Your opinions on "Supermarket Sweep"

[tvrandywest]

Keeping in mind that the show has been a hit in several decades without any major "big picture" changes, what do you like and dislike about the show's most recent incarnation on PAX? What changes, if any, would you consider valid suggestions worthy of consideration should the show return?

Thanks for the input.


Randy
tvrandywest.com

[Dbacksfan12]

Since you asked.....

Quite honestly, I don't think there was much wrong at all, except the overabudence of mini-games during the sweep.  Maybe if 4-6 were rotated; it'd be OK, but it seemed like there was a lot more than that.

Possibly bring back the "Taste Test" bonus game.  I thought that was kind of neat.

[TLEberle]

The Good:
* The cash games.  Do I go for the Shopping List, or spend time in the meat market?  Some provided real dilemmas.  Not so many that they're overkill; I thought there were just enough.

* The staggered start of the sweep, with the clock counting down.

The Bad:
* The 'time building' games were either straight from TPIR, or based only on guessing product names.  I know it's in a supermarket-themed show, but couldn't they have done more with the premise?

* Having one person stand at the checkout, doing nothing, except for times when the Stack Job was in play.

* The first person only got to play the "Which of these three items costs most?" in the front game.  The other person got Three Right, Brand Name Shuffle, and something else.  Make those more even.

That's all I got for now, but I'm sure there's more.

[MikeK]

The good:  An entertaining host who knows how to run the show, a simple game which almost anybody can follow, and a fun, harmless way to spend half an hour of TV viewing.  And the most recent announcer on Sweep was pretty good too! ;-)

The bad:  Too few games to earn time up front, especially in the later years of the show.  The earlier shows usually had the first contestant from each team play two games before the first break, followed by the other player having a crack at 2 games before the Round Robin Game.  *clap clap clap clap clap*  Since there was less time to be earned, the length of the sweeps were shorter.  Also, as Mark mentioned above, there were too many mini-games during the sweep.  The emphasis was removed from the actual shopping and was placed on Selma from Boise trying to get 2 onion rolls, 2 dinner rolls, and 3 bialys before time expired.  The bonuses, the candy, and one other way to earn money is enough.

If this is instrumental in possibly getting Sweep back on the air in the near future, I wish you and all parties involved the best of luck.  Supermarket Sweep was a nightly fixture in my house for many years.

[SamJ93]

My main problem with Supermarket Sweep as a whole: often, it's too predictable.

-The team with the most time at the end of Round 1 wound up winning the Sweep 97% of the time.  Granted, not much you can do to change this, but I still wanted Team 2, or even rarer, Team 3 to win once in a while.

The same strategies tended to pop up over and over again.  Every sweep, contestants would always go for the huge 10-pound turkeys, giant diaper packages, etc...Rarely did anyone ever go for things like medicine (which I never understood--only slightly cheaper than and much easier to handle than the meat (get your minds out of the gutters :-)).  Even with the rotation of the different bonus opportunities, it got to be rather monotonous.

As for the games being derivative of TPiR, I don't mind it too much, and it's even in the show's history: in a original 1966 ep I saw at the Museum of TV & Radio, the front game consisted of players guessing the prices of grocery items to win time--pretty much a complete knock-off of the original TPiR.  (The giant cash register podiums they had were pretty cool, though.)

[Steve McClellan]

I'll second, er, third, the Eberlean and Klaussian opinion of one team member not doing a whole lot in the pre-Sweep portion of the show.

I'd have loved to see more variety in the Round Robin game. "Scrambled Letters" every day got on my nerves after a while.

Please, I'm begging, euthanize the 30-Second Shootout. Pyramid was not meant to be watched being played by 1) people who know each other, and 2) people who can't play Pyramid. I really enjoyed the show, but this was one game that had me going for the remote. If I didn't get distracted, I turned back for the Big Sweep (for the commentary, of course!).

Thanks for asking! If it comes back, I'll certainly be watching (and listening).

[JasonA1]

I have to third and fourth and who knows what a lot of these suggestions. Some of the in-store games got ridiculous near the end. Also, that Shootout was a bad idea for all the reasons Steve said. The games themselves are fine as they are - there just needed to return to the old rotation (usually four, two for each player, then the round robin).

