doesn't at all behave like he's cashing a check or slumming it. I hated knowing that it didn't sell just based on how much fun Peter was having. The neat touch they added to the Bid-a-Note round: Peter had a keyboard built into his podium and played the notes himself for each clue.
I'm curious, what other elements were there?
The game was played with three contestants. For Round One, there were four Tune Topics-style categories on the board, each with four tunes. Contestants would select a category & Tune 1, Tune 2, etc. Each tune was worth a random amount between, I think, $100 and $250. Being wrong locked you out of the next tune played. Each category also had a bonus tune. The contestant who named it could win the same amount of cash again by answering a trivia question about the tune.
Round two had four new categories. This time, each category started with a value of $100. Every time a tune was played, the value would increase by $10 every tenth of a second. When you rang in, a correct answer paid whatever the category was worth at that point, so there was a test of nerves element to it (buzz in immediately for less money, or wait for more money but risk losing out on somebody else ringing in). The value for the category kept growing through all four tunes in the category, so if you rang in at $520 on the first tune, the next time you went to that category, it would start at $520 and grow from there.
Lowest score was eliminated after round two and the survivors played Bid-a-Note, played the same but with one major difference: You couldn't win by default. The third tune had to be earned by naming it yourself. If it came to a situation where one player failed to fill their bid and the other player could win, the opposing player got to hear the maximum seven notes and had a chance to guess after that.
Winner played the Golden Medley, which is simply called "The $25,000 Round" in the pilot. It had to be a last minute change because you can see Peter keeps WANTING to call it Golden Medley and struggles whenever he says the different name.
