Happy 20th to Hot Potato!

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 02:44 PM\']
Why Jake bought that piece of s**t I'll never know. [/QUOTE]
I brought up a similar point in another post, about how Barry-Enright weren't very big in the creativity department (i.e. TJW and Bullseye being alike, similar bonus games). Interesting that they waited 8 years to rip off Feud. [/quote]
 Play the Percentages's bonus round had shades of Feud, particularly later in the run when it became the "pick the top five answers out of six shown for a survey question, thereby avoiding the one that scored zero", to win.

[GS Warehouse]

[quote name=\'ilb4ever2000\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 05:45 PM\']

Hey, it took them ten years to rip off Hollywood Squares (Break the Bank).

And one could argue HS is a ripoff of Tic Tac Dough. Not that I would... [/quote]
And I will argue that it's not: TTD actually predated HSq.

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'GS Warehouse\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 06:27 PM\'] [quote name=\'ilb4ever2000\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 05:45 PM\']

Hey, it took them ten years to rip off Hollywood Squares (Break the Bank).

And one could argue HS is a ripoff of Tic Tac Dough. Not that I would... [/quote]
And I will argue that it's not: TTD actually predated HSq. [/quote]
 Not to take away from your argument, but since TTD predated HSq, you CAN argue that HSq was a rip-off of TTD.

There are reasons that you can't make the argument, but predating isn't one of them.

Doug

[whampyl03]

QUOTE (GS Warehouse @ Jan 23 2004, 06:27 PM)
QUOTE (ilb4ever2000 @ Jan 23 2004, 05:45 PM)
QUOTE 
Hey, it took them ten years to rip off Hollywood Squares (Break the Bank).



And one could argue HS is a ripoff of Tic Tac Dough. Not that I would... 


And I will argue that it's not: TTD actually predated HSq. 


Not to take away from your argument, but since TTD predated HSq, you CAN argue that HSq was a rip-off of TTD.

There are reasons that you can't make the argument, but predating isn't one of them.

Doug

Hollywood Squares: October 1966

Tic Tac Dough: July 1956

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 06:04 PM\'] [quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 06:14 PM\']
All smoke and mirrors. The gist of the show was attempting to guess the top answers given in a survey. [/quote]
Well, yeah, but HP used questions from the Davis Research Co. which may not have been limited to 100 people (heck, maybe they just asked seven people).  In addition, HP occassionally used questions of a factual nature, such as "Name a current network game show host." [/quote]
 Time now for the "It's A Small World" department:  my primary place of employment, which also does market research, has collaborated with Davis Research on a number of projects in the past few years (all this well post HOT POTATO).  I remember having a brief conversation with one of the execs, who had a vague recollection of compiling some of the surveys that HP wound up using.  I didn't pursue it any further (there was no need).

Well, hope you enjoyed this pleasant little anecdote.  

Doug

[Adam Nedeff]

I often feel like I'm one of the only people on earth who liked this show. I will immediately concede that "Hot Potato" had a spectacularly horrid bonus round, why they went with that I'll never understand, as it was totally detached from the front game (not that that's always a bad thing). I will also concede that it's ripoff of "Family Feud" but let's note that "Hot Potato" actually admitted this in their own subtle way (note that Bill's rule speil included "What makes this game different...")

That said, it's a darn fine ripoff. First off, the questions they came up with were wonderful. It's not likely you're going to come in knowing America's 7 most-purchased dishes and drinks at diners and restaurants, but it's a nice test of common logic that could easily win a round if you just think about. It also posessed an element of strategy similar to "Split Second"...Come up with the most obvious answers and toss the potato to your opponents and leave them to come up with the more obscure answers. The "knocked out of the round" element and making the pass-play option available for an entire round of play made this a more strategic version of "Feud" (not better or worse version, just strategic). I thought it was a good game.

Memories of Hot Potato, since a few people have shared those: One that quickly comes to mind is an episode where the question was "What did people say was their favorite situation comedy currently on the air?" What makes this a classic is that either the team members weren't paying attention or just outright forgot the question, because late in the round, two contestants answer "Knots Landing" and "60 Minutes."

