"You Bet Your Life" Questions.

[TimK2003]

I was watching a Dollar Store DVD with several episodes of You Bet Your Life on it this weekend, and came up with a few questions:

** How many total variations of the main question game did the show have and what year(s) did they appear in?  The 3 formats I saw on the DVD were:

1) Answer 4 Questions between $10 & $100 (only one available question per dollar amount).  Highest money winning couple plays the final round.
2) Start with $20.  4 Questions in which you can bet whatever you have, being careful not to bust. Again, highest winning amount plays the final round.
3) 4 Chances to reach $500.  Contestants randomly select a $100, $200 or $300 question. Those who win $500 (not sure if you can win a full $1200 or if the round ends at $500) play the final round.

** How many variations of the final round did the show have and what year(s) did they appear in?  (The episodes I had were from the "Best Of Groucho" package that NBC syndicated in & dated 1961).  It seemed like every episode had a different bonus round ranging from winning $2,000 up to $10,000, IIRC.  In one episode, one couple failed to win the necessary $500 to play the final round, so I'm not sure how the multiple couple format would have worked.

Also of note is that in the one episode I saw, the one couple said the secret word, but either nobody caught it or they were looking for the one specific definition of the word.  I believe the word was "Head", and the person mentioned they were the "head" of a company.

[MikeK]

** How many total variations of the main question game did the show have and what year(s) did they appear in?  The 3 formats I saw on the DVD were:

1) Answer 4 Questions between $10 & $100 (only one available question per dollar amount).  Highest money winning couple plays the final round.
2) Start with $20.  4 Questions in which you can bet whatever you have, being careful not to bust. Again, highest winning amount plays the final round.
3) 4 Chances to reach $500.  Contestants randomly select a $100, $200 or $300 question. Those who win $500 (not sure if you can win a full $1200 or if the round ends at $500) play the final round.

There was a 4th version, where the contestants won $1000 if they got 4 questions in a row right or were eliminated if two consecutive questions were missed.

[WarioBarker]

This is what I know. I haven't really watched the episodes on either the Shout Factory DVD sets or Disc 2 of the "Classic Game Shows And More" DVD set, so a few dates are uncertain. Also, I'm pretty sure there were some variants.

** How many total variations of the main question game did the show have and what year(s) did they appear in?

* 1947-52?: Three couples start at $20 and can bet all or part of it on four questions, with a maximum of $320.
* 1952?-53?: Couples start at $0, but select questions ranging from $10 to $100 (in $10 increments). Maximum is $340, and wrong answers carry no penalty.
* 1953?-56: Same cash scale as before, but couples now start with $100 and a wrong answer halves the bankroll. Maximum is $440, minimum is $6.25 (and several couples got the latter, leading to a really easy question for $25 like "Who is buried in Grant's Tomb?" or "What time is it when both hands point to the 12?").
* 1956-59: Two couples answer questions until they get two wrong or four right (both consecutively) for $1,000. (Debuted on the first show of the 1956-57 season.)
* 1959-61: Couples answer four questions selected by hand from the "Question Tray" valued at $100, $200, or $300 with appropriate difficulty. $500 is needed to win, although the maximum is $1,200.

** How many variations of the final round did the show have and what year(s) did they appear in?

* 1947-56: The highest-scoring couple plays one more question for the jackpot ($1,000 plus $500 for every show not won; I've seen it go to $3,500 once, but don't know if it was won). In the event of a tie, the couples write down their answers and the jackpot is split depending on the number of correct answers; at least once (early 1955), all three couples managed to score the maximum $440...But nobody won the $2,000 jackpot.
* 1956?-59: Couples who succeed in winning the $1,000 can elect to risk half on the $2,000 wheel; if the couple correctly picks what number the wheel will land on, they play for $10,000.
* 1959-61: Same as before, but now the couple chooses a second number for $5,000.