The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: aaron sica on February 03, 2016, 10:01:53 AM
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TPiR has had its share of primetime runs over the years..The Feud is back in primetime again after many years..Jeopardy even had a primetime run back in 1990, and now Pyramid's going to primetime.
How come Wheel never got a chance?
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I don't mean this to sound snarky, but what would be its gimmick?
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I don't mean this to sound snarky, but what would be its gimmick?
No snarkiness came across to me. :) Well, Family Feud's primetime "pull" has always been celebrities...I would imagine that would work for Wheel as well. Have 3 celebrities play, and perhaps the winning celebrities would come back for a tournament..
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I don't mean this to sound snarky, but what would be its gimmick?
No snarkiness came across to me. :) Well, Family Feud's primetime "pull" has always been celebrities...I would imagine that would work for Wheel as well. Have 3 celebrities play, and perhaps the winning celebrities would come back for a tournament..
I would watch a longer Wheel episode with three comedians playing strictly for laughs, the way they do 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown in the UK.
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I would watch a longer Wheel episode with three comedians playing strictly for laughs, the way they do 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown in the UK.
I don't think it would be too complicated to stretch a game out to an hour - perhaps bring back the "turn your backs" for a commercial break.
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I could see it being cast members of whatever network show, or simply a cast member from three different shows. I'm thinking of how a tournament format could work over the course of an hour, maybe do two separate games per half hour and have the two winners face off in a special two-player speed round.
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I don't mean this to sound snarky, but what would be its gimmick?
New consonants.
/ducking
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I don't mean this to sound snarky, but what would be its gimmick?
Perhaps the show could incorporate some of these suggestions (http://www.theonion.com/article/desperate-wheel-of-fortune-receives-approval-to-us-3681) (NSFW).
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New consonants.
/ducking
"Is there a shreb as in 'Shrebsivania?'"
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..Jeopardy even had a primetime run back in 1990...
Good thread to ask a question I've wondered about. Was Super Jeopardy! brought about to prop up Monopoly, or was it already a "stand-alone" series?
If it wasn't already a firmly-cemented part of the regular series, a Celebrity Wheel/Celebrity Jeopardy hour in summer primetime I could see working well.
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Good thread to ask a question I've wondered about. Was Super Jeopardy! brought about to prop up Monopoly, or was it already a "stand-alone" series?
If it wasn't already a firmly-cemented part of the regular series, a Celebrity Wheel/Celebrity Jeopardy hour in summer primetime I could see working well.
A chapter of Inside Jeopardy goes into this. My memory (and I'll check when I get home tonight, because it's a single dedicated chapter that covers summer 1990 and thus easy to track down) is that the sale of Monopoly to ABC was either contingent upon or leavened with the Super Jeopardy tournament, and that SJ wouldn't have existed in that form at that time without the pairing.
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I don't mean this to sound snarky, but what would be its gimmick?
Perhaps the show could incorporate some of these suggestions (http://www.theonion.com/article/desperate-wheel-of-fortune-receives-approval-to-us-3681) (NSFW).
It would certainly liven up the "What Are You Doing?" category.
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TPiR has had its share of primetime runs over the years..The Feud is back in primetime again after many years..Jeopardy even had a primetime run back in 1990, and now Pyramid's going to primetime.
How come Wheel never got a chance?
I'm guessing because, unlike the shows listed above, Wheel 's syndicated edition has always been exclusively in early access (7:00 PM - 8:00 PM Eastern, your time may vary), so it might not have been appealing to any of the networks to put another version of it almost immediately thereafter.
Note Super Jeopardy! ran on Saturday evenings - I don't know if that was to avoid bumping up against the syndicated edition or not. Jeopardy! isn't locked into early access, however.
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... - perhaps bring back the "turn your backs" for a commercial break.
99.68% of the viewers: "What the hell are they doing? That's stupid."
00.32% of the viewers: "Heh. They used to do that on the game a long time ago."
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99.68% of the viewers: "What the hell are they doing? That's stupid."
00.32% of the viewers: "Heh. They used to do that on the game a long time ago."
The reason to have people turn away from the board is so that during a stop down they don't see something inadvertently. Jeopardy does it too. I don't think the show gains anything by placing a commercial break in a place where it hasn't been for about thirty years, even though they probably could wipe the board and bring it up again coming back from the ads.
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I would watch a longer Wheel episode with three comedians playing strictly for laughs, the way they do 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown in the UK.
I don't think it would be too complicated to stretch a game out to an hour - perhaps bring back the "turn your backs" for a commercial break.
Since it's electronic now...couldn't they just turn the board off? ;D
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I'm thinking of how a tournament format could work over the course of an hour, maybe do two separate games per half hour and have the two winners face off in a special two-player speed round.
That's how the hour-long episodes worked in 1975; for the final round, they also randomly selected a puzzle from one of three bowls marked by category.
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Since it's electronic now...couldn't they just turn the board off? ;D
(http://i.imgur.com/MLNrXDO.jpg)
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I don't mean this to sound snarky, but what would be its gimmick?
New consonants.
/ducking
Or maybe puzzles using the Decabet.
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Only way I could think of it working is to guarantee a million dollar bonus round:
-you play two front games as normal; whoever has the highest score goes to a head to head final puzzle.
-winner of that final puzzle gets an extra $50,000 (they can have a spinoff to determine who goes first in the final puzzle), and has a chance at the bonus round for the million- no need to get a special wedge or spin the bonus wheel (unless you want to use it to determine what the bonus puzzle will be)
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I dunno if I'd make the puzzle worth a million. I think the standard syndication rules can apply: land on the wedge, solve the puzzle, don't Bankrupt, etc.