Also coming to mind is the "Boot Hill" bonus game question from the final civilian week, with Bill announcing five shows later during the first Celebrity week that due to the research department's error, the Coast Guard Rescue Team would get an additional $15,000. It comes to mind not just for being a feel-good moment, but also because the fellow who watched the show and spotted the error and called Barry & Enright Productions contacted me about 2 years ago to ask if I had any episode where Bill announced it; apparently, in the original run, NBC skipped a few episodes during the format change and never aired Bill's correction. So there's my antecdote.

[That Don Guy]

[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 07:11 AM\'] Got any favorite memories?  
Mine was when the clowns acted silly over a $5,000 win! [/quote]
The only non-"generic" memories I have are the team of Dominican Monks (introducing themselves as "I'm Brother <first name only>", and later pointing out to Bill that they had to donate their winnings to charity as they had taken vows of poverty), and, after Celebrity HP started, Bill announcing one day that a team of Coast Guardsmen was going to get $15,000 because although they had supposedly missed the question "In what state is Tombstone?", there really is a town named Tombstone in the "wrong" state, and somebody from the town had actually written to the show to point this out.

-- Don

[ChuckNet]

The only non-"generic" memories I have are the team of Dominican Monks (introducing themselves as "I'm Brother <first name only>", and later pointing out to Bill that they had to donate their winnings to charity as they had taken vows of poverty)

And in a matchup not unlike one you might see on Comedy Central's 1999 entry Vs, one of the eps saw the Monks playing against a team of Probation Officers. :-)

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[GSWitch]

I forgot to mention that there were two sound effects that could be found on other NBC games.

1).  In the middle of the run, a sharp DING! was heard for a correct answer (instead of a tingalingalng).  They borrowed it from Sale of The Century.

2).  The bonus round had 2 revealing answer sound effects.  The 2nd sound would later be used on WordPlay to indicate score!

[ChuckNet]

2). The bonus round had 2 revealing answer sound effects. The 2nd sound would later be used on WordPlay to indicate score!

Wordplay had a few recycled sound effects...for starters, the "bonus word audience reveal" sound was the same as the "booth deactivation" sound from the short-lived 1976 entry Hot Seat.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[zachhoran]

"Brad Garrett's Hot Potato" just might be the way to pay homage to HP's 20th anniversary, as Brad just may be out of work twofold come May(with the demise of Squares, on which he's been a semi-regular and the possible end of Raymond).

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Jan 25 2004, 11:23 AM\'] "Brad Garrett's Hot Potato" just might be the way to pay homage to HP's 20th anniversary, as Brad just may be out of work twofold come May(with the demise of Squares, on which he's been a semi-regular and the possible end of Raymond). [/quote]
 Or it might be a really, really bad idea.

[gameshowguy2000]

Here's what I didn't understand:

I don't know why Bill had to use "Correct" or "Incorrect" just to indicate if an answer made the list.

Why couldn't he just say "That made the list" or "That didn't make the list."

How can you have "right" or "wrong" answers on a survey question show such as HP?

[aaron sica]

[quote name=\'gameshowguy2000\' date=\'Jan 26 2004, 12:26 AM\'] How can you have "right" or "wrong" answers on a survey question show such as HP? [/quote]
The same way you can have "right" or "wrong" answers on a survey question show such as Family Feud.

As for the way Bill addressed right or wrong answers, we can't do anything about it, as he's dead, but maybe, just maybe, we can get Bob Barker to start addressing "Punch-A-Bunch" by it's name, instead of calling it "The Punchboard".

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Jan 25 2004, 10:34 PM\'] As for the way Bill addressed right or wrong answers, we can't do anything about it, as he's dead, but maybe, just maybe, we can get Bob Barker to start addressing "Punch-A-Bunch" by it's name, instead of calling it "The Punchboard". [/quote]
 In Bob's defense, the name of the game USED TO BE "Punchboard", but apparently a redesign of the board eliminated the row that spelled out the game's name. (Yes, I realize it always said "Punch-A-Bunch" across the top.) And fer God's sake, WE know what the game is, if he wants to call it "The P.X. Anus Sneermonger Game", does it really matter?