$ale of the Century to GSN.

[sotcfan2004]

Just finished watching today\'s episode, and it\'s like a breath of fresh air to see $ale back on TV, even if it\'s the WBMG era. I was really reminded what a class act Jim Perry was, compared to the newer hosts of the last decade who would sooner drink dishwater than veer away from a teleprompter.

[Sodboy13]

Yeah, these \"special edition\" tournaments take a lot of zip out of the format. For those who know which episodes GSN purchased, will we be seeing more of these in this block?

[Strikerz04]

Considering I didn\'t see it today (still relying on YouTube), there\'s true romance and Brides Week at least.

[TLEberle]

Yeah, these \"special edition\" tournaments take a lot of zip out of the format. For those who know which episodes GSN purchased, will we be seeing more of these in this block?

The thing of it is that if the top three players out of nine winners qualify to play for the car (and let\'s be honest, a Ford Probe is hardly the caliber of car that the show would offer) it makes the instant bargains all the less attractive. And to surrender your lead for a 1/3 shot at $2,000? Heck no. Personally I think there should be more shopping opportunities, that three isn\'t enough, and this sort of tournament nerfs the whole point of the exercise.

A thing that I thought off for a series of 65 episodes: let sixty preliminary winners decide if they want to keep their prize or pass it up and play in the 13th week where the final winner would take home a car or cash jackpot.

[catnap1972]

Maybe because we\'re all used to the crappy quality YT videos or trader tapes but the PQ was amazing (don\'t even remember it looking that good on USA Network)

[catnap1972]

 let\'s be honest, a Ford Probe is hardly the caliber of car that the show would offer

 

Pretty much the caliber they were offering near the end of the run.  Quite a step down from the early days when they offered Cadillacs and Mercedes.

[clemon79]

And to surrender your lead for a 1/3 shot at $2,000?

IIRC, after an Instant Cash hit there would usually be a few days of no takers while it built up again.

[TLEberle]

During a tournament the jackpot would stay at the same level throughout until the final where it was raised to something almost enticing. So in this case it was nine days at $2,000 and finally on day ten (and this was doubly insulting as there was no Money Game, the champion won \"just\" the car) it was raised to $5,000.

[Jeremy Nelson]

I could sit up here and complain that the $ale episodes acquired were from the WBMG era, but my god the quality is stellar.

[TLEberle]

We\'re pointing out that this particular tournament makes a further mockery of the format than even the Money Game did. I was about to say that Sale of the Century is a terrific game show when done poorly but that\'s just not the case anymore.

[cool245]

Somebody at WTVY must be a game show fan because the announcement of GSN acquiring Sale and more PYL made their newscast http://www.wtvy.com/news/odd/headlines/Cable-Network-GSN-Adds-Classic-Repeats-of-80s-Gameshow-Sale-of-the-Century-199295561.html and they sent out a reminder tweet again this morning to watch.

[bradhig]

There used to be a Service Merchandise near where I used to live in St. Louis. It had a big white outline of a diamond with the words Service Merchandise.  I don\'t know why but when ever I saw it I would hear the  SOTC theme in my head.  I guess the top of  the diamond looked like the top of the door to the bonus game.

[Loogaroo]

The way I see it (and to be fair, Adam saw it the same way), WBMG had three fatal flaws:

 

1) It didn\'t matter that you could conceivably get one wrong and still be in the running. You\'ve soaked so much time off the clock with that one wrong answer that it\'s practically impossible to recover.

2) No small payouts for each right answer. Contestant had one second left with only one solve (after inexplicably being allowed to pass on the previous one). Wasted formality going on after that.

3) The clock didn\'t seem very accurate. At the very start, it jumped off of 20 rather quick (maybe a third of a second after the first word popped up), and the above mentioned one second ran out literally the moment Perry said \"next puzzle... now\".

 

I will say, though, credit to them for finding these episodes in such good quality, and for leaving the full credit roll mostly untouched (it got about 3/4 of the way through before it got relegated to bottom-left).

[TLEberle]

2) No small payouts for each right answer. Contestant had one second left with only one solve (after inexplicably being allowed to pass on the previous one). Wasted formality going on after that.

And do what, exactly? $100 per right answer? Yawn.

The big problem I have is that depending on the puzzle you can\'t really even hazard a guess until at the earliest the third word and sometimes the fourth.

[Strikerz04]

 

 

1) It didn\'t matter that you could conceivably get one wrong and still be in the running. You\'ve soaked so much time off the clock with that one wrong answer that it\'s practically impossible to recover.

 

The WBMG was designed almost the same way as they wrote the questions in the main game: You\'re rewarded for quick answers. In this case, if you can knock out the puzzle by the third word, stay ahead of the clock, you might be able to afford to miss or pass and still hit the money.