Author Topic: How ingenious (Read 7012 times)

Jay Temple · « **Reply #15 on:** February 08, 2006, 12:57:35 PM »

I make a distinction between a good idea and a clever or original one. Pyramid has, IMHO, the best end game ever, but when you think about it, it's as much a variation on Steve Allen's A&Q as J! is. My nominees would be Password and TTTT.

clemon79 · « **Reply #16 on:** February 08, 2006, 02:04:42 PM »

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Feb 8 2006, 05:53 AM\']Put me down for "Wheel of Fortune". A simple game that's been executed in a good enough way to last for over 30 years. I think it proves that sometimes ideas are right in front of our face, but only a few of us can actually see them!

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I think it proves that the average television viewer is a complete dumbass, personally.

wheelloon · « **Reply #17 on:** February 08, 2006, 03:23:52 PM »

Have we forgotten about Match Game everyone? You fill in the blank! How simple it is, yet how so much fun it can be to watch and play. The most clever game show ideas, I believe, very often come from the most basic ideas that a person can think of...

Robert Hutchinson · « **Reply #18 on:** February 08, 2006, 05:36:45 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Feb 8 2006, 02:04 PM\']I think it proves that the average television viewer is a complete dumbass, personally.[/quote]

If Wheel had *that* many viewers, Sajak would be constructing a personal monorail from the east coast to the Wheel studio.

I think Concentration merits a mention, in the "more than the sum of its parts" category.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #19 on:** February 08, 2006, 08:04:33 PM »

"Ingenious" can mean almost anything to almost anybody, so it's not surprising that this thread has degenerated into people just naming their favorite shows. It's hard to say Wheel of Fortune was ingenious when Down You Go came before it. It's hard to say the fill-in-the-blank Match Game was ingenious if...well...the 60s Match Game came before it.

Still, some of my choices:

Groundbreaking: Winner Take All
Yes, somebody would have come up with the idea of beating your opponent to the buzzer and the concept of the defending champion eventually, but for one show to have introduced both game show staples is nothing short of remarkable.

Scoring: Tattletales
Once they got rid of the "quickies", the simple elegance of the scoring system for Tattletales always impressed me, and the idea that the celebrities were playing for the studio audience was a masterstroke.

Game Play: Go
OK, technically, the Chain Reaction bonus round. Or as I like to think of it, Bob Stewart's last really good idea. Just when you thought he'd squeezed every last drop out of the communication games, he comes up with this. Twenty-five years later, I show old episodes to my jaded high school students and they're hooked. (And yes, I realize the structure of the show was flawed, but the idea behind the game was solid.)

Again, everybody's mileage will differ. If someone in this thread can say that a final 25-point bonus question was "rather clever", then just about anything's fair game.

zachhoran · « **Reply #20 on:** February 08, 2006, 08:14:19 PM »

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Feb 8 2006, 08:04 PM\']
Scoring: Tattletales
Once they got rid of the "quickies", the simple elegance of the scoring system for Tattletales always impressed me, and the idea that the celebrities were playing for the studio audience was a masterstroke.

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There is one tiny flaw in the most familiar TT scoring syste. This didn't happen very often if it ever did($675 is the highest pre-bonus maingame score I can recall seeing, with David Doyle and spouse, Bert commented it was a record at the time c. 1982), but if a couple had a more than $300 lead going into the last question of the day, the $300 question would be meaningless in deciding which section of the audience won the $1000 bonus.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #21 on:** February 08, 2006, 08:40:28 PM »

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Feb 8 2006, 09:14 PM\']There is one tiny flaw in the most familiar TT scoring syste. This didn't happen very often if it ever did($675 is the highest pre-bonus maingame score I can recall seeing, with David Doyle and spouse, Bert commented it was a record at the time c. 1982), but if a couple had a more than $300 lead going into the last question of the day, the $300 question would be meaningless in deciding which section of the audience won the $1000 bonus.[/quote]
While I grant you that, the fact is that you could say that about just about any game show that doesn't have a preposterously unbalanced final round. For a final round that wasn't wildly unbalanced, it was wonderful how many times the game turned on the final answer, right or wrong.

Robert Hutchinson · « **Reply #22 on:** February 08, 2006, 08:49:58 PM »

For the record (and I'm pretty sure Matt wasn't talking to me), Concentration is not in my list of favorite game shows. This is mainly because, while I like to consider myself pretty bright when it comes to various kinds of puzzle-solving, I suck at partially-visible rebuses. SUCK. I only got enjoyment out of Classic Concentration from the matching part of the game, really.

zachhoran · « **Reply #23 on:** February 08, 2006, 08:52:01 PM »

[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' date=\'Feb 8 2006, 08:49 PM\']For the record (and I'm pretty sure Matt wasn't talking to me), Concentration is not in my list of favorite game shows. This is mainly because, while I like to consider myself pretty bright when it comes to various kinds of puzzle-solving, I suck at partially-visible rebuses. SUCK. I only got enjoyment out of Classic Concentration from the matching part of the game, really.

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I suspect watching the show a lot makes one better at solving the rebuses partially revealed, as certain symbols were often used(Ewe, Awl, Oar, Inn, etc.). Or, you can study the Russ Mason Concentration rebuses of the week for the past several years, as one would notice several frequently used symbols on the rebuses at his site.

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #24 on:** February 09, 2006, 09:07:20 AM »

Quote

Scoring: Tattletales
Once they got rid of the "quickies", the simple elegance of the scoring system for Tattletales always impressed me, and the idea that the celebrities were playing for the studio audience was a masterstroke.

I guess that's why they later did that on Beat the Clock too!

I was thinking about this the other day - the budget for Tattletales really couldn't have been too much. On most shows, they gave away $1750 to the audience - not much considering how much some other shows were giving away at the time. I guess the real cost was for payment to the celebrities for appearing - but when you compare it to Hollywood Squares or Celebrity Sweepstakes that were on at the time, they also had payments for large groups of celebrities and still gave away thousands of dollars per show.

I always thought the scoring on Tattletales was kind of on the cheap side...but I guess if you're in the studio audience and end up with $10 in your pocket at the end of it, that's pretty decent.