Unused set elements visible on air

[Jeremy Nelson]

I was watching a Week 1 episode of Password Plus today and saw that there are recessed rectangles on either side of the desk, suggesting (but not confirming) that they may have tinkered with adding the score readouts to the desk rather than overhead. These rectangles are covered later in the year.

So it got me thinking- are there other set pieces/elements from shows where you thought "hey, this must be from one of the pilots"? Two other things immediately come to mind:

Blockbusters- the hexagon-within-a-hexagon on the podiums seemed out of place, and the pilot confirmed that those are just covered up score readouts

Fun House- There's a black square in the center of the home base podium- was that intended to be used as a game clock?

[WhammyPower]

Of course, there's the Money Cards board from the pilot visible in every Perry CS intro.

[JasonA1]

The 4th digit in the bank on later years of Combs Feud. That was an awesome one to get answered after all these years.

-Jason

[JMFabiano]

As I learned of this thread from it...

The checkmark boxes on the prize list of Narz Concentration (apparently carryover from NBC).

EDIT: Beat to the fourth digit of the (New) Family Feud (Challenge) total score readout.  For a time I thought they used said readout to show the Bullseye stakes, but when the FFC pilot was seen on Buzzr was when I got the real story. 

(Plus that made no sense as the Bullseye values were seen on a screen in the middle of the Bullseye prop)

The giant Percentage sign now stuck to the bottom of the floor by the time Play the Percentages underwent its first format tweak.

Speculation but....

Would the segmented "*MATCH" readout on MG90 count?  If it was ever intended for scoring to be more like 7x. 

The three staircases on the MG/HS Hours backdrop may have been for introducing the three MG contestants in the pilot. 

[golden-road]

The checkmark boxes on the prize list of Narz Concentration (apparently carryover from NBC).

IIRC the rule where if you match both Wild Cards to the same prize and solve the puzzle means you win two of said prize was still intact.

[knagl]

The original run of Pyramid had a board over an unused bottom row of trilons in the winner's circle category wall.

[Sodboy13]

Fun House- There's a black square in the center of the home base podium- was that intended to be used as a game clock?

This was originally a single-character Eggcrate readout. In two pilots/test shows that made it to air (plus at least one that didn't, which played the front game for cash and had an absurd budget,) all of the prize tags had a "barcode" on the back. The tag which triggered the Power Prize was not shown to the home audience before the run; rather, at the end of it, JD would take the prize tags the team had snagged, and stick them, one by one, into a slot above the center display to "read" the barcode. On one of the test shows, the center display would beep and boop while flashing some different characters, then either the buzzer or the Power Prize siren would sound. On the other, a shot of Tiny would be superimposed over the display after the beeping and booping, and he would either say "Sorry!" or "You Win!" or things to that effect. (The unaired pilot had the Power Prize tag claiming everything in the Fun House, to the tune of $25,000. Like I said, absurd.)

The two aired pilots also had some cosmetic changes around the set, a clock that counted down in tenths of seconds, and every stunt in the front round earned the losing team runner-up points, like the "key game" in the UK version.

EDIT: Here's the unaired pilot, which, contrary to my memory, did not have the center display yet, but did use the barcode gimmick.

[aaron sica]

Would the segmented "*MATCH" readout on MG90 count?  If it was ever intended for scoring to be more like 7x. 

This, along with the "4 digits are for the bullseye readout", crossed my mind too - that perhaps the * was a match, the M, the A, etc.

/Never noticed that in early P+ - will have to go back and look now.

[SwohS Emag]

Possibly not technically relevant to this discussion, but my kid self always thought there were three "doors" at the top of the Louie Anderson Feud set that should have been used in some way.  In the first season, it appeared that there was a balcony (with a rope safety border) that would have served as a floor.  I can't imagine I was alone in thinking this, but maybe.

