Author Topic: POLL: Shows that scaled back on their budgets (Read 5372 times)

ChuckNet · « **on:** November 21, 2005, 07:47:25 PM »

How many shows slashed their prize budgets during the course of their run? The ones I can think of are...

- Pitfall (halved the value of their grand prize from $5K to $2500 near the end)
- Diamond Head (according to "It's In the Book, Bob!", Eubanks said that giving away a Mercedes-Benz early in the run literally killed the budget, and by the time it was winding down, their meager prizes included trips that didn't even come w/airfare!)
- Rafferty CS ($1K and $5K prize cards eliminated, cars became cheaper)
- Daytime WoF (the move to CBS...'nuff said!)
- High Rollers (Trebek 78-80; a win @ the Big Numbers was originally worth $5K and a car, but near the end of the run, the car was eliminated)

Any others?

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

digiblader · « **Reply #1 on:** November 21, 2005, 08:12:09 PM »

Press Your Luck: Towards '86 when the $2000 squares were slashed to $1000 and a lot of cheaper $$ squares appeared. Also Square #10 went to two cheap $$ values and a prize from being all prizes.

Tic Tac Dough: Removal of the Secret Category that doubled the pot along with the Grand Question worth $1000, as more red boxes were added to the game.

pyrfan · « **Reply #2 on:** November 21, 2005, 08:12:33 PM »

Four instances that I know of, all involving "Pyramid"...

On the 20K, they used to offer $1,000 in bonus money for a perfect 21-point score in the front game. In late 1979 or early 1980, the 21-point bonus was changed to a TV set (which I doubt was worth $1,000).

On the syndie 25K in the '70s, they used to offer $2,100 in bonus money for a perfect 21-point score, but they didn't offer that for at least the final season (maybe earlier).

On the 1988 episodes of the 100K, the Mystery 7 trips were all pretty "local": Hawaii, Mexico, the Bahamas, Antigua, Jamaica, etc. Not that those are bad trips at all, mind you, but they used to give away trips to Fiji, Australia, London, Paris, Sweden, Switzerland, and other "far-away locations." Also, from February of 1987 on, I only saw them offer one car as a Mystery 7 prize.

On the 1991 100K, the first 14 weeks had the 7-11 for an $1,100 bonus on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. For the rest of the run, they had Gamble for a Grand, where you could win $1,000 if you got all 7 answers in 25 seconds. But if you decided not to shave 5 seconds off your clock or you didn't get 7 out of 7, you got nothing. So they made the bonus harder to get and offered less money if you did win it.

Brendan

GS Warehouse · « **Reply #3 on:** November 21, 2005, 08:14:39 PM »

IIRC, the top prize in the Bumper Stumpers bonus round declined each season, from $2,000 to $1,600 to $1,500. And those were Candian dollars, folks!

cmjb13 · « **Reply #4 on:** November 21, 2005, 08:17:46 PM »

Bergeron Squares

JasonA1 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 21, 2005, 09:13:24 PM »

Twenty One, the Povich version. For the better of course.

-Jason

zachhoran · « **Reply #6 on:** November 21, 2005, 09:29:14 PM »

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Nov 21 2005, 07:47 PM\']How many shows slashed their prize budgets during the course of their run?
- Daytime WoF (the move to CBS...'nuff said!)

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I think the lowered wheel amounts on CBS(1991 NBC) WOF was in large part due to the maingame winnings being paid in cash rather than all merchandise prizes.

Kevin Prather · « **Reply #7 on:** November 21, 2005, 09:35:16 PM »

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Nov 21 2005, 07:29 PM\'][quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Nov 21 2005, 07:47 PM\']How many shows slashed their prize budgets during the course of their run?
- Daytime WoF (the move to CBS...'nuff said!)

[snapback]102786[/snapback]

[/quote]

I think the lowered wheel amounts on CBS(1991 NBC) WOF was in large part due to the maingame winnings being paid in cash rather than all merchandise prizes.

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And I think you're out of your mind. WoF switched to all cash well before 1991.

Dbacksfan12 · « **Reply #8 on:** November 21, 2005, 09:59:25 PM »

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Nov 21 2005, 09:29 PM\']I think the lowered wheel amounts on CBS(1991 NBC) WOF was in large part due to the maingame winnings being paid in cash rather than all merchandise prizes.
[/quote]
Which was when they moved to CBS. Next.

tmq800 · « **Reply #9 on:** November 21, 2005, 10:01:36 PM »

Wheel's current run. More cash, but fewer $50-60K cars given away.

Dbacksfan12 · « **Reply #10 on:** November 21, 2005, 11:29:36 PM »

[quote name=\'tmq800\' date=\'Nov 21 2005, 10:01 PM\']Wheel's current run. More cash, but fewer $50-60K cars given away.
[/quote]
Which, IMO, is increasing the budget. They got the cars supplied to them, TTBOMK, while cash comes, obviously, from someplace else.

Robert Hutchinson · « **Reply #11 on:** November 22, 2005, 01:58:25 AM »

Syndie Millionaire rolling back some of the mid-to-upper-level amounts.

Craig Karlberg · « **Reply #12 on:** November 22, 2005, 05:17:41 AM »

What about The Challengers? I think they had the Ultimate Challenge for $50K(+1$K a day not won) before it was cut to a flat $10K towards its final weeks.

And that makes post #1000.

Don Howard · « **Reply #13 on:** November 22, 2005, 07:21:19 AM »

The Challengers reduced the values of the questions in the main game. Also, the Ultimate Challenge starting amount was dropped from $50000 to $25000. Then, that jackpotting system was substituted with a single $10000 question. Shortly thereafter, even that question was eliminated.
Also, Play The Percentages offered a beginning amount of $25000 for hitting the percentage number exactly. This was dropped to $10000 and with the solo vs. solo format, it was removed entirely.
On All-Star Blitz, the Blitz Bonanza was played for $10000 plus $5000 for every time it wasn't won to a maximum of $25000. This changed to a $2500 addition with each non-win (known as a "loss" in those non-PC days) with a limitation of $20000.
And while the money wasn't scaled back, the chances of the wheel stopping within a starred-section on Match Game decreased early in the run of the 1979-82 syndicated version.

zachhoran · « **Reply #14 on:** November 22, 2005, 08:49:24 AM »

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Nov 21 2005, 07:47 PM\']
- Rafferty CS (cars became cheaper)

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Cars becoming lower end also affected CLassic Concentration, Davidson Squares and Wink's HR later in their runs.

Scrabble lowered the non-TofC potential winnings from $58,500 to $40,000 in early 1985(when a five time or ten time Sprint champion had their winnings augmented to $20K rather than adding $20K to their winnings). Then of course, the 1993 version no longer awarded bonus money for Pinks and Blues in the maingame, and started the bonus Sprint jackpot at $1K rather than $5K(and only adding money if the words in the maingame were solved upon a pink or blue square being hit)

USA Chain Reaction lowered the start amount of their bonus jackpot from $3K to $2K when they went from two teams to two individual contestants in season three.

Lingo 1987 and Yahtzee made the top prizes more difficult to win midway through their runs. In Yahtzee's case, two teams had won the $100K by rolling a Yahtzee on the first roll, so they made $100K available only to a team who rolled all five WILDs in one roll, which had already happened once before the changeover. Of course, since a lot of players never actually received what they won on those shows.....

Author Topic: POLL: Shows that scaled back on their budgets (Read 5372 times)

digiblader

GS Warehouse