The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: gsnstooge on December 17, 2003, 08:44:26 PM
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How on each show does a show's Tournament of Champions work?
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Jeopardy!: Most of their tournaments work the same way.
Week 1: 5 independent quarter-final games. The winners and the four top-scoring non-winners advance to the semifinals.
Week 2, Monday-Wednesday: The nine players appear in three semifinal games. Only the winners advance.
Thursday-Friday: The three finalists play two games, and their totals for the two days are added together to determine the winner.
The $100,000 Pyramid: The three players who win the $10,000 or $25,000 in the shortest amount of time over the course of six to eight weeks, i.e., since the previous tournament, come back for the $100,000 tournament. On any given day, two of them play two games. If one of them wins the $100,000, the tournament is over. If not, the player who wins more money in the Winner's Circle comes back the next day to face the player who was left out. (On Day 1, the players are the two with the fastest qualifying times.) This was the set-up for both Clark and Davidson's shows. Osmond's Pyramid has only had three tournaments, two of them with the same structure which doesn't have a guaranteed prize anyway, so I won't go into it.
The Joker's Wild: Generally, a variation on this ... 16 players are randomly paired off. Whoever wins the game (or best of 3 or best of 5) advances to the next level. In the second and third tournaments, the ones where Frank Dillon was the previous year's defending champion, he was excluded from all levels of play and faced the last person remaining for the title. When he lost, they made his successor start from the bottom with everyone else.
Celebrity Sweepstakes: I'm aware of one Tournament; they may have had more. The one I saw was pretty straightforward: Ten players appeared in one game each over the course of the week. The player with the biggest total in his game was the winner. I don't know whether the players were aware of the totals put up prior to their own games. (This is the only one where I'll state an opinion plainly: I don't think this made for interesting game play, especially if there was no prize for those who won their day but not the top prize. If you only want to do one week, bring back eight players and have the top two players come back Friday.)
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Week 2, Monday-Wednesday: The nine players appear in three semifinal games. Only the winners advance.
How are the player lineups determined for the semi-finals? Do they draw numbers, or go by scores from the quarterfinals (top 3 play Monday, middle 3 Tuesday, remaining 3 Wednesday), or is there some other method used?
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[quote name=\'gsnstooge\' date=\'Dec 17 2003, 06:44 PM\'] How on each show does its Tournament of Champions work? [/quote]
"Please describe to me the complete rules of all game shows you can think of. Be thorough and exact."
You need to narrow down your requests a little, dude. Frankly I'm surprised you've gotten as many responses to this one as you have.
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CONCENTRATION (Downs/Clayton)
Started in 1963, the top 4 winners would face off in The Challenge of the Champions. The 2 finalist battle it out in a World Series 4/7 match. The winner would receive $1,000 in cash, a trip around the world & the Connie (a trophy which resembled The Thinker statue).
CLASSIC CONCENTRATION
The top 8 contestants who won their car in 35 seconds are less, competed. Monday-Thursday, two contestants played the best 2/3 match. The winner played the bonus round in an unique way, the clock counted up & the contestant had to match 7 car names in the shortest time.
The top 2 contestants who did that came back on Friday's show to determine the overall champion.
Unfortunately, this tournament became known as "Heidi Bowl 2"!
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[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Dec 18 2003, 05:46 PM\'] CLASSIC CONCENTRATION
The top 8 contestants who won their car in 35 seconds are less, competed. Monday-Thursday, two contestants played the best 2/3 match. The winner played the bonus round in an unique way, the clock counted up & the contestant had to match 7 car names in the shortest time.
The top 2 contestants who did that came back on Friday's show to determine the overall champion.
Unfortunately, this tournament became known as "Heidi Bowl 2"! [/quote]
I've never heard that show called "Heidi Bowl 2" before. Did your cackling witch create it?
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[quote name=\'hmtriplecrown\' date=\'Dec 18 2003, 07:22 PM\'] [quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Dec 18 2003, 05:46 PM\'] CLASSIC CONCENTRATION
The top 8 contestants who won their car in 35 seconds are less, competed. Monday-Thursday, two contestants played the best 2/3 match. The winner played the bonus round in an unique way, the clock counted up & the contestant had to match 7 car names in the shortest time.
The top 2 contestants who did that came back on Friday's show to determine the overall champion.
Unfortunately, this tournament became known as "Heidi Bowl 2"! [/quote]
I've never heard that show called "Heidi Bowl 2" before. Did your cackling witch create it? [/quote]
Someone posted on this board a couple of months ago(forget who it was) that NBC cut into the end of the Friday finals episode of the Classic Concentration 1989 TofC to show a speech from Dubya Sr., and they called it Heidi Bowl 2. NBC apparently did tell who won the TofC and/or reran the finals episode at some point. The airdate was 4/14/89, three weeks after NBC cut into the final episode of $otC for something similar.
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[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Dec 18 2003, 05:32 PM\'] Someone posted on this board a couple of months ago(forget who it was) that NBC cut into the end of the Friday finals episode of the Classic Concentration 1989 TofC to show a speech from Dubya Sr., and they called it Heidi Bowl 2. [/quote]
Yes. It was an asinine comparison then, and it is now.
