I was recently fortunate enough to get a script for a pilot that's new to me: The World Quiz Show. I wanted to share what I found with the group.
Right off the bat, the cover says it's a Hatos-Hall production, hosted by Dick Enberg. I had a hunch it was a precursor to 3 For The Money.
And sure enough, it is! Here's an early TL;DR for you: it's essentially the same show, but with a full 30 minute runtime, an extra civilian per side, and a heavy dose of sports-like presentation. (It's at this point I'll talk with the assumption one knows how 3 For the Money works.)
Teams were separated into divisions, and were given animal names. This script represents 2 pilots taped on February 17, 1975. They saw Robert Reed captain the Sharks against Bernadette Peters and her team, the Owls. The show begins with Jack Clark saying "The World Quiz Show presents...the Game of the Day!" before introducing each team, along with their current standings. Dick Enberg introduces himself (as a sports announcer would) and talks more about the stories of the season so far. He explains that the team that ultimately wins the world championship later in the season will take home $75,000.
The winners of the off-screen coin toss decide whether to start on offense or defense. Like 3 For the Money, Dick introduces 3 categories, and throws to break while the captain in question decides a strategy. We return to the gameplay we know from the series. As a player is called for their specific category, they come out of a dugout with an intro from Jack Clark before it's decided how many players they'll be up against. Instead of money, it's scored by points. It's said in this script that the star can challenge 2, 3 or 4 members of the opposing team to play. That implies, to me, that the celebrity captain on each side is always playing. But it could easily be the captain setting strategy alone, and only playing in defensive situations.
There's an insert page here for Instant Replay. If and when the judge interrupts with their signal, Dick calls for the last answer to be replayed, to see if the response made it in before the buzzer.
After 3 categories, unlike the series, the opposing team now gets a full act and 3 categories of their own to play on offense. After that, it's the final catch-up period. It's at this point Jack Clark plugs a prize for the MVP of the day: Gucci luggage worth $589.
The catch-up period lasts for 4 minutes, with each team getting 2 time-outs. There is also an official time-out when 2 minutes remain overall. It says here that a player can "strike out" - I can only assume that means getting 3 wrong answers knocks you out of the round. When a celeb calls for a time out, they go back to the dugout for 15 seconds to settle up a new strategy.
When the clock reaches 2 minutes, Dick says that from then on, the clock will only stop for a lead change, or a team-called time out. There's also an unnecessary complication here about "If a time-out is called between 20 and 30 seconds [remaining], there will be 3 questions left in the game..." with Dick summarizing every permutation of calling time out in the last half-minute. Like the series, the team that's behind is on offense. Whoever's ahead at the final time's up wins the game.
We come back from a final break to discuss how the player with the most MVP awards over the entire season wins a new Cadillac convertible. After awarding the daily MVP, Dick teases tomorrow's match, a contest featuring the Foxes, who are captained by Rosey Grier. Rosey does a walk-on appearance before we say goodbye.
Something in the back of my mind told me 3 For the Money was pitched as a game with equal rounds, and sure enough it was - the only difference being the pilot was just one tobacco-spit short of being like any baseball game on the air at that time.
-Jason
