Longest running game show to not have a home game

[Neumms]

Card Sharks did finally get a home game around the time of the syndicated revival, but it played like the original show.

It was a terrific home game. I'm surprised Gambit never had one. High Rollers--same producers, another play on casino gambling--had one. I suppose the Gambit Board might not much fun to play, but if you played several matches you could keep a cumulative dollar score.

[That Don Guy]

I'm still waiting for the "Play the Percentages" home game

It never made it out of the testing stage - they couldn't build a little stand right to keep the percentages board from crashing.

I once found a rare mint copy of the Kline & Friends version of The Joker's Wild.  I was very disappointed when I opened it up, as all it contained was a dictionary, because as you know, The Joker's Wild is a game of definitions...

I thought that was the home game version of the late 1960s syndicated version of Beat the Odds (where one of the consolation prizes was a copy of the Funk & Waggnals Dictionary).

And if weekly shows count, was there ever a home version of (G.E.) College Bowl, which lasted for something like 13 seasons on TV (and then, after a few years' break, three seasons on CBS radio)?

[Matt Ottinger]

And if weekly shows count, was there ever a home version of (G.E.) College Bowl, which lasted for something like 13 seasons on TV (and then, after a few years' break, three seasons on CBS radio)?

In fact, there was.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/14417/college-bowl

[Neumms]

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/14417/college-bowl

Curiously, there's nothing electric involved. Matt, did any other game have a ring-in mechanism like this? It just might have worked.

[Matt Ottinger]

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/14417/college-bowl

Curiously, there's nothing electric involved. Matt, did any other game have a ring-in mechanism like this? It just might have worked.

Not specifically, but there were some creative efforts to solve the electronic-buzzer issue over the years.  The most famous were probably those delightful Jeopardy "cricket clickers," but there were some other ideas that were every bit as creative as the College Bowl solution.  My favorite was the original Sale of the Century home game, where you threw your tiddleywink into a tray, and the person whose "wink" was on the bottom of the stack got to answer the question.

[calliaume]

Exactly.  It would be a pretty faithful representation of the show, and couples might have enjoyed it.  Whether it's "fun" would be absolutely no different that whether the various home versions of The Newlywed Game would be "fun".

We gave a copy of the 1986 Newlywed Game to a couple who had just gotten married, and played against them and another couple (both of those couples had been together for five or six years at that point, whereas Karen and I had been together less than two).  And we stomped them - so it definitely wasn't "fun" for them.

Tattletales was already so close to TNG in format similarity that I don't know how much closer it could be for the home game without Chuck Barris' lawyers making a call.

[whewfan]

It's funny, I didn't really notice the similarities between Wheel and Million Dollar COAL until I got the home game of the latter. One thing I did like about Wheel's home game is that you could play the game alone, as when you chose a letter, it told you what positions the letter(s) on the board were located. If memory serves I think COAL also did that. I don't think I've ever owned the Deluxe version of Wheel, but one of my friends did. Oddly enough, he never wanted to play it, but that plastic wheel with the added on wedges... AWESOME.

I also would've liked to own the Scrabble TV game show home game. But I was much like that kid from The Middle, that tried to get people to play home games of game shows, and most of my family didn't want to play, but a few did just to humor me I guess.

I was stunned to see a home game of The Moment of Truth... who in their right mind would want to play that game, and how did the lie detector aspect work?

I never owned the Finders Keepers home game, but I saw it at stores. It basically had small boxes with small items hidden inside, and you had to pull out items until finding the item that the clue related to.... not as much fun as trashing your house!

 

[That Don Guy]

I was stunned to see a home game of The Moment of Truth... who in their right mind would want to play that game, and how did the lie detector aspect work?

It comes with a "biometric lie detector." Radio Shack used to sell things like that. I assume it works similarly to how the "lie detector" on Hot Seat worked.

[Jeremy Nelson]

Remote Control had a box game.

And a computer version for the Commodore 64, Apple II and IBM, if we are counting those.

...and an NES version.