Author Topic: The Liar's Club -- Format Change Questions (Read 4679 times)

TimK2003 · « **on:** July 08, 2013, 09:30:38 AM »

I was watching old random clips of The Liar\'s Club off my Roku device this weekend, and was surprised to see how many rule/format changes there were during the show\'s 1970s run. Between the Ludden & Armstrong episodes, there were either 3 or 4 contestants, different betting rules (especially the 2-1 to 20-1 rule), and other different ways of earning bonus money or prizes. And I only thought this show was on just a couple of years at the most.

Since these eps were bicycled, I was curious to know what the actual chronological order of these format changes were, and what was your favorite/least favorite \"era\" of the show?

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #1 on:** July 08, 2013, 09:50:34 AM »

KTLA had it as a local once-a-week Saturday show from 1974-75 with Bill Armstrong as host, some times you would see a few of those in the USA run. When they went to a weekday show in the fall of 76, it was distributed by 20th Century Fox television. Around April of 77, Allen Ludden became host and the show was distributed by Sandy Frank. One thing I remember was the end game was changed on the Ludden version. They didn\'t do the wagering on the titles of paintings on the Ludden version.

byrd62 · « **Reply #2 on:** July 08, 2013, 04:04:40 PM »

I remembered watching the Allen Ludden era of Liar\'s Club. The final round, which had been the \"Art Corner\" round in the Bill Armstrong era, became one in which the celebrities each held and explained a different object, and the contestants had to guess which star\'s description was correct. Then, it became a \"Guess the Liar\" round.

BrandonFG · « **Reply #3 on:** July 08, 2013, 04:41:12 PM »

What\'s this about it being on Roku? Is it on one of the side channels, or one of the bootleg Youtube apps?

TimK2003 · « **Reply #4 on:** July 08, 2013, 09:50:33 PM »

I use the Video Buzz channel as my YouTube for Roku. Video Buzz got eliminated from Roku several months ago, but it is now resurrected (as shareware) under http://www.myvideobuzz.in/\'>http://www.myvideobuzz.in/ as a side-load channel.

Follow the directions on loading it onto Roku. Then once you have it as one of your channels, you can look up anything (shows, people, etc...) in the search section.

I typed in \"Liars Club\", for example, and it will give you a whole selection of streaming YouTube (et.al.) videos. You can select & watch them one at a time or select \"Play All\" and it will play them all down the list.

The downside is that videos that are in multi-parts are not necessarily in order on the list, and there is no guarantee that all multi-parts of a single episode can be easily found in the search feature. Also is that if the author wrote an extended description of the clip or episode, you can never see the whole description if it is more than just a few words.

The one LC format that was the most bizarre was the one where each of the 4 celebrities could only be bet on by one contestant. Whoever had the 2-1 odds had first crack at who they thought was right, the 5-1 odds contestant had to pick one of the remaining three, the 10-1 odds contestant had to choose between the remaining two, and the one who got whichever star was left was given 20-1 odds on their bet. You could bet as little as $1.00, as one contestant did. Since this one was a multi-part stream, I only saw the first segment, but it looked like the 2/5/10/20-1 odds remained over most, if not all, of the game.

parliboy · « **Reply #5 on:** July 08, 2013, 10:46:17 PM »

That format sounds way too crazy for TV, but just the kind of concept I want to write a game around.

WarioBarker · « **Reply #6 on:** July 09, 2013, 12:48:17 AM »

Quote from: TimK2003 on July 08, 2013, 09:50:33 PM

I only saw the first segment, but it looked like the 2/5/10/20-1 odds remained over most, if not all, of the game.

While the same odds were present, they "shifted" for each round so everybody got to have first pick and hence each set of odds. Still didn't hide how stupid the concept was, though.

[EDIT 5/20/16: Fixed broken formatting.]

Craig Karlberg · « **Reply #7 on:** July 09, 2013, 03:16:25 AM »

I was never a fan of the Art Corner. But Allen Ludden\'s version was fun to watch. It\'s always neat to see unusual objects as celebrities try to explain what the heck that thing is.

As far as the kooky format for the end game, who decides who gets first crack at the 2:1 pick? I\'ve never seen the 10:1 or the 20:1 odds displayed(the most I saw was 5:1).