Oddball (Pilot)

[PPatters]

Okay, so odd question. I don’t know why, but I decided to rewatch the game show pilot Oddball. (I’m a sucker for Jamie Farr, I guess!) I know that the concept behind the show was essentially trying to update Get the Message with more celebrities, a la Match Game 73.

I know most people universally agree that the format they had here didn’t work. They had too few words (only four words in a half hour) and there wasn’t too much humor. Is there a way, you think, to inject the fun of Match Game into a Get the Message-style game or was this too ill-fated an idea to begin with?

[Jeremy Nelson]

It later became Just One, which won a Spiel De Jahres award for board games, so enough people thought that this format had the legs to be a fun game.

I think it's pretty well known by now that Match Game was a "lightning in a bottle" concept. With a show like Odd Ball, they would have done well to try not to be humorous and just let it happen where it fell (I'm thinking along the lines of Super Password). Also, cut the number of celebs to 4 or 5.

[PPatters]

I actually own Just One, too! Yeah, for this pilot, I didn’t understand the idea that the celebrities were on competing teams. Ultimately, the clues helped both contestants. And, I agree — the big change for Match Game 73 from the original Match Game was that it really was no longer a word game. At its heart, Oddball still tried to be a word game and I don’t see that as being inherently funny.

Great insights! Thanks.

[Neumms]

It was pretty fun, just too slow. I wonder if you could make it work by having one panel of five or six and only one contestant. Let's say the contestant gets $500 for the first word, keeps doubling as long as s/he is right (up to a maximum), with one mulligan. Put the contestant in a Double Dare-style isolation booth so there's less walking back and forth.