Most obscure game shows

[vexer6]

 Good to see my topic is still getting posts after all these years

Looks like "Pay It Off" has fallen into obscurity as I can only find a few clips but no full episodes, too bad.

[That Don Guy]

Well, since the thread has been resurrected, here are a few San Francisco local ones I can think of:

California Countdown (mid-1970s, on the local ABC station) - teams of San Francisco bay area elementary/middle school students would answer questions based on California geography. It had a strange format; 16 schools competed, then the 8 winners returned and competed against each other, then those 4 winners came back for the final, which was three rounds - round 1 had two of the schools, round 2 had the other, and the winners met in round 3 for the grand prize, which was usually a (black and white) video camera with tripod and reel-based video recorder. I'm not sure who hosted the first season, but Jim Lange took over after that; I know there was a second and third season (I even remember the two tiebreaker questions in their finals: how far below sea level is Death Valley's lowest point, and how long is San Francisco's longest street?)

Super Bowling (one season, early/mid-1970s, on the local CBS station) - three contestants per day would spin a wheel that landed on a number from 2 to 10 and they had to knock down exactly that many pins on a bowling lane without guttars (a precursor to "bumper bowling"), with 1 ball for 2-5 or 2 balls for 6-10. Whoever was closest to their target chose one of five boxes, which was put at the top of a machine (I'm not sure if it was just a large ramp or there was someone inside that would bowl the ball); one box had a ball, and the number of pins knocked down determined the prize won - there were 10 prizes randomly put on a board, with a car as the top prize. There was also a cash jackpot element for landing on "bonus" on the wheel and knocking down 10 pins with 2 balls.

Junior Champions (first season) / PAL Champions (second season) (early 1970s, Saturday mornings, on what was then the local NBC station) - kids (always boys, and I think there were two divisions, something like 11-12 and 13-14 year olds) competed in sporting events like throwing footballs through a tire, pitching baseballs at a target, shooting basketballs, and running an obstacle course. In the first season, each of ten qualifying shows had six kids (three from each division) from a particular city where they held tryouts (and they aired film highlights of the tryouts); each winner advanced to one of two semi-finals, and each semi-final winner advanced to the final. In the second season, each episode was two teams of two.

[chris319]

KRON-TV in San Francisco has had some local game shows over the years.

In the mid '60s they had a show called "Pick a Show" emceed by "Mayor" Art Finley. ISTR it ran during breaks in "Bachelor Father". The game board was somewhat like the old WOF board with rotating panels. There were five rows of rotating panels. On each row, the shows for a given night's prime-time lineup were depicted. The top row was Monday, the 2nd row was Tuesday, etc. On each of the five rows, the letters K-R-O-N and the numeral "4" (for channel 4) were concealed. Art would call a home viewer. Starting on the top row (Monday), the contestant would "pick a show". The rotating panel was turned and if a letter appeared, the game continued. If the reverse side of the panel was blank, the contestant lost. The contestant won by picking KRON4 on all five rows.

Now here's the thing. At the conclusion of the game, Art did not expose the panels that had not been picked by the contestant. So if the producer wanted a win, they could have loaded the board so that letters appeared behind all of the panels on all of the rows, thus, the contestant couldn't lose. Because the unpicked panels were not revealed, the audience would have been none the wiser. Or, they could have loaded rows 1 - 4 with all letters and left the fifth row with all blanks. The game was totally rigable. Sneaky.

Prizes were tradeouts with dinner at a local restaurant or merchandise from a local merchant in exchange for an on-air mention. They may have had a way to ensure the restaurant/merchant received a mention even if the game was lost.

ISTR viewers sent in postcards with their phone number. A postcard was drawn at random and I imagine they were called just prior to the break rather than being called on the air (it was live).