Unused set elements visible on air

[CJBojangles]

The Spelling Bee prize stands have always had three-digit eggcrate displays but never use the first digit because they only use two-digit prices.

[chris319]

No, that's Door #2.

It's been ages since I've watched TPIR, but I thought Safe Crackers and Lucky Seven were both played at the door that's more stage right than the others.  (I suppose the turntable would be further stage right, but it's also downstage from the doors.)  Are the doors not numbered from stage right to stage left?

1.  Do you mean Safe Crackers and 5 Price Tags?  Because I'm really not sure how Lucky $even comes into this discussion.

2.  This is easier to explain another way.  Door #1 is orange, Door #2 is blue, and Door #3 is green.  If you look at the start of any playing of Safe Crackers or 5 Price Tags, you'll see Drew is standing between the blue door and the green door.  The same holds true of Bob and the doors' previous designs.

Door 1 is parallel to the flying pipes in the studio. This is a throwback to the New York set. The center line of the set is where door 1 meets door 2. Whenever you would see a flying wall, that's door 1.

[Brian44]

One more TPiR example...

"Pass The Buck" originally had 8 spaces to choose from, with spaces #1 and 2 flanking the game's logo. This didn't last too long before it was streamlined to 6, but the extraneous spaces still remain on the board, covered up with dollar bill graphics.

Also, the GP podium remained 3-sided several years beyond that gameplay change.

[Brian44]

Another TPIR example:

When the original Temptation board was modified to accommodate 5-digit car prices but the game was still being played for a car with a 4-digit price, a dollar sign appeared in the first position of the egg crate display but Bob never pressed the corresponding button.

[Kevin Prather]

The Spelling Bee prize stands have always had three-digit eggcrate displays but never use the first digit because they only use two-digit prices.

I guess Wheel of Fortune's scoreboards from the 90s count here. Each scoreboard was seven digits, allowing for scores of over $100,000 to be displayed. I don't think that was ever done.

[Jeremy Nelson]

I dunno. I think it was mainly done because the previous podiums would lose the dollar sign when the score leapt to five figures, so they fixed it when they renovated the home base.

[Kevin Prather]

I dunno. I think it was mainly done because the previous podiums would lose the dollar sign when the score leapt to five figures, so they fixed it when they renovated the home base.

I always wondered why it did that. An aesthetic reason? Not enough power to run all six displays? (Obviously I'm being facetious there.)

[Bryce L.]

I dunno. I think it was mainly done because the previous podiums would lose the dollar sign when the score leapt to five figures, so they fixed it when they renovated the home base.

I always wondered why it did that. An aesthetic reason? Not enough power to run all six displays? (Obviously I'm being facetious there.)

I'm legit curious what the deal was there, since AFAIK they'd been using the same scoreboards from sometime in mid-1977 to about July 1990, and that glitch didn't start until about October 1989.

[Bob Zager]

I think it was at the beginning of the 1983-1984 season (Barry's last), the contestant stands had a very narrow white light below the scoring indicators (as shown below);

https://s2.dmcdn.net/v/BnESD1M7QpdT6TeQF/x1080

Now very briefly AFAIR, there were signaling buttons on the top of the stands, though not shown in the picture.  My impression was they were going to try something like "jump-in" questions, but I never did see these lights come into use at all.  Anyone know?

[TLEberle]

I thought it was just a cosmetic upgrade—if they were going to do jump ins they would want to use the red bulbs that were more prominent.

[Otm Shank]

I thought it was just a cosmetic upgrade—if they were going to do jump ins they would want to use the red bulbs that were more prominent.

And they very well could have done that by wiring the red lights to the lockout system and the white light bar be the turn indicator. Why not just use the existing red lights for both the lockout and the turn indicator? Because then the lights could be manipulated, and Jack wouldn't want to be near any faint suggestion of impropriety. This falls into the zone of Wheel of Fortune stopping the wheel spinning at the top and bottom of the show because it gave the appearance of a device that could be controlled.

[Neumms]

Now very briefly AFAIR, there were signaling buttons on the top of the stands, though not shown in the picture.  My impression was they were going to try something like "jump-in" questions, but I never did see these lights come into use at all.  Anyone know?

I’ve wondered that, too, and about the narrow piece added to the bottom of face-off stand on Dawson Family Feud.

[Bob Zager]

Now very briefly AFAIR, there were signaling buttons on the top of the stands, though not shown in the picture.  My impression was they were going to try something like "jump-in" questions, but I never did see these lights come into use at all.  Anyone know?

I’ve wondered that, too, and about the narrow piece added to the bottom of face-off stand on Dawson Family Feud.

That FF piece you're referring to, I believe, was where they stored signaling buttons for the face-off, in case one contestant didn't have the strength/ability to walk up to the stand.  I'd first seen it on a special "Celebrity" edition featuring the cast of Gilligan's Island.  Here is an episode featuring the system:  . 

You'll see it utilized around 11 minutes into the episode.   The buttons were wired, and if conditions were necessary on current series, they'd probably be wireless.

[Neumms]

…where they stored signaling buttons for the face-off, in case one contestant didn't have the strength/ability to walk up to the stand.

Well, I’ll be. Thanks!

[alfonzos]

Recalling a fading memory of a show of which I was not fond: "Showoffs" original format had the teams playing a best out of three series. Score was kept with a single digit readout and when a round was won a drama mask was lit indicating so. A format change meant that scores could go higher than nine making a single digit readout useless. The best two-out-of-three scoring was ditched making the masks useless. Please correct me if I am misremembering this.