[aaron sica]

Possibly not technically relevant to this discussion, but my kid self always thought there were three "doors" at the top of the Louie Anderson Feud set that should have been used in some way.  In the first season, it appeared that there was a balcony (with a rope safety border) that would have served as a floor.  I can't imagine I was alone in thinking this, but maybe.

Along those same lines, though, 5 year old me watching "Tic Tac Dough" thought the circular show logo on the studio floor was a wheel, and I was hoping the contestants would spin it.

[whewfan]

Would the segmented "*MATCH" readout on MG90 count?  If it was ever intended for scoring to be more like 7x. 

This, along with the "4 digits are for the bullseye readout", crossed my mind too - that perhaps the * was a match, the M, the A, etc.

/Never noticed that in early P+ - will have to go back and look now.

The Bert Convy pilots we've seen have all 6 celebs participating in each round regardless if they matched in another round. It's possible they thought of doing the original format again, and the celeb's nameplates also looked like they could accommodate that. Whether they did a pilot with those rules, we may never know.

As mundane as Match Up was, it made the game much more fair, and didn't force the celebs to huddle together to be sure they all had the same answer if the contestant needed to match them all to win.

As for Password Plus, a different scoring format where money was awarded for each guessed word was implemented. I'm sure there was also money for guessing the puzzle. I'm guessing they went with using overhead scoreboards because they would be easier to see.

The Family Feud Challenge pilot also had an unused element... apparently in the Bullseye round, money was also originally awarded for the 2nd and 3rd most popular answer, but I guess at the last moment they decided that ONLY the Bullseye answer would count, and didn't bother to cover up or explain the unneeded graphics for the other two answers.

The Now You See It grand staircase seemed a bit superfluous when they revised the format.

[JasonA1]

The Bert Convy pilots we've seen have all 6 celebs participating in each round regardless if they matched in another round. It's possible they thought of doing the original format again, and the celeb's nameplates also looked like they could accommodate that. Whether they did a pilot with those rules, we may never know.

I came across some Match Game scripts from September 1989 (the month leading up to the pilot), and through each revision, the scoring was the same as what we saw (all 6 celebs at all times, 2 points per match in round 3). I absolutely agree they were leaving the possibilities open by having the lights built the way they were built, but as far as a full pilot with the old scoring, signs point to no.

The Family Feud Challenge pilot also had an unused element... apparently in the Bullseye round, money was also originally awarded for the 2nd and 3rd most popular answer, but I guess at the last moment they decided that ONLY the Bullseye answer would count, and didn't bother to cover up or explain the unneeded graphics for the other two answers.

We saw in the second half of that pilot they could mask the rest of the Bullseye board with graphics. I simply think none of the answers given in the first half were #2 or #3.

Buzzr posted a screengrab of a different FFC pilot with higher money amounts for all 3 answers. As the team's total bank was on the screen along with it, my guess was they did the top 3 thing for both halves, and decided to streamline the final Bullseye round by the time they shot the pilot Buzzr aired.

-Jason

[MSTieScott]

The Now You See It grand staircase seemed a bit superfluous when they revised the format.

As for Now You See It elements that were never used, the green and blue shapes up in the champion's gallery were capable of lighting up, but we never saw what the intention of that feature was.

Additionally, the neon lights that trimmed the set also trimmed the challengers' area. But presumably they were too bright and distracting in close-ups, so while the glass tubes remained, those lights were never turned on.

[That Don Guy]

The checkmark boxes on the prize list of Narz Concentration (apparently carryover from NBC).

IIRC the rule where if you match both Wild Cards to the same prize and solve the puzzle means you win two of said prize was still intact.

Correct, but on the Narz version, instead of the checkmark, they just put two cards with that prize on the board.

[WhammyPower]

The checkmark boxes on the prize list of Narz Concentration (apparently carryover from NBC).

IIRC the rule where if you match both Wild Cards to the same prize and solve the puzzle means you win two of said prize was still intact.

Correct, but on the Narz version, instead of the checkmark, they just put two cards with that prize on the board.

And there was a great example of this recently: