$ale of the Century Tournament

[TheInquisitiveOne]

Hello everyone!

Consider this scenario: You are the director of $ale of the Century (or whoever it is in charge of creative control of what I am about to tell you). You have been tapped to do a Tournament of Champions with all of the past big winners of the show. The tournament is to be done during the Shopping Round format.

How would you devise the tournament? How many contestants would be in the tourney? How would the endgames be played (keeping in mind that this is during the Shopping era)? What would be the grand prize?

Thanks in advance for the creative responses!

The Inquisitive One

[TLEberle]

Three questions:

How many returning players are there?

What's my prize budget for the tourney?

How long is NBC willing to let the tournament run?

-Travis

[Jimmy Owen]

Well, some of the couples may have divorced, should both be asked back or just the one who answered the most and wouldn't they be reely old? Honestly, unless it is staged in your hometown community theater, $ale is never coming back. But, since this is for fun, there should be 64 players seated in brackets, with two players at a time competing in a one question showdown paring the field to 32, and then eventually moving on to a sweet sixteen, elite eight, final four,etc until the championship with the winner taking all. This would fit in a two hour prime time special.  Never again will we see a daytime network game show launched.

[Craig Karlberg]

Since the NCAA tournament now has 65 teams, shouldn't there be 65 players with a play-in showdown to start the show off?  BTW, the winner of that showdown will most likely pair up with the biggest moneywinner.  I'm not sure if there's a budget big enough to handle a 64(65 in my case) player field.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Mar 22 2004, 01:48 AM\'] Never again will we see a daytime network game show launched. [/quote]
 We love your optimism

[TLEberle]

Hey, there's always a chance we could see $ale again.  Since it's a completely hypothetical situation, here's what I'd do:

Invite back anyone who won 'the lot,' all the prizes from the Winner's Board, or seven or more victories from the Money Game era.  Versions from earlier than 1983 are out of luck. From those, pre-show drawing or testing would determine who would get to play.

For six days, players would play the standard game.  Three IBs, three FGs, and the Speed Round.  The eventual winner would then go back to the showroom, and could pick any prize if the champ had enough to cover it.  (Prizes would be in the range of $2,000 to $5,000, and cost between $50 and $150.)

The six winners would be joined by the three players who posted the top main-game scores.  They play for slightly bigger prizes, and only the winner moves on.

The final is played with substantially bigger bargains and FG prizes.  The eventual winner would win a car and $50,000.  Maybe a trophy, if there was money left.

Travis

[TheInquisitiveOne]

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Mar 22 2004, 11:01 PM\'] Invite back anyone who won 'the lot,' all the prizes from the Winner's Board, or seven or more victories from the Money Game era.  Versions from earlier than 1983 are out of luck. From those, pre-show drawing or testing would determine who would get to play.

 [/quote]
 That's a very good idea. The only problem I have is with the winners from the 1987 to 1989 (Winner's Big Money Game) era.

It would be very difficult to find winners of seven or more victories during that time, since (from all I know) there were only four people who made it that far: Phil Cambry (who won the car but failed in his attempt at $50,000 during Trick or Treat Week), Rani White (who was the only contestant in that era to successfully win the $50,000), Robin (I forget her last name, who fell short of winning the car because she jumped in too early for the name of the city on which the mayor of Los Angeles presides), and Darrell (I forget his last name too, but he was the last contestant to go for a car, since it was $ale's last week on the air).

Victory seven was for the car, and game number eight (if the car was won) is the limit. So I say that allow the five or so best players who reigned in over $50,000 in cash and prizes be considered for tournament play.

The Inquisitive One

[Game Show Man]

This one screams for my input:

(BTW, I'm willing to bet that $otc will be back.  It's just too solid a format to let lay by the wayside forever.  It's true that it will likely never get back to NBC daytime but it WILL BE BACK.)

The $ale of the Century Tournament of Champions (in my revival of the show)

Sixteen players compete, with priority going to players who've won the Lot, followed by players who've won five or more games, followed by top money winners.  Why put number of games over total winnings?  Simple: for consistency.  It's harder to win multiple games in a row than it is to put together a big stack of winnings, IMHO.

For my $otc tournament rules, I would adapt the rules from the Aussie $ale of the New Century for four players.  Otherwise, the standard game (a better way to describe the format, IMHO, is to think of it as three rounds of a preprogrammed number of questions, say 10, with an IB in the middle and a FG at the end of each round, concluded by the Speed Round).  At the end of the second round, the low scorer is waxed; the player on the low end at the of the third round suffers a similar fate, with the two remaining players to battle it out in the Speed Round.  The winner advances to the championship game (on Friday) and goes to the Showroom and either A) gets a pick off of the Winner's Board or B) buys a prize in the manner Travis Eberle describes above...except that for my ToC, there are only cars, ranging from $25,000 up to $90,000+ (depending on what the prize coordinators can score) and priced as Travis describes above ($50 for the low end cars and $150 for the most expensive car).

The eventual winner of the tournament wins a MONSTEROUS Cash Mega-Jackpot equal to the total of all the Cash Jackpots won during the regular season.  (GADZOOKS!  Talk about your $ale of the Century!)

"Game Show Man" Joe Van Ginkel

[TLEberle]

I remember seeing Robin's quest for the car on a USA repeat.  I fully expected her to return on Monday's show, and was a bit nonplussed when she didn't.  I think her full name was Robin McCurahan, and she won about $42,500, which was a damn fine total for that era.

Just when you think you're a geek, someone has to go and raise the bar.  I think I'm going to cry.

Travis Eberle

[TrplPlayRD]

I would have the 9 biggest winners (from all 3 end-game formats) compete for one week for a top prize of $500,000 in cash and prizes.

Instant Bargain and Fame Game prizes would be bigger in value for the week.

Each winning contestant from the first three days would win $10,000 in cash and advance to the 2-day final.

Whoever wins the 2-day final match would win $300,000 in cash, a car worth around $75K-$100K, and the rest in prizes.  The 2nd place finisher would recieve $50,000 in cash and the 3rd place finisher would get an additional $25,000.