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Speaking of TJW's tournament: If it was called the MILLION DOLLAR tournament, why did they give out a HALF-Million to the champ, instead of ONE Million?
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Family Double Dare - This took place during the final season. The actual special featured the season's two families who answered the most questions play against each other in a preliminary round. The same was done for the two teams who competed the Obstacle Course in the fastest time. The winner of both rounds played a full game against each other, with the winner receiving a nifty trophy and going on to the final Obstacle Course to try for a new car.
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[quote name=\'gameshowguy2000\' date=\'Dec 18 2003, 07:58 PM\'] Speaking of TJW's tournament: If it was called the MILLION DOLLAR tournament, why did they give out a HALF-Million to the champ, instead of ONE Million? [/quote]
THe payouts for all the participants totalled $1 Million, and half of the monies went to the contestants, and half to a charity of the player's choosing(the $200K second place prize and the $500K first place prize were paid in annuities IIRC)
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In the second and third tournaments, the ones where Frank Dillon was the previous year's defending champion, he was excluded from all levels of play and faced the last person remaining for the title. When he lost, they made his successor start from the bottom with everyone else.
No doubt Frank was helped more than a bit by the guaranteed spot in the finals for the $100K and $250K tourneys...as it was, Eileen Jason (who defeated him in the latter tourney) wound up being eliminated in the preliminaries of the $1M tourney the following year.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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And since I watched it like some of you did, I'll give the rules of the ABC version of Jeopardy! called SUPER JEOPARDY!
This was like the original Jeopardy, but with a few changes:
Quarterfinals: 4 players. As usual, whoever had the highest score moved on, and the losers got $5,000.
Semi-finals: 4 players (I think, please correct me if I am wrong), like the semi-finals. The losers got $10,000.
Finals: 3 players. First place got $250,000; Second place got $50,000; Third place got $25,000. The winner was Bruce Seymour.
Values were in points, not cash (And I don't know why they chose to use points. Anyone want to help me out?) J! round values ranged from 200-1000 (Current J! format, former DJ! format); DJ! round values ranged from 500-2500 (in 500-point increments).
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[quote name=\'gameshowguy2000\' date=\'Dec 18 2003, 10:11 PM\']
Semi-finals: 4 players (I think, please correct me if I am wrong), like the semi-finals. The losers got $10,000.
[/quote]
The semi final games had the usual three players. Three QF games were followed by an SF game. THis process was repeated three times, with the three SF game winners returning for the finals airing on 9/8/90.
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Let me throw in a game show's tournament format: some of the various tournaments of $ale of the Century.
If anyone knows how the 1983 tournament worked, please let us know. I appreciate it. I don't exactly know how the 1985 tournament worked either, but I do know that the finals had only TWO contestants, with the grand prize winner gaining over $50,000 in cash and prizes ($25,000 cash and a $27,000 car).
Thanks to Bob Staub, I have some knowledge of the $ale International Invitational Tournament. There were two theaters to this tourney.
The first theater had nine of the best contestants on U.S. $ale (including some from the syndicated version, such as Alice Conkwright). The finals was a two-day event, with the scores accumulating over a two day period (a la Jeopardy!). The Winner's Board was still played everyday.
The winner of the U.S. finals entered into the second theater, the actual International Invitational. This time, the best of Australia and Canada were the other participants. The first to win three games was declared the champion and won a $35,000 Corvette Convertible. Again, the winner of each individual game played the Winner's Board (with the exception of the clincher). Cary from Australia (who already had won over $343,000 - in Australian money - on Tony Barber's $ale) won the tournament.
In my opinion, this was one of the best moments of NBC's run of $ale (and probably the last exhibition of the Winner's Board, as well).
The Inquisitive One
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Values were in points, not cash (And I don't know why they chose to use points. Anyone want to help me out?) J! round values ranged from 200-1000 (Current J! format, former DJ! format); DJ! round values ranged from 500-2500 (in 500-point increments).
My guess, and it's purely a guess, is that points were used so that they didn't have to pay out over what would normally be "minimum" totals. If the minimum was $5000 for a quarterfinal loser, they would only need a few answers in Double Super Jeopardy to hit that mark.
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[quote name=\'TheInquisitiveOne\' date=\'Dec 18 2003, 10:34 PM\']
If anyone knows how the 1983 tournament worked, please let us know. I appreciate it. I don't exactly know how the 1985 tournament worked either, but I do know that the finals had only TWO contestants, with the grand prize winner gaining over $50,000 in cash and prizes ($25,000 cash and a $27,000 car).
[/quote]
The February 1985 $otC TofC had 18 players. The six players who won their quarter final games moved onto the semis(each winner got to win a prize from the winner's board). Those six players played three each for the next two days. The winners of those two games played each other in a best two-out-of-three format to win the car and the cash. This tournament was run in tandem with a Scrabble Tournament of Champions, Super Password's ony TofC, and WOF's 10th anniversary(daytime week). WOF's 10th anniversary was observed about six weeks earlier, but they still commemorated it on air in mid-February.
