The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: clanky06 on May 11, 2008, 11:23:16 PM
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The first game show I tried out for was You Don't Say in 1976. I quickly realized that a contestant had to actively draw on all his creative abilities to form the clues given to his partner. It seems to me nowadays that contestants are pretty passive—all the "creativity" is with the writers. Contestants have to answer the questions, solve the puzzle, pick the suitcase, etc. Off the top of my head, these game shows required their contestants to more or less create clues:
Password
Pyramid
Body Language
The various drawing games
I think You Don't Say was the most demanding in this respect, but I could be wrong. What do the real game show experts say?
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[quote name=\'clanky06\' post=\'185853\' date=\'May 11 2008, 10:23 PM\']What do the real game show experts say?[/quote]I don't know who you consider a "real expert", but the two shows that came to mind immediately were Chain Reaction and Go, though I guess CR had a celeb helping in one incarnation and Go always did.
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When I was in upstate New York in the mid 1970's, there was a show called It's Your Move in wich couples used charades to act out words or phrases. That show was from Canada so it wasn't long before most of Amercia saw its game of charads in the form of Show-offs about 10 years before Body Language came along & incorporated those same elements & added a puzzle to aolve at the end of each round. There was certainly pkenty of oppurtunities for "creativity" back then.
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Pass The Buck required a certain level of creativity, did it not?
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Child's Play, in one of its bonus rounds. Blackout. And, arguably, Match Game, using some of the same brain muscles as Password.
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LMAD. Just to get Monty's attention on that show required coming up with some very creative costuming.
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"Think Twice" required an incredible amount of creativity for the Imagination Round.
It's an obscure title, so for anybody not familiar with "Think Twice," I'll just describe the Imagination Round using the one episode I have as an example.
Two teams of two play. One team has to guess a subject--well-known person, place, or thing--from clues given by the opponents. The opponents are given a list of nine Password Plus-style clue words to the identity and must improvise a story using as many of those words as possible (at least five), the incentive being that the more clue words you use, the higher the point value for that subject (10 points per clue word). So for the episode that I have, the team seeing the clue words improvises this story, which I'm paraphrasing...
I don't like to do public speaking very often because I have a tendency to get tongue-tied. But one day I had to give a speech, and I wanted to look my best, so I put on a nice lace dress. I approach the platform and I realize the adrenaline really pumps inside me when I'm starting to speak...
The team doing the guessing would win the points if they guessed that the subject was "SHOES." Clue words: tongue, tie, lace, platform, pumps. Wrong answer gives the points to the team that told the story. My jaw dropped the first time I saw this played I thought it was brilliant.