Author Topic: Family Feud (Read 22926 times)

clemon79 · « **Reply #30 on:** November 07, 2005, 02:10:29 PM »

[quote name=\'megamanj1986\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 10:52 AM\']Someone once mentioned what would happen if Blockbusters were to be revived in this time frame. If you were to revive BB, would you have kept the straddling? Or would you have made so that each match was timed?

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When I become King Of All Cosmos, timed game shows will be punishable by death. (I will also not wear such a fruity outfit.) There is NEVER anything interesting in "That bell means that time is up!" Blockbusters as a self-contained show would, quite simply, blow.

Nutshell, if you're throwing a time constraint on a game just to shoehorn it into the half-hour, it needs to straddle. Blockbusters wants to be two-of-three. Don't make it something else.

Jay Temple · « **Reply #31 on:** November 07, 2005, 02:22:17 PM »

I can't think of another game that would suffer more than BB from not being allowed to straddle. If players were evenly matched, you'd end up with one game decided the way it's supposed to be and one decided by having the most boxes when time runs out.

Tony · « **Reply #32 on:** November 07, 2005, 02:28:11 PM »

While I agree that straddling is the way to go for many formats (such as Lingo), I don't think I have ever seen any daily cable game shows straddle, just broadcast ones. Has anyone here ever seen an orginal daily cable game show with a straddling format? I think the constraints of cable scheduling (i.e. multiple runs of a given show) might preclude such a thing from ever happening. While (for me anyway) it would be nice to see Lingo go to syndication so that it could straddle, that market is drying up for the genre.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #33 on:** November 07, 2005, 02:28:12 PM »

[quote name=\'megamanj1986\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 02:52 PM\']And for the longest time, I would of never though that someone would make a post about Feud having a straddling format. I dunno about that.[/quote]
As I said before, it would be no different than Password Plus, Match Game, Double Dare, The Better Sex, Card Sharks (and that's just G-T) or any number of other shows that straddled during that period. You play a certain number of rounds until one side wins, then you play the bonus round. Rinse and repeat.

Family Feud is and always has been manipulated, through editing and top-heavy late questions when necessary, to fit one game into a half-hour slot. It would probably seem weird at this point to change it, and it's certainly not as bad as those shows that just stop when time is up. But a Family Feud that straddled and didn't rely on the trigger finger of your Uncle Henry in position five on that last ridiculously easy question would be a fairer and more interesting game. Whether it would make a better show is a different issue.

clemon79 · « **Reply #34 on:** November 07, 2005, 03:04:06 PM »

[quote name=\'Tony\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 11:28 AM\']Has anyone here ever seen an orginal daily cable game show with a straddling format?

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Bumper Stumpers comes immediately to mind. I'm sure there are others, and I'm sure one of our more socially-challenged members will be providing an exhaustive (and exhausing) list in a few moments.

DrBear · « **Reply #35 on:** November 07, 2005, 03:21:01 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 01:10 PM\'] There is NEVER anything interesting in "That bell means that time is up!"

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I'd dispute that on, say, "College Bowl" or similar shows where the objective is to get the most points in a period of time.

But I'd agree with you on Blockbusters, Concentration, H2, etc. where the game itself is not timed.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #36 on:** November 07, 2005, 03:53:08 PM »

[quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 04:21 PM\']But I'd agree with you on ... Concentration[/quote]
That particular one is interesting. Despite my pretty vehement rantings in this thread, I really didn't have any problem with the way Classic Concentration managed to adjust the game to fit its non-straddling mandate. At its heart, as Hugh Downs so often told us, "the object of the game is to solve the puzzle." So what if the puzzle had to be revealed a little more quickly if time was short? Somebody still had to solve it. Also, like Wheel of Fortune, it wasn't a case of "time's up, so the game's over." It was "time is running short, so here's what we're going to do." I liked the later, better Scrabble format for the same reason.

clemon79 · « **Reply #37 on:** November 07, 2005, 03:59:38 PM »

[quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 12:21 PM\']I'd dispute that on, say, "College Bowl" or similar shows where the objective is to get the most points in a period of time.
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And I'd agree with you, which is why I tried to qualify that with the "just to shoehorn it into a half-hour" part. The time constraints on CB are built into the game as a PART of the game, not slapped on there for the sole purpose of getting it over with in time. Does that make sense?

