Great short-lived shows

[TLEberle]

I thought Caesars Challenge was a nifty word game (and I'm one of the few that thought the second bonus round was better).

I have to imagine it was a case of "we're giving away too many cars."

Also if you can't clear the first three words in five seconds what are you doing on an anagram show?

Trivial Pursuit (sans the touch tone lead in half hour) was also a fun 30 minutes, and went through more content in half an hour than I originally thought- roughly 40 questions in the front game. Really hoping that the new version resembles that pace versus the 2007 version.

The first two rounds were functional and OK but I loved the final race to the finish where you can jump in and sprint to victory. And yes, we were getting tons of content on a cable network. Truly we did not know how good we had it. Interactive Game is an amazing soporific after a day of contestant stimulation. Try it at home!

As to the unintentionally hilarious nerds from Double Dare, I think Ralph Doty knew his role, to phrase a coin. And hell yes I plowed through the Amazon Prime bundle. I had some recuperating to do for a month and Alex Trebek in daytime is comfort food for me as much as mom's mashed potatoes and pork chops.

[Ian Wallis]

I thought Caesars Challenge was a nifty word game

I'll go along with that.  I always enjoyed Caesar's Challenge.

[BrandonFG]

I thought Caesars Challenge was a nifty word game (and I'm one of the few that thought the second bonus round was better).

I’ve said this before numerous times, but CC is one of my textbook examples of a show that was either five years too late or too early, and deserved better regardless.

Trivial Pursuit (sans the touch tone lead in half hour) was also a fun 30 minutes, and went through more content in half an hour than I originally thought- roughly 40 questions in the front game. Really hoping that the new version resembles that pace versus the 2007 version.

This might be another example. When this and Wink’s other interactive games dropped in 93-94, I was excited because we had very little on the networks and in syndication. Unfortunately, none of those shows lasted long either but it was fun while it lasted. I think the problem with the games of 94 was that, while they had play along value, who wants to see people push buttons to answer questions for 30 minutes?

[Jeremy Nelson]

I thought Caesars Challenge was a nifty word game (and I'm one of the few that thought the second bonus round was better).

I have to imagine it was a case of "we're giving away too many cars."

Also if you can't clear the first three words in five seconds what are you doing on an anagram show?

Actually, I think having the letter shuffler include all letters, not just the ones in the word, was a crazy devious way to trip people up.

[clemon79]

Also if you can't clear the first three words in five seconds what are you doing on an anagram show?

It's important to point out that the contesti were taken straight out of the audience with little to no vetting, and likely the audience in large part came straight from the casino floor. I'm sure the primary criteria was a lack of inebriation, and their only internal confidence needed was "hell, I'm great at Wheel of Fortune, I can do this!"

My only issue with the second bonus game was that it largely relegated Testicles to the back burner, and the mo' Testicles on that show, the mo' better.

[Loogaroo]

Well, testicles is a nine-letter word, so you have to solve the first four words first.

[BrandonFG]

I thought Caesars Challenge was a nifty word game (and I'm one of the few that thought the second bonus round was better).

I have to imagine it was a case of "we're giving away too many cars."

We never got the show in this area, so all I saw happened on a summer vacation in Dallas or the occasional USA rerun. But from what I remember, they rarely gave away cars in the original format. If it was once a week I'd be surprised.

[TLEberle]

Couple thoughts on that:

Their main eye-catching prop being the slot machine, the second one was the bingo cage, which is something they can't control. You can have someone win on the word HOGTIEING, (and Chrome indicates a spell-check, so yeah.) where I imagine the producers were hanging hopes on a loss, or a four-time winner gets the word ELEGANCES, and moves most of the consonants into place and rides off in the car. You just never know what the lucky letters will be, and I don't think a production team wants their grand prize to be out of their tight control.

What they could have done is start a new champion with the jumble and say "it's your first day, if you can solve it like that you win the car," but after weeks of move one letter per day as champion, you can't really backtrack.

So you now play the bonus round on a computer generated gameboard that gets wheeled into place and producers get to stack the words, but instead of a seven-or-eight day winner piling up tons of loots and then a car, the show institutes a three day limit. Nobody can ever get too comfortable before they are back to the casino floor.

Fun idea and even with the benign questions it's a fun watch helped by the host team chemistry, but it's not a fantastic game.