My roommate and I attended the first day of taping of the series “Flip Side.”
Format: Two teams of two. The couples have a relationship: relatives, co-workers , or friends. The first phase of play gives each team two questions about a survey of a specialty group. The team must choose the most popular response of three choices to score 250 points. Teams alternate turns. The title comes into play because each pair of questions has a theme. Parents of teenagers was followed by a poll of teenagers. A poll of husbands was followed by a poll of wives.
The second phase is a repeat of the first phase but a correct guess scores 500 points.
The third phase is a lightning round and the flip side theme is jettisoned. The team with the higher score begins the round. A team has thirty seconds to guess which of two choices is the more popular poll answer. (Example: More snoozeworthy – Golf or Baseball?) Players on the team alternate taking guesses until time expires. The first poll is worth 100 points and the value of each subsequent poll is increased by one hundred.
The fourth phase has the winning team play against the house for $10,000. The team alternates turns choosing one of ten answers to pick the five most popular in a survey. Two wrong guesses and team wins $1000 for its efforts. There are no returning champions.
Production Glitch: During phase three a player is not allowed to guess until the host finishes reciting the question and the choices. One player blurted a guess before the host was finished. There was a audible alert that a penalty had occurred but there was long silence as the clock continued to countdown. About eight seconds had passed before the next question was read but it was too late and the other team was declared the winner.
Everybody in the production company started to look very serious and the production was halted temporarily. One heretofore unseen staffer (I assume from Standards & Practices) had a long talk with the declared winning team. Nothing was said to the audience and when production restarted it was picked up in the middle of the botched lightning round and a new winner was declared.
My opinion: This production company watched “Family Feud” (the original series) and took notes. The production is such that no question is dwelled upon for very long. The questions are interesting but I suspect the people who were polled were given multiple choice answers. Jaleel White is an engaging host who kept the mood light even during tape stops.