And I was seeing things, or was the second mini sweep eliminated throughout all of the PAX run? The Mini Sweep was fun. Two of them was nice.

-Jason

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'JasonA1\' date=\'Apr 26 2005, 02:34 PM\']And I was seeing things, or was the second mini sweep eliminated throughout all of the PAX run? The Mini Sweep was fun. Two of them was nice.
[/quote]
It was eliminated.

And did they even have the $100-in 20 bonus?

[jmangin]

For the PAX run, they should have brought back the Chiquita Banana Lady/Mr. Yuk from the Lifetime run hahahaha

If you don't remember, they were people out in the market and if you encountered them, you had to immediately turn around and run the other way.

[DJDustman]

The Good: Mostly everything was done fine, gameplay was great!

The Bad: I always liked the audience participation in the beginning where the contestants were called up with the products.  I always wondered why that was taken out.

[TimK2003]

I think that Randy West guy sounds awesome!  Great voice and great play-by-play on the final sweep. He should be first in line if SS was ever resurrected either as announcer, or even host!!! :-D
 

All kidding aside, the one thing they always have done, which may be nitpicking on my part, is when a contestant gives a wrong answer on a buzz-in, that three-note buzzer immediately goes off.  However, when they give a right answer, David would chime in saying something to the effect of, "Let's see if that's right...", then a pause, then the answer is shown along with the ding ding ding sfx.

Why waste the extra few seconds -- there was no buzzer, we know then the answer was right, so why milk it?  Either give us an immediate 'Right' or 'Wrong' sfx cue, or stretch out both the right & wrong answers like on Family Feud.

The low-budget Canadian version of the Geoff Edwards "Chain Reaction" also did the same thing when a player would guess a word:  Wrong answer = immediate buzzer / Right answer = 5 Seconds of Geoff saying, "It could be, lets see if that's the correct answer".


One thing I'd like to see, since SamJ previously said that usually the team with the most sweep time usually wins, is maybe have a wider range of Bonus Cash amounts ($50-$500).  That way you could see more teams who are the last to start the sweep possibly winning more than the first team(s) out, although on the flip side, the team(s) with the most sweep time could also blow away the other team(s) in the dust.

[RobertSearcy]

The good:  Almost a direct copy of everyone else's good list in their posts.  Oh yeah............that announcer dude...........HE ROCKS! :-D

The bad:  Also most of the bad lists in this thread with one addition......

I remember seeing a picture somewhere of what I believed was the UK version of Sweep.  IIRC, they had an audience for the whole show (not like what seemed to be only the part of the show before the Big Sweep early in the run....and no audience after that).  I believe Sweep could use an audience for the whole entire show.

(Yeah yeah, I've heard about how hard it can be to get an audience.  Hell, I'd rather see paid people in an audience actually trying to act excited/normal than see no audience at all.)

[AZAndrewG]

I'll add my two cents worth.  For the most part, I thoght it was a solid show.  I would do a couple things, though.  I would bring back a live studio audience instead of using canned applause.  I would also reduce the number of twists and wrinkles in the big sweep.  Having a shopping list and an inflatable bonus are nice.  When you start adding more bonuses, then the big sweep becomes almost exclusively a pursuit o bonuses, makig te groceries almost inconsequential.  Also, in order to ensure participation by both team members,have te team members alternate during the big sweep -- when one comes in witha full cart, send the other one out, and vice-versa.  Kinda like tag team wrestling.  

Oh, and keep the announcer -- he's a cool dude.  

Andrew M. Greenstein

[Chief-O]

GOOD: Format-wise, it's pretty good. I'd also keep the theme music, and great goodness, they better not hire someone else to take the spot of that one announcer guy.

BAD: I haven't seen it, but I can also vouch for the bonuses in the big sweep. Keep the shopping list, the huge bonuses, and possibly rotate four-five of the others [coffee, candy, bread, Manager's Special, mystery item, etc.]. I'd probably also raise the bonus sweep jackpot to $10,000 [unless they did already---I haven't seen the show in years].

[Dbacksfan12]

Also, in order to ensure participation by both team members,have te team members alternate during the big sweep -- when one comes in witha full cart, send the other one out, and vice-versa. Kinda like tag team wrestling.

Best idea I've read in the thread.

The bonus remains at $5,000 [on the show]...is there a reason it should be raised to $10,000?