You Bet Your Life

[golden-road]

I was watching YBYL on DVD, and I was wondering how the Buddy Hackket (sp?) & Bill Cosby versions played, compared to the Groucho version.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'golden-road\' date=\'Jan 12 2005, 04:05 PM\']I was watching YBYL on DVD, and I was wondering how the Buddy Hackket (sp?) & Bill Cosby versions played, compared to the Groucho version.

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[/quote]
I don't remember the Hackett version (except that Hackett was more useless than Groucho when the quiz came around, I think Fenneman did the whole thing, and that the entirety of the bonus was picking an egg out of one of those vending machines and opening it), but the Cosby format was thus: The team was given $750, and they could wager as much as they had on each of three questions. Thus, the highest payout for the front game would be six grand, if they doubled up all three times.

Then, the high scoring team (I think both teams (or were there three?), if they both scored the same) came back for one more question, and if they got it right, they selected one of three numbered envelopes. Two of them contained duck logos which doubled their winnings, and the third was the Big Fella, $10,000 in cash.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 12 2005, 07:09 PM\']
I don't remember the Hackett version (except that Hackett was more useless than Groucho when the quiz came around, I think Fenneman did the whole thing,

Cosby: Then, the high scoring team (I think both teams (or were there three)

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Ron Husmann announced the Hackett YBYL.
There were three sets of players on the Cosby version. The secret word was worth $500 on this version.

[golden-road]

I know Carsey-Werner owns the Cosby Version, but since they didn't distribute their shows in 1992, who did? Also, who distributed the Hackket (sp?) version?

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'golden-road\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 09:30 AM\']I know Carsey-Werner owns the Cosby Version, but since they didn't distribute their shows in 1992, who did? Also, who distributed the Hackket (sp?) version?

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Hill-Eubanks packaged the Hackett YBYL. Don't recall who the syndicator was.

[The Ol' Guy]

MCA handled that

[rugrats1]

I know Carsey-Werner owns the Cosby Version, but since they didn't distribute their shows in 1992, who did?

Carsey-Werner, of course -- I think Cosby's YBYL was the first show they distributed themselves.

[Bob Zager]

The Hackett hosted version had a different format, where three individual contestants appeared on the show, one at a time, to be interviewed by Hackett, and then played a True or False quiz of five questions in a particular category.  The first correct answer to a question earned $25, and the amount would double with each subsequent correct answer.  After the fifth question, the contestant could opt to try to correctly answer a sixth question.  If correct, his/her earnings were tripled; incorrect, the earnings were cut in half.  Maximum winnings--$1200!

The secret word was worth $100, and I don't think anyone ever won it!

The contestant with the most money won, came back on stage at the end of the show, to meet "Leonard," the prize duck, where they would stop a rotating device, causing a plastic egg to drop out, which concealed the name of a nice bonus prize to go with their cash winnings.

Original YBYL announcer George Fenneman appeared one time as a guest, and played the game for a member of the audience.  I believe there is a photo of his appearance on the show in the first edition EOTVGS.

[The Ol' Guy]

Thanks, Bob - I remembered seeing only one episode of the Hackett version and noting it would be a breeze to make a home version --if anyone cared. The one thing you mentioned - that hardly anybody said the secret word - makes me wonder if Hill-Eubanks ever bothered to pre-interview their contestants in depth as much as Groucho's producers did? I wondered if there was some occasional connection between the choice of the secret word and some of those pre-show conversations. I have an episode buried somewhere where the secret word was "air" - one contestant worked for an aircraft company and the other was a voice teacher or singer, who mentioned how one must control the air going from the lungs (or something like that). The secret word match from two of the three sets of contestants made it seem beyond just luck. Groucho's staff pre-interviewing the contestants got the answers they could build their jokes on, because 95% of the time, when Groucho asked the contestants the same interview questions, the contestants would give pretty much the same answers - so he could lie in ambush with his writers' material or his own ideas...and coax them toward the secret word. Sounds like the Hill-Eubanks people either didn't have the time (as a daily strip) or the inclination. Or were their secret words a bit more off the wall?

[Ian Wallis]

The secret word was worth $100, and I don't think anyone ever won it!

I watched Hackett's verison quite frequently - and although I can't really remember what any of the secret words were, I do remember than it was never won on the shows I saw.  Hackett even mentioned a few times that "we've been on the air X weeks and nobody's said the secret word yet".  He did say that he said it once, but (obviously) it didn't count.   I also remember a few times where he asked contestants to just guess what they thought it was.