The original Family Feud game board (was computerized!)

[jlgarfield]

https://books.google.com/books?id=oLuly6UdghYC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=Ferranti-Packard+board+Family+Feud&source=bl&ots=LeFTt_hqma&sig=ACfU3U3aFbDirPexVWw-HfjUF1R8z4ApBw&hl=en&ppis=_e&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjI_uORzbvnAhWT9Z4KHVQ5An8Q6AEwBHoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q=Ferranti-Packard%20board%20Family%20Feud&f=false - Hey, all. Here's something cool: This November 1976 issue of Computerworld talks about the then-new game show Family Feud's Ferranti-Packard game board being powered by a 32K Jacquard Systems computer! Quite the technological marvel then.

[knagl]

Nice find. The article mentions that Feud was a "new" show. Was this the pilot set? It doesn't look quite like the Feud I remember:

[Bob Zager]

Yes, it was the pilot set!  Here is the episode:

[BrandonFG]

Nice find. The article mentions that Feud was a "new" show. Was this the pilot set? It doesn't look quite like the Feud I remember:

Even with all the time I spent working in TV, I’m always amazed at how tiny sets are in real life. You see it even more with shows recorded in 4:3.


Edited to insert smaller image to not distort the page on some browsers.  -knagl

[jlgarfield]

And in case you are wondering whether the same board was used in the later Combs version, it was NOT. Randy West states that Mr. Goodson paid about $250K for a faster, souped-version of the Ferranti-Packard board for Combs' FF.

[TLEberle]

And in case you are wondering whether the same board was used in the later Combs version, it was NOT. Randy West states that Mr. Goodson paid about $250K for a faster, souped-version of the Ferranti-Packard board for Combs' FF.

Stipulate that a production company wants to keep their properties on the air even if the host is an Olympic medallist pain in the neck--the Feud game board is a rather large bit of kit to keep around waiting for some network to come to their senses. There's also the notion that technology is continually improving so it makes sense that a game board from 1987 will be markedly better than one from 1976. $250k seems like a lot but as a part of the budget it was well spent and gets to be amortized over six years.

[Casey Buck]

The original board was still used on the Combs pilot that Buzzr aired a few years ago, which of course meant that Goodson ordered the faster board after it got picked up for series.

[chris319]

And in case you are wondering whether the same board was used in the later Combs version, it was NOT. Randy West states that Mr. Goodson paid about $250K for a faster, souped-version of the Ferranti-Packard board for Combs' FF.

More fiction from the fertile imagination of Randy West.

The Jacquard computer was replaced with a faster IBM PC and that's it. The character modules were $100 per character. This comes from Mark Bowerman, a more reliable source than Randy West.

The first year of FF was taped at 1313 N. Vine street, where a lot of the Barris shows originated as well as Shenanigans, the Don Rickles and Joey Bishop shows. The show later moved to the ABC lot at 4151 Prospect.

After its ABC run, the FF set was stored outdoors at 4151 Prospect where some of the wooden pieces warped, such as the "double" and "triple" signs.

[mparrish11]

It was THIS model.  https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=527

One of the commenters mentioned that he was the company's tech support for 2 years of the show's run--and was on-site during the tapings.

[chris319]

http://www.gameshowforum.org/index.php/topic,28657.0.html

[JasonA1]

the Feud game board is a rather large bit of kit to keep around waiting for some network to come to their senses.

Entire sets have been kept in storage longer than the 2 years it took them to dust off the Fast Money board.

-Jason

[TLEberle]

the Feud game board is a rather large bit of kit to keep around waiting for some network to come to their senses.

Entire sets have been kept in storage longer than the 2 years it took them to dust off the Fast Money board.

Is there just so much space that the idea of "it's better to have it and not need it" overpowers the space constraints?

[JasonA1]

I don't know the economics of it, but I imagine when you pour a bunch of a money into a set, and especially now, when you're storing the entire thing on your own dime between seasons anyway, you keep it there until you know for certain it's never going to be needed.

It was only months at best, but we know that Pearson found use for the guts of the Card Sharks 2001 set and turned a lot of it into Whammy! And Play the Percentages was out of production in 1980, but a big part of its set came out and got a new coat of paint for Nipsey Russell's Juvenile Jury in late summer of '82. So I suppose one of the reasons you keep a set, even if you know that specific show has a low chance of coming back, is to see if you can't use parts of it, at least.

-Jason

[Stackertosh]

I was surprised they kept the Syndicated Millionaire set i wonder how much of it if any will be carried over to the Jimmy Kimmel version.



Didn't Lingo and Baggage used the same set?

[chris319]

It's a shame they junked the old Concentration board and the prize slips.

When Concentration moved to California they redesigned the controller and I understand they ultimately built a new board based on the same design as the original one, except the trilons turned faster.

The prize slips for Classic Concentration were the same form and function as the old ones, but rebuilt. I once spent some time during a game watching Steve Ryan and a couple of stagehands running the slips. It was a LOT of work! Made me glad I had left that end of the business.