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[quote name=\'hmtriplecrown\' date=\'Dec 18 2003, 06:22 PM\'] I've never heard that show called "Heidi Bowl 2" before. Did your cackling witch create it?
[/quote]
Funny! The cackling witch frowns on rainouts (pre-emptions) as well.
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CLASSIC CONCENTRATION
The top 8 contestants who won their car in 35 seconds are less, competed. Monday-Thursday, two contestants played the best 2/3 match. The winner played the bonus round in an unique way, the clock counted up & the contestant had to match 7 car names in the shortest time.
The top 2 contestants who did that came back on Friday's show to determine the overall champion.
Not from what I remember. I recall that the one person who had the best time for the Winner's Circle would (presumably) win the car as well as whatever the grand prize for that year was.
I think Scrabble did something similar, where two players played for the whole show, and the best Sprint time over the week won $25,000.
Travis
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Eileen Jason (who defeated him in the latter tourney) wound up being eliminated in the preliminaries of the $1M tourney the following year.
And being a Frank Dillon fan, I remember jumping for joy when she was knocked out. Frank had a lawsuit going against Barry & Enright for a while--not sure how that was resolved--because many months after his 1979 TOC shows ran, he still hadn't received his cash or prizes. That may have been why he chose not to compete in the $1,000,000 event for the right to become The Joker's Wild NATIONAL CHAMPION!!
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many months after his 1979 TOC shows ran, he still hadn't received his cash or prizes. That may have been why he chose not to compete in the $1,000,000 event for the right to become The Joker's Wild NATIONAL CHAMPION!!
Dillon supposedly expressed regret over participating in the 1979 ToC, claiming a champ should be allowed to retire in peace and not be continually challenged year after year...whether or not the lawsuit factored in, I don't know.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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OT: The original Heidi Bowl happened when NBC cut the end of a Jets-Raiders playoff game to show the movie "Heidi"
Do you think a TPiR tournament could ever be possible? For 1 week, keep the same audience, and the player with the highest winning wins a special prize? Or something else...
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Dec 23 2003, 11:43 PM\']I think Scrabble did something similar, where two players played for the whole show, and the best Sprint time over the week won $25,000.
[/quote]
Scrabble had as many different prize structures as they had Tournaments of Champions:
In February 1985 there was a tournament where the 20 highest earning players to date (the show had only been broadcast approximately seven months) competed over a two week period. The champion won a jackpot of $53,500 (IIRC) -- this was $35,000 plus all the pink and blue square bonuses during the tournament. Each of the players played two Crossword games (in sets of two - any given player faced the same opponent twice, win or lose). The champion was whoever accumulated the shortest time completing a four word Sprint (remember in those days the standard Sprint was three words).
In November 1985 there was a tournament where the five highest earning players between February 1985 and November 1985 competed against five players selected from the national Scrabble board game tournaments (the players were paired off as one TV player against one board game player). Like the first tournament, each player played two Crossword games against the same opponent, win or lose. Each game was worth $1,000, players kept any money earned through pink or blue squares, and players who completed a four word Sprint in under 25.0 seconds received a $1,000 bonus. The player who achieved the shortest time that week had his or her earnings raised to $25,000. I remember this tournament well, because I was the winner, getting four words in 15.2 seconds. With earnings from ten games broadcast in September 1985, I was retired from Scrabble with earnings of $65,000.
In May 1986 there was a tournament where the 20 highest earning players not yet included in a Tournament competed (February 1985 through May 1986 players were included, except for the five TV players in the November 1985 tournament), in a format like the February 1985 tournament. The prize for the shortest Sprint time was $50,000.
In the summer of 1986 there was a tournament where the 20 highest earning teen players competed for $50,000 in savings bonds. The format was like the February 1985 and May 1986 adult tournaments.
Then in the fall of 1986 there was the 13-week $100,000 Scrabble tournament. It started with a series of 12 weekly tournaments. The winners of the 12 weekly tournaments returned in the 13th week (along with four wild card players from the 12 earlier weeks) to play for $100,000. I don't recall much more detail there.
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It is awesome to hear from an actual Scrabble contestant! It is even more awesome to hear from a tournament winner! I bet it was a lot of fun. Thanks for the input about the various tournaments, because I was very curious about them (especially the $100,000 tournament).
I also neglected to talk about the 1987 Tournament of Champions on $ale of the Century. That tournament had nine of the biggest winners (not competing in any previous tournaments as well as the aforementioned International Invitational Tournament). The winners from those three games played in the finals (keep in mind that the "Winner's Big Money Game" was just put into effect by the time this tournament began). The first one to win two games won the tournament. The first win allowed the player to play the WBMG (which was at that time five puzzles in 25 seconds) for $10,000. The second win resulted in an automatic $10,000 and playing the WBMG for a $30,000 Mercedes Benz.
If anyone knows the results of the tournament, please let me know. I only have one episode from the finals, so I do not know the overall winner. Thanks a lot!
The Inquisitive One