Buzzr Discussion

[Thunder]

The Buzzr Facebook page's user comments are quite hilarious because you've got a few people acting like Buzzr Ambassadors. They try to answer all the questions, because Buzzr doesn't give a rat's ass.

[BrandonFG]

The Buzzr Facebook page's user comments are quite hilarious because you've got a few people acting like Buzzr Ambassadors. They try to answer all the questions, because Buzzr doesn't give a rat's ass.

I've noticed this on the Antenna TV page as well, usually when someone asks about why certain shows air at certain times, or when they'll pick up a show they don't have the rights to air. Nine times out of 10, the Internet hall monitors are way more obnoxious.

Don't they have a Wikipedia page to closely guard?

[Thunder]

That Peacock guy probably got it deleted.

[PYLdude]

And the Sunday night lineup reset again after only three weeks.

I'm guessing that it's gonna be a good long while before we get our next big winner...which by my calculation would've started tonight, no, because her jackpot was a little over $60K, $64K if I remember correctly? (And while I'm at it, out of all the folks that won the lot during this era, that was the lowest jackpot winning total, right? I'm not sure if anybody else besides John Gose(?), Alice Conkright, and Tim Holleran went all the way and each one of those jackpots was over seventy grand.)

[TLEberle]

And the Sunday night lineup reset again after only three weeks.

I'm guessing that it's gonna be a good long while before we get our next big winner...which by my calculation would've started tonight, no, because her jackpot was a little over $60K, $64K if I remember correctly? (And while I'm at it, out of all the folks that won the lot during this era, that was the lowest jackpot winning total, right? I'm not sure if anybody else besides John Gose(?), Alice Conkright, and Tim Holleran went all the way and each one of those jackpots was over seventy grand.)

Was somebody talking about numbers? My spidey-sense tingled.

John's jackpot was $72,000; Helaine won $64,000, Alice $77,000 and Tim $90,000 and that was it. I wonder if the cash value of All The Things was dependent upon the size of the cash jackpot, or if the prize coordination is done so far in advance that you can't control that.

Watching the run from the beginning, John is spending up like a boss, and getting lots of control of the Fame Game board, which inflates his final total a great deal.

Fun fact: John was the first person to buy a major prize. Several contestants won a few games and had the chance but pushed a little too far and were thanked for their participation.

[PYLdude]

Funny you bring up buying stuff vs. not buying stuff...Alice only ended up with what, about five large worth of additional stuff? Compare that with the guy she beat to become champion, who ended up with about $18k or so. Took all kinds I guess.

Next question: what do you think made for a more dramatic end result, the shopping round or the Winner's Board? To me, it's the former because the risk is so great and you don't know who's going to be waiting for you next time out. Whereas in the Winner's Board, the only drama is in the decision to retire after clearing the board. I mean sure, you still have to win, but you could easily rack up $30-$50k in winnings with a couple lucky picks of the board whereas if you wanted that kind of haul in the shopping round you had to do more work.

[TLEberle]

Funny you bring up buying stuff vs. not buying stuff...Alice only ended up with what, about five large worth of additional stuff? Compare that with the guy she beat to become champion, who ended up with about $18k or so. Took all kinds I guess.

Alice won $141,400 and her lot was $136k. Her domination of the Fame Game segment won her the food processor, gold dumbbells and the like.

Next question: what do you think made for a more dramatic end result, the shopping round or the Winner's Board? To me, it's the former because the risk is so great and you don't know who's going to be waiting for you next time out.

The thing of it is that the showroom allows you to zone out until the drumroll and decision because Jay Stewart is doing the legwork. The winner's bored prizes were almost always lower than the entry level $85 major prize (you're not going to find those month-long trips or big expensive jewelry pieces on the board) but there's almost always the chance of winning something really good, but at least it feels a little satisfying. The thing that's not-so-great about the bored is that even with incumbency it takes eleven wins to hit paydirt, rather than seven or eight shopping days, depending.

I would almost take a page from Dream House/the original Sale/Century for the shopping ending: you could stay on and put your money in the bank (can I also say that one of the only things I enjoyed even a bit on Temptation was the "10% off" coupon) and carry on, or do a Fast Forward and attempt to win any prize you can't yet afford by winning a bonus game whose difficulty is contingent upon the difference, but if you blow it the next episode features three new challengers.

[PYLdude]

I thought the Aussies did the Winner's Board pretty well...you risk every prize every time you come back, plus the cash jackpot stays as the final level. Not that $50,000 is chump change, but...

[aaron sica]

From the "BuzzrPlus+" channel on Facebook, I found  this interesting:

Here's something you may not know. FremantleMedia and BUZZR provide 2 hours of "bonus" content weekly to affiliates to air on another subchannel in their frequency. Those shows include the syndicated 1986 Card Sharks with Bill Rafferty and the syndicated 1999 Family Feud with Louie Anderson. KGNG Las Vegas airs those 2 games on their independent subchannel branded Movies Plus, channel 47.5 (BUZZR's on 47.2). KCDO-TV Sterling/Denver took it one (big) step up. The independent station branded K3 airs those games on their primary channel, 3.1 on Saturdays at 4:00 PM local time. It's the only footprint BUZZR has on the satellite pay-TV outlets, as K3 is carried on all cable/satellite/telco systems in the Denver market. So our friends in Denver, and the surrounding areas, having access to the BUZZR network (on KCDO's OTA channel 3.3) or not, can watch 2 hours of BUZZR game shows. Interestingly enough, it's two versions of games that aren't carried on the network. Nifty, isn't it?

[Casey]

Thanks for sharing this!  I live in Denver and while we don't yet have Buzzr on Comcast (and I don't have an antenna to receive the OTA channel), this is definitely good to know about.  Thanks!

[splinkynip]

Regarding SotC. I've seen all these shows for the first time now since some during the USA days and otherwise originally 31 years ago. I forgot how good this show was and how Jim Perry really shined. I remember when both daytime and then nighttime first switched over to the Winner's Board and as a kid, I grew to like that better. But now looking back, it just killed part of the originality of the show. Sure, most people continued until they won the cash jackpot or lost, but once the shopping was dropped, the front game became less important in terms of how much was won there. Then that winner's big money game put the nail in the coffin.

Wondering how many contestants between daytime and nighttime stopped after clearing the board and opted not to risk it for the additional $50,000. And did anyone risk it and lost the next day?

Anyone know how many times in daytime was everything won? How many stopped at the cash jackpot level? I would think that was the reasoning for switching the order in the syndicated version.

[PYLdude]

As far to my knowledge:

Everyone who took the risk on the Winners Board did so successfully.

At least two contestants stopped after clearing it.

The original lot was claimed once on the daytime series, as was the lot plus the jackpot.

[Bryce L.]

As far to my knowledge:
At least two contestants stopped after clearing it.

Actually, there's at least three known: Jeff Hewitt, Margerite Newhouse (both in late 1984), and Andy Ross (somewhere between January and April 1987)

[PYLdude]

As far to my knowledge:
At least two contestants stopped after clearing it.

Actually, there's at least three known: Jeff Hewitt, Margerite Newhouse (both in late 1984), and Andy Ross (somewhere between January and April 1987)

That's why I said "to my knowledge". I knew there was probably another.

[jimlangefan]

On top of Card Sharks with Bob Eubanks, Blockbusters has been refreshed starting this week as well.