Choose Your Own Bonus Round Adventure: $ale

[That Don Guy]

No love for the pre-jackpot version, where the largest prize was a $50,000-ish car plus around $5000 in cash - IIRC, the exact value of the cash made the value of "the lot" exactly $95,000?

Personally, I'm a fan of the 1970s version bonus round, where you can buy multiple prizes, and they just kept adding bigger ones as the current champion increased their total.

[Neumms]

Did one risk his prizes to come back during the matching board era?

Yes. That's how Mark DeCarlo won it all.

Ah! Thanks. And I wish I knew the 70s version better.

I can see why NBC kept pushing for a bonus round. I don't like the WBMG, but the original shopping, with a mass of prize descriptions and the anti-climatic "Jim, I'm coming back" wasn't a great capper to an exciting show. Putting each day's big buy at random would seem to help, but the board was sort of anti-climactic, too.

As a viewer not winning anything, I think Rossi's end segment was the best we've had. It had a way to win more shopping money, and five days to the top prize was difficult enough yet didn't drag out.

[Bryce L.]

As a viewer not winning anything, I think Rossi's end segment was the best we've had. It had a way to win more shopping money, and five days to the top prize was difficult enough yet didn't drag out.

But it also had the potential for the awkward moment of "it's day five, you don't have enough money for the car, so buy what you can and GTFO."

[PYLdude]

As a viewer not winning anything, I think Rossi's end segment was the best we've had. It had a way to win more shopping money, and five days to the top prize was difficult enough yet didn't drag out.

But it also had the potential for the awkward moment of "it's day five, you don't have enough money for the car, so buy what you can and GTFO."

Which is why to me, it was another in the list of failings that Temptation had.

The Knock-Off portion to add money was pretty nice, but why was there a need to cut off the champion at five wins? The whole beauty of the shopping game was, to me, the climb and the greater risk being taken the longer you played on. Like, is this going to be the day Joey JoJo Junior Shabadoo of Bucksnort, Tennessee gets taken down in his quest to get that $100K in cash and prizes. It just makes everything anticlimactic to tell Joey JoJo to sod off after five days and only give him one prize for his effort (that was another thing, no lot to win).

Me, I’d rather be on in the Winner’s Board era. Sure, all that cash and the car in the WBMG are tempting, but as far as I see it, a) I’m good enough to have gone all the way (not that eight wins is anything to scoff at, but...ya know...eleven and I didn’t have to play one more time if I didn’t want to), and b) at least for the first eight shots at the board I’m picking stuff off at my own pace and not being forced into taking something because it was on offer that day.

[BrandonFG]

Me, I’d rather be on in the Winner’s Board era. Sure, all that cash and the car in the WBMG are tempting, but as far as I see it, a) I’m good enough to have gone all the way (not that eight wins is anything to scoff at, but...ya know...eleven and I didn’t have to play one more time if I didn’t want to), and b) at least for the first eight shots at the board I’m picking stuff off at my own pace and not being forced into taking something because it was on offer that day.

Yesterday I watched a clip where a longtime champion was dethroned on his 10th day. The only prize he didn't clear from the board was the car, but Jim mentioned he won $18K in cash along the way. While I stand by my answer of 95K and the car, if I really wanted to do so, I could buy a nice car for $18,000 in 1985.

/I like Clay's answer too

[Fedya]

I can see why NBC kept pushing for a bonus round. I don't like the WBMG, but the original shopping, with a mass of prize descriptions and the anti-climatic "Jim, I'm coming back" wasn't a great capper to an exciting show.

Give the champion a chance to cash out at something like mid-four figures per game won.  Go for the car and the $100K jackpot, or walk away with $30K cash now?

[PYLdude]

I can see why NBC kept pushing for a bonus round. I don't like the WBMG, but the original shopping, with a mass of prize descriptions and the anti-climatic "Jim, I'm coming back" wasn't a great capper to an exciting show.

Give the champion a chance to cash out at something like mid-four figures per game won.  Go for the car and the $100K jackpot, or walk away with $30K cash now?

I’m more of a fan of a one time only bonus with the car, maybe hide $25k in the glove box or trunk. You get one chance to take it. If you don’t, and you don’t make enough to buy the next available prize (whether it be all of the prizes on the stage or the jackpot), you don’t get another chance at it.

[TLEberle]

Give the champion a chance to cash out at something like mid-four figures per game won.  Go for the car and the $100K jackpot, or walk away with $30K cash now?

