The Game Show Forum

The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Jimmy Owen on August 31, 2003, 08:37:41 PM

Title: Strange thing on Wheel in the 70's
Post by: Jimmy Owen on August 31, 2003, 08:37:41 PM

Do you remember the odd thing the contestants had to do if the puzzle was unsolved and a commercial break came up?

Title: Strange thing on Wheel in the 70's
Post by: Adam Nedeff on August 31, 2003, 08:44:40 PM

Turn their backs...

It's not so odd; it was just a good way to ensure the contestant in control of the board and wheel didn't have an extra 2 minutes to study the board and figure it out when in all fairness, they shouldn't have been able to otherwise.

Title: Strange thing on Wheel in the 70's
Post by: Matt Ottinger on August 31, 2003, 08:52:00 PM

What makes it odd compared to today is that play moved so slowly that they routinely NEEDED to go to a commercial in the middle of a round.  BTW, I remember that they originally didn't actually show the contestants turning their backs, but somebody (probably Chuck) said in an interview that it was always the practice.

Title: Strange thing on Wheel in the 70's
Post by: Jimmy Owen on August 31, 2003, 08:53:52 PM

Yeah, when I was a child of 14 I thought, \"why not put it behind the curtain Susan came out of?\"  Not sure if it was a bad idea now.

Title: Strange thing on Wheel in the 70's
Post by: zachhoran on August 31, 2003, 08:58:16 PM

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Aug 31 2003, 07:52 PM\'] What makes it odd compared to today is that play moved so slowly that they routinely NEEDED to go to a commercial in the middle of a round.  BTW, I remember that they originally didn't actually show the contestants turning their backs, but somebody (probably Chuck) said in an interview that it was always the practice. [/quote]
 The commercial in the middle of a puzzle was a part of the NBC Daytime run from 1975-89, stopping when the show moved to CBS. Some of the earliest syndicated episodes had commercial breaks in the middle of a puzzle as well.

Title: Strange thing on Wheel in the 70's
Post by: drmusic_99 on September 01, 2003, 01:38:08 AM

While I don't remember seeing it on the actual show, it seems to me it happened to a sitcom character when they were a contestant... (cue laugh track at character's befuddled expression when asked to turn around) Could it have been.....     \"227\"?

Title: Strange thing on Wheel in the 70's
Post by: BrandonFG on September 01, 2003, 02:28:47 AM

[quote name=\'drmusic_99\' date=\'Sep 1 2003, 12:38 AM\'] While I don't remember seeing it on the actual show, it seems to me it happened to a sitcom character when they were a contestant... (cue laugh track at character's befuddled expression when asked to turn around) Could it have been.....     "227"? [/quote]
 It was \"Gimme a Break.\"