What If $ale was a Weekly Nighttime Show?

[J.R.]

I'm sorry. $ale is just simply not a once-a-week type show. The game is fast paced and at the end, it always leaves you wanting more, and noone is going to wait an entire week for their $ale fix.

Though if it does come back someday. It MUST look the the Australian Versions '00-'01 Set. One of the coolest sets in the world ! (And it's theme too, very cool too !)

-Joe R.

[Jimmy Owen]

Maybe a \"Solo Round\" where the winner can earn more shopping money by answering $10, $15, or $25 questions until he gets enough to buy what he wants or misses a question and has to buy what he can, whichever comes first.

[Clay Zambo]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Aug 20 2003, 12:58 AM\'] Maybe a "Solo Round" where the winner can earn more shopping money by answering $10, $15, or $25 questions until he gets enough to buy what he wants or misses a question and has to buy what he can, whichever comes first. [/quote]
 I like the idea of a solo round, but there's a certain lack of risk involved in this one.  \"Aw, gee, sorry, you only have enough for the trip around the world!\"  Maybe the penalty for a wrong answer is to lose everything you've won so far except the actual shopping money...?

[Dan Sadro]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Aug 19 2003, 10:39 AM\'] [quote name=\'Dan Sadro\' date=\'Aug 19 2003, 07:59 AM\'] Sale is just not a compelling game mechanism until you have a four- or five-time returning champion. [/quote]
So after all of that, you just said "Sale doesn't work unless there are returning champions."

Which is what I've been saying.

I think we agree here more than you think. [/quote]
 No, you misquoted.  The entire line was:

If you want to do the shopping endgame, it can be easily done with adjusted values for a one day champion. But if you require returning champions, you'll have to, as you say, devise a format to make interest, because Sale is just not a compelling game mechanism until you have a four- or five-time returning champion.

You can do the shopping endgame without returning champions.  Think, under the 80s rules, $125 or so for the grand prize.  However, if you must have returning champions, you have to make the maingame more interesting, because it's not compelling until there's a four- or five-time champ.  Who cares if Bob Smith has $3000 in crappy merchandise he doesn't want, and is \"risking\" it for $8000 in crappy merchandise?

[Game Show Man]

You can do the shopping endgame without returning champions. Think, under the 80s rules, $125 or so for the grand prize. However, if you must have returning champions, you have to make the maingame more interesting, because it's not compelling until there's a four- or five-time champ. Who cares if Bob Smith has $3000 in crappy merchandise he doesn't want, and is \"risking\" it for $8000 in crappy merchandise?

Which brings the discussion to me:  as a half-hour show, $ale probably wouldn't work weekly for the reason Dan mentions here.  My weekly $ale would be an hour-long show, featuring multiple shortened games (three games, each containing two Instant Bargains and two Fame Games followed by the Speed Round, perhaps with increasing dollar values later in each game) in one episode, allowing multiple shopping rounds (with slightly lower prices than the daily show) in each show.

\"Game Show Man\" Joe Van Ginkel
gameshowman@winning.com
captvangin@aol.com

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Aug 19 2003, 01:31 PM\']Remind me how the Joe G. couples format worked?  I do remember they changed the theme to a wedding march variation.[/quote]
Basically the same as the original version, except with only two couples and the Audience Game (three audience members guess the sale price of a prize for the prize, regular players predict who they think's the closest for money added to their score) replaced with the Price Tag Special, where the couples instead of studio audience tried to guess the sale price to win the prize.  Also, they got rid of the two-level set, so they could theoretically do the show in any studio at 30 Rock, not just 8H.  (How the set was laid out, I don't know, since the sale set and the game set were never shown in the same shot.)  And with that set came a new logo without a dollar sign substituting for \"S\" in \"Sale\" or cents symbol substituting for \"C\" in \"Century.\"

[byrd62]

. Also, they got rid of the two-level set, so they could theoretically do the show in any studio at 30 Rock, not just 8H. (How the set was laid out, I don't know, since the sale set and the game set were never shown in the same shot.)

The game set was the top of a two-story set at Studio 8H; the sale set was the bottom.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'byrd62\' date=\'Aug 20 2003, 02:36 PM\']

. Also, they got rid of the two-level set, so they could theoretically do the show in any studio at 30 Rock, not just 8H. (How the set was laid out, I don't know, since the sale set and the game set were never shown in the same shot.)

The game set was the top of a two-story set at Studio 8H; the sale set was the bottom.[/quote]
For the *original* format, yes.  I don't know if that remained the same for the couples format--I suspect that because the entire set was never shown in one shot they might have kept everything on one level to make the show doable in any studio at 30 Rock (8H was the only studio that could fit the original set, which was built for Burbank, not 30 Rock).

[TheInquisitiveOne]

Anything but that half-baked \"Winners Big Money Game\" would work. Good God, what was Grundy smoking when he allowed that anti-climatic out-of-place and boring bonus round into a great show ?

I think Reg Grundy Productions was clean the whole way through. It was NBC that was smoking the crackpipe when they basically forced RG Productions to make this anticlimactic, cost-cutting bonus round.  Remember, they kept the Shopping Round for a very long time in their domestic version.

I stick by my reasoning that keeping the Shopping Round would have kept $ale on NBC for at least 2 years longer.

The Inquisitive One

[That Don Guy]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Aug 19 2003, 01:31 PM\']Remind me how the Joe G. couples format worked?  I do remember they changed the theme to a wedding march variation.[/quote]

Actually, the couples version was also a weekly syndicated version for a season (or two?); the end game was always for one of three prizes - a trip, a fur, or a car.  In the first episode, the winning couple answered $100 questions until they missed (and the game ended) or had enough to get the prize they wanted; in the rest of the episodes, they chose one of the prizes in advance and had to answer three questions (the bigger the prize, the harder the questions) to win.  (I don't think anybody won the car except on the first episode, and I certainly don't remember anybody even trying for the fur.)

If SOTC were to be brought back as a weekly syndicated series - do those even exist any more? - I would let the winner choose what prize to play for, and then have a 60-second question round with the questions worth a certain dollar value so the player could earn enough money (combined with any winnings from the main game) to win the prize.

Having a winning player's prize based on how well they did in the game is nothing new; that's how the weekly syndicated Jeopardy! worked (in the first season, with daytime champions, $1500 (what would be $30,000 on today's version!) won $10,000, and $2000 won $25,000; in the second, \"open\", season, the values went up to $2000 and $2500).

-- Don