I was wondering if anyone could think of a game show where they had contestants on the show under special circumstances... I'm not talking about theme weeks, but they were on a game show for reasons other than that they happened to come to the show to try out.
Here's a few that come to mind.
Hollywood Squares(Davidson)- There was a show, I want to say it was the week they were in New York. They had two contestants, Pat Sajak and Van A White. Pat was female, and Van was male. John Davidson explained that they were picked because of their names.
Family Feud (Dawson)- A family sent a video tape of their family, introducing the family and explaining that they couldn't really afford to fly out to play the game but wanted to be on the show. First they showed the tape, then Richard announced that the family would be on a future show, but told the viewing audience and studio audience NOT to send video tapes as a method of trying out.
Hollywood Squares (original)- Peter said in his book that they had civilians that happened to look like people playing the game (and not part of Ron Smith lookalikes or anything like that) and amongst them were JoAnn Worley, Phylllis Diller, Wally Cox, and then President Jimmy Carter.
Whammy!- Ed, James Larson, Janie- Need I say why this was special circumstances? Classic moment when James hit "Big Bank", but unfortunately didn't claim it.