I'm especially reminded of the Pat Sajak one-off special that NBC aired, which featured a prominent scoreboard with a time-clock at center stage. One would imagine if such a beast were attempted today, it would be done as a FoxBox or something of that ilk, but the point is, if the clock is on the screen and/or visible to the players, it's now part of the game instead of a just "Oh, we're done now!" thing.

In fact, that's a fine way to put it: if the clock is available to be used strategically by the players (as opposed to fudging it with "it feels like time is running out and I have to make up ground, I'd better speed up!"), it seems like a far more palatable notion.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #38 on:** November 07, 2005, 04:08:13 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 04:59 PM\']In fact, that's a fine way to put it: if the clock is available to be used strategically by the players (as opposed to fudging it with "it feels like time is running out and I have to make up ground, I'd better speed up!"), it seems like a far more palatable notion.[/quote]
Given that there are many similarities between game shows and sports, it's surprising that the clock-as-strategic-element hasn't been used more often. I'm not talking about the timers that are an ever-present part of almost any bonus round, I'm talking about a clock you can control as part of the game, the way you would in a sport. The only two examples I can think of offhand are the Wonderwall bonus in Winning Lines and the obscure seventies show Three for the Money.

uncamark · « **Reply #39 on:** November 07, 2005, 04:19:43 PM »

"Jackpot" was another straddling cable show--Monday through Thursday. Just like the original, the Friday show was played to time--and when time ran out, they either went to the Jackpot riddle (or, if it hadn't been called yet, made the last call a Jackpot riddle) and ended it that way.

But since "Blockbusters" was brought up, in the UK, did it straddle or did they play it to time?

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #40 on:** November 07, 2005, 04:23:54 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 03:04 PM\'][quote name=\'Tony\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 11:28 AM\']Has anyone here ever seen an orginal daily cable game show with a straddling format?

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Bumper Stumpers comes immediately to mind. I'm sure there are others, and I'm sure one of our more socially-challenged members will be providing an exhaustive (and exhausing) list in a few moments.

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Some of the shows on the Playboy Channel featured straddling. No wait, those weren't game shows.

clemon79 · « **Reply #41 on:** November 07, 2005, 04:26:23 PM »

[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 01:19 PM\']But since "Blockbusters" was brought up, in the UK, did it straddle or did they play it to time?

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The fact that (in the photos I've seen) the players had a score readout in front of them leads me to believe the game was played to time, since I can't see a scoring system being pasted on for any other reason. I could be wrong, however, and our friends in the UK would obiviously know more conclusively than I.

Steve McClellan · « **Reply #42 on:** November 07, 2005, 06:21:05 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 12:59 PM\']if the clock is on the screen and/or visible to the players, it's now part of the game instead of a just "Oh, we're done now!" thing.

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Thank you for saving QuizBusters and $ale of the Century, not to mention 2-Minute Drill.

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 01:26 PM\'][quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Nov 7 2005, 01:19 PM\']But since "Blockbusters" was brought up, in the UK, did it straddle or did they play it to time?[/quote]The fact that (in the photos I've seen) the players had a score readout in front of them leads me to believe the game was played to time, since I can't see a scoring system being pasted on for any other reason.[/quote]
I saw one episode a while back, and going from my fuzzy memory, I believe there was a certain (fairly small) amount of money won for making a connection, but the real reason was that each correct answer netted £5.

Still, IIRC, the numbers in front of the players never really meant anything to the actual gameplay, as it was still a best-of-three match.

Robert Hutchinson · « **Reply #43 on:** November 07, 2005, 06:25:48 PM »

Re: having control of a clock on a game show: TPIR's Split Decision.

Stretching more for these next two: Whew! (stopping the clock for a Longshot) and Blackout (did the contestants have a way of knowing exactly how much time they had left for blacking out the description?).

And, of course, premiering on GSN in 2008, Extreme Chess.

Robert Hutchinson · « **Reply #44 on:** November 07, 2005, 06:28:55 PM »

As long as we're taking Pyramid apart lately, was the clock always visible to the receiver in the Winner's Circle? It was obviously visible at least to some ("hurry!"), but a lot of other contestants would wonder how much time was left--were they just not paying attention to it?