That's effectively what the prize is there for.

For a game show that presumably changed formats because they were tired of paying out cash jackpots worth over $50k every few weeks and not attaching prizes to them to leaven the budget bite I cannot see them attaching a cash prize to the item up for grabs if the champion quits.

The thing about changing to the Winners Bored is that the prizes were less valuable than the ones up for grabs during shopping. (No three week South American jaunts or fortnights on the Orient Express--now it is a weekend in Puerto Vallarta.) The other issue is that any bonus game is going to feel out of place because we're going from fast Q&A to something else.  Maybe they could take a page from Battlestars where the champion plays a Fame Game and picture puzzle for cash that goes in escrow to be claimed at the cash jackpot level but I can imagine that a champion who has just battled for twenty minutes would be relieved to not have to do anything for five minutes but listen to Jim and Jay and smile until it is time for the decision.

[Jeremy Nelson]

I can see why NBC kept pushing for a bonus round. I don't like the WBMG, but the original shopping, with a mass of prize descriptions and the anti-climatic "Jim, I'm coming back" wasn't a great capper to an exciting show.

Give the champion a chance to cash out at something like mid-four figures per game won.  Go for the car and the $100K jackpot, or walk away with $30K cash now?

I’m more of a fan of a one time only bonus with the car, maybe hide $25k in the glove box or trunk. You get one chance to take it. If you don’t, and you don’t make enough to buy the next available prize (whether it be all of the prizes on the stage or the jackpot), you don’t get another chance at it.

Not to veer too off topic, but I've always thought they offered the champions way too little on Lot days in terms of cash added to Instant bargains.

[BrandonFG]

I can see why NBC kept pushing for a bonus round. I don't like the WBMG, but the original shopping, with a mass of prize descriptions and the anti-climatic "Jim, I'm coming back" wasn't a great capper to an exciting show.

Give the champion a chance to cash out at something like mid-four figures per game won.  Go for the car and the $100K jackpot, or walk away with $30K cash now?

I’m more of a fan of a one time only bonus with the car, maybe hide $25k in the glove box or trunk. You get one chance to take it. If you don’t, and you don’t make enough to buy the next available prize (whether it be all of the prizes on the stage or the jackpot), you don’t get another chance at it.

Not to veer too off topic, but I've always thought they offered the champions way too little on Lot days in terms of cash added to Instant bargains.

Agreed. During the shopping era episodes I've seen, departing champs only went home with a couple thousand for their troubles. Meanwhile, a Wheel contestant racked that up in a couple rounds.

[Neumms]

Let’s take the original pure shopping round, the grand prize is a luxury car and money costing compiled front game winnings of, say, $600. What if each day they let you buy a smaller prize...yet come back? The drawback to buying is you’re further away from the end goal.

There isn’t “the lot” on display, just the new temptation each day. As a champion keeps returning, the prizes get bigger, though prices stay around $100-200. The host could haggle as in the front game. As the car approaches, maybe the temptation does require exiting the show but for thousands of dollars or a smaller car. Then again, a champ could just buy the small prize each day and play as long as he can.

I’m trying to leave shopping as the final act, but make the champion’s decision more interesting. Instead of stay or never come back, it’s spend or save.

[Fedya]

That's effectively what the prize is there for.

Sure, but I think a lot of people would rather have cash than most of the prizes on a lower level than the car.  A lot of them seem like white elephants.

[CoreyArcher]

As a viewer not winning anything, I think Rossi's end segment was the best we've had. It had a way to win more shopping money, and five days to the top prize was difficult enough yet didn't drag out.

But it also had the potential for the awkward moment of "it's day five, you don't have enough money for the car, so buy what you can and GTFO."

In the awkward formulation of $ale final acts, I think Aussie Temptation had the best idea. You've still got the champion choosing whether to risk it and play on, but then you've got a standard but well-executed end game functioning as a cash builder for the cash jackpot, so we're not left with the anticlimax of a contest saying, "Well, Jim, the moped looks great, but I'm coming back," when we all know that's exactly how it's going to end.

[TLEberle]

That's effectively what the prize is there for.

Sure, but I think a lot of people would rather have cash than most of the prizes on a lower level than the car.  A lot of them seem like white elephants.

Nobody is making them spend up. Perhaps there should have been more cash available in the front game then. It can't be "people should buy more" and also "golly, who would want this?"