For the record, I preferred that show to Ohio's Cash Explosion Double Play show and would watch it when I was at my mother's for the weekend when it was on Saturday nights on the WGN cable channel. However, I don't remember games on that show called \"Mismatch\" or \"Thunderball.\"
I'm a little vauge on the second \"Knockout\" game, but this was sort of how it worked: Two vertical sticks were set up in a playing area and a \"bouncing cube\" was turned loose in the area for 10 seconds. If both sticks remained standing after the 10 seconds, the player's initial $3,000 bankroll was doubled to $6,000; otherwise it remained at $3,000. Then the game was played again with three sticks and the player's bankroll was tripled if all three sticks remained standing after 10 seconds of being attacked by the \"cube.\"
At this point, the player could elect to stop the game with his/her winnings to that point or play one more time with four upright sticks in the playing area. If the player chose to play and all four sticks remained upright after another \"cube attack,\" the player's bankroll was quadrupled; otherwise it was cut in half.
\"Pot of Gold\" was the end game, played by the top winner for the show against the returning champion from the preceding week. Eight \"pots\" were on stage, with the first five from the left numbered from 1 to 5, and the last three bearing (from left to right) cash amounts of $10,000, $25,000, and \"Big Money.\" To play, the challenger started from the left of Pot #1 and took 1, 2, or 3 steps toward the right of the stage -- but before making his/her move, the champion would \"booby trap\" one of the challenger's possible selections. If the challenger chose a \"booby trapped\" pot, he/she would have to return to his/her previous position to try again, and if he/she landed on a \"booby trapped\" pot again, he/she lost the game and the champion would win an additional $25,000 and return to the following week's show to meet a new challenger.
However, if the challenger managed to land safely on any one of the three \"money pots\" on the right end of the board, he/she became the new champion and won the amount in that money pot -- either $10,000, $25,000, or \"Big Money,\" which was selected from a tray of 9 coins that had concealed values inside ranging from $50,000 to $200,000. (Note that the only way to reach that last \"money pot\" was to first get to Pot #5 safely and then take three more steps to the \"Big Money\" pot at the end, which made for some interesting strategy on the part of the players.)
There was also a game called \"Fast Break,\" which was \"Home Run/Touchdown\" with a basketball theme, one called \"Vortex\" that was played with balls that were rolled into an inverted cone, and one called \"Wrecking Ball\" in which a ball on a pendulum was swung across a rotating turntable having 12 \"buildings\" on it, at least three of which had to be standing at the end of the game for the player to win the game's top prize. However, I have to go to bed right now, so we'll let someone else fill in the details on those games.
Michael Brandenburg
(Oh, yes, \"Illinois Luckiest\" had that crazy pinball machine -- but you won't believe what I discovered earlier today about that \"Card Sharks\" pinball machine I'd poked so much fun at for a while!)
