More on "High Rollers"

[Neumms]

It's come up here lately, so it's been top of mind. So here's one more way some big-time producer could bring back the golden dice. It even avoids straddling.

Essentially, you bring the \"Wheel of Fortune\" scoring method to \"High Rollers\"--instead of two games wins a match, it's play as many games as time allows (three, maybe four) and whoever wins the most cash and prizes (not the most games) plays the bonus round.

I'd scrap the columns and go back to the original version's prize (or cash amount) under every number. Most would be hidden until called (as before) but some could be exposed at the start of each round.

Prizes and amounts get bigger with each successive game, giving a player behind after two games a chance to catch up. In order to catch up, however, they may have to take some rolls they'd rather pass in hopes of capturing more prizes. In this way, players are encouraged to gamble, a flaw with past versions.

Larger prizes may require taking off more than one number--as the original HR had \"1/2 a car,\" this version could have \"1/2 a trip\" in the second game and, let's say, four wheels to win a car in the third game. (Tough to win, but possible.)

The endgame would be the same Big Numbers we know and love, but actually played at the end of the game, where the drama is. The winner could return the next day, if the producer allows it.

Please discuss, skewer, whatever.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Neumms\' date=\'Aug 26 2003, 03:49 PM\'] It even avoids straddling.
 [/quote]
 Which isn't necessarily good if now you're playing to an arbitrary time limit.

Essentially, you bring the \"Wheel of Fortune\" scoring method to \"High Rollers\"--instead of two games wins a match, it's play as many games as time allows (three, maybe four) and whoever wins the most cash and prizes (not the most games) plays the bonus round.

The one MAJOR POINT you didn't make clear...although I think you were hinting at it above...by \"WOF scoring system\", do you mean that only the player who wins a given game gets to keep what they accumulated in that game? 'Cuz if not you just opened up about fourteen thousand strategy holes.

You also didn't mention how to handle a speed-up round, so I will: Bell sounds immediately after a question, so a player has definitely won control. They elect to play or pass. At that point players alternate rolls until the game is decided.

It's not bad, but I don't think a player is encouraged that much more to gamble..after all, they can either hold the dice and roll on a board they might lose on, or they can pass the dice, win what they have, and have a 50/50 chance at the first roll on a new board chock-full of more valuable prizes.

[Jimmy Owen]

It didn't get cleared in my market so I never saw it, but how did the once-a-week syndie with Alex and Mrs. Heatter work?

[zachhoran]

As per a post in ATGS a few years back, the 1975-76 HR syndie worked as follows: They played a two out of three game match, and then the winner played the Big Numbers for $10K. If time allowed, the same two players played another match until time ran out. Whomever had won more games played another Big NUmbers for $10K. They used the prizes behind 1-9 format, and never used the hidden celeb picture format the final few months of the NBC run used.

[Neumms]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Aug 26 2003, 08:37 PM\']
The one MAJOR POINT you didn't make clear...although I think you were hinting at it above...by "WOF scoring system", do you mean that only the player who wins a given game gets to keep what they accumulated in that game? [/quote]
 Yes, that is what I was thinking. And I like your speed-up round, too.

Anyway, it seems like a good game for Peter Tomarken to host, and any ideas we can float that might get him working again are worth throwing out there.

[Ian Wallis]

They used the prizes behind 1-9 format, and never used the hidden celeb picture format the final few months of the NBC run used.

Being a fan of the original \"High Rollers\", I have no recollection of the picture format at all, although I'm sure I must have seen it.

I still wonder if anything of the syndie version still exists.  I keep thinking back to some of the Game Show specials that aired in the '80s that had clips of the opening.  They obviously knew where to get the clips - maybe there's another treasure waiting to be discovered just like CBS \"Joker\" or \"Hollywood Squares\".

[zachhoran]

In the Face Lifters hidden picture format, contestants removed numbers and revealed prizes(or 1/2 of a prize), then after that, pieces of a celebrity face were shown. A contestant had to identify the celeb pic to win the round and the prizes on their side of the board. Heatter had used the hidden celebrity face format on DOuble Exposure in the early 60s and for the bonus round of the first run of Battlestars in 1981-82.

[Ian Wallis]

Heatter had used the hidden celebrity face format on DOuble Exposure in the early 60s and for the bonus round of the first run of Battlestars in 1981-82.

Now that's a show I'd love to see surface - \"Battlestars\".  There are too few episodes in the trade curcuit, and the two I saw in person in 1983 are not around.  

To keep this post on topic, the nighttime \"High Rollers\" aired Wednesday nights at 7:30 in my area for the year it was on.

[PeterMarshallFan]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Aug 27 2003, 09:00 AM\'] Now that's a show I'd love to see surface - "Battlestars".  There are too few episodes in the trade curcuit, and the two I saw in person in 1983 are not around. [/quote]
 Battlestars is presumed lost. Apparently NBC had another camping session around '85 and they needed wood for the campfire. Damn shame too.

[zachhoran]

I thought the debate about when NBC did their destroying was settled, and that it happened in early 1978.

ANyway, Heatter could have tapes of the show, as he owns the domestic rights(the international rights of the Heatter solo shows were passed to King World in 1999)

[ChuckNet]

I thought the debate about when NBC did their destroying was settled, and that it happened in early 1978.

So did I...in fact, I believe it was Ian who confirmed that both versions of Battlestars are still intact.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious \"Chuckie Baby\")

[bandit_bobby]

So King World owns High Rollers with Martindale?

[zachhoran]

MGm owns the tapes of existing episodes of High Rollers and the Heatter-Quigley shows(and Davidson's Squares as well). Heatter and his company were hired by Orion to co-produce the 1987-88 version of High Rollers, a smart move on their part.