Bump the minimum bonus payout from 33K to 40K. Offer a few nicer cars. That's about the extent of everything I'd do. Oh, and maybe make the Prize Puzzle something like a European vacation or trip around the world.
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Only way I could think of it working is to guarantee a million dollar bonus round:
"And for that reason, I'm out."
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Oh, and maybe make the Prize Puzzle something like a European vacation or trip around the world.
Thereby making the non-Prize-Puzzles even less relevant than they are in syndication?
I am the Kevin O'Leary to Travis's Robert Herjavec, I think.
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Thereby making the non-Prize-Puzzles even less relevant than they are in syndication?
I am the Kevin O'Leary to Travis's Robert Herjavec, I think.
That was indeed the reference.
So here's a thing: a couple weeks ago they have Collette Vacations week where the sponsoring company provided all of the trips on offer that week. Thirty years ago the show was lauded for extravagant and lavish prizes, with $50,000 hand-made Italian sports cars, $90,000 Oriental rugs, jewels as big as my little cousin's fist, boats and motorhomes and all sorts of stuff, and yet in that one week they don't offer anything out of the ordinary. Why not offer a first class trip to the location, or a longer trip to do something different instead of aggressively doing the same thing every day for thirty-nine weeks? J.R. linked to us an episode from 1987 where there was a three-week cruise of the Orient in the bonus round. The cars are now run-of-the-mill sedans and no longer even kick in the five-grand to cover the taxes on it. If the syndicated show can't put their back into offering things that are interesting and water-cooler-worthy, then why would we assume that a nighttime version would do the same? Put a Corvette, Mercedes or Jaguar out on the wheel to get some eyeballs--TPIR did that for the first couple of years after Drew Carey took over.
The reason that Who Wants to be a Millionaire worked and Chance of a Lifetime didn't is that Millionaire gave away its money in an interesting, exciting and compelling way, and Lange Lifetime (for as neat a game as it was) didna. Wheel of Fortune used to give away the cash and prizes in a compelling way--they haven't for about ten years or so now.
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Oh, and maybe make the Prize Puzzle something like a European vacation or trip around the world.
Thereby making the non-Prize-Puzzles even less relevant than they are in syndication?
Noted. I haven't been a Wheel Watcher in close to 20 years, so I'd love to see numbers on how frequently the Prize Puzzle winner is the big winner of the night. For that reason, I wouldn't mind seeing the Prize not go towards the final total, but not my show.
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Noted. I haven't been a Wheel Watcher in close to 20 years, so I'd love to see numbers on how frequently the Prize Puzzle winner is the big winner of the night. For that reason, I wouldn't mind seeing the Prize not go towards the final total, but not my show.
I bet that the Buy a Vowel message boards would have copious amounts of box scores you could go through to figure out whether it's significant or not.
As to my idea of how to mount an hour-long show it would be very close to how the Armed Forces episode on CBS went: three contestants play a toss-up to determine control before each round and stay on until they fail to solve two puzzles. Replace contestants as necessary from a ring of fire. (Maybe that would be where the toss-ups could come into play instead). At 45 minutes the three big winners to that point come back for a final speed round to determine who plays the bonus puzzle.
It would differentiate itself from the other version, and allow lots of people the chance to play.
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Noted. I haven't been a Wheel Watcher in close to 20 years, so I'd love to see numbers on how frequently the Prize Puzzle winner is the big winner of the night. For that reason, I wouldn't mind seeing the Prize not go towards the final total, but not my show.
We had a thread about it a while back that showed pretty conclusively that winning the Prize Puzzle won you the game a disproportionate amount of the time.
I'm with you; the concept of "score money" as opposed to "bonus money" works just fine on Teh Pyramid and would certainly fix one of the major problems with WoF.
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And they didn't even chyron up the score or bonus money. Dick mentioned it and would recap it after each visit to the winner's circle and that was it. Mention the value of the trip or don't, but Pat could easily say "You've won $7,300 and the trip to Hong Kong tonight, did you have a good time?"
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We had a thread about it a while back that showed pretty conclusively that winning the Prize Puzzle won you the game a disproportionate amount of the time.
More than once. Flerbert gave us some numbers addressing a season, and I looked at a smaller sample at a different time covering several weeks. The short version of my assessment was that winning the prize puzzle round was worth winning two rounds. His numbers seem to back that up.
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Thereby making the non-Prize-Puzzles even less relevant than they are in syndication?
I am the Kevin O'Leary to Travis's Robert Herjavec, I think.
That was indeed the reference.
So here's a thing: a couple weeks ago they have Collette Vacations week where the sponsoring company provided all of the trips on offer that week. Thirty years ago the show was lauded for extravagant and lavish prizes, with $50,000 hand-made Italian sports cars, $90,000 Oriental rugs, jewels as big as my little cousin's fist, boats and motorhomes and all sorts of stuff, and yet in that one week they don't offer anything out of the ordinary. Why not offer a first class trip to the location, or a longer trip to do something different instead of aggressively doing the same thing every day for thirty-nine weeks? J.R. linked to us an episode from 1987 where there was a three-week cruise of the Orient in the bonus round. The cars are now run-of-the-mill sedans and no longer even kick in the five-grand to cover the taxes on it. If the syndicated show can't put their back into offering things that are interesting and water-cooler-worthy, then why would we assume that a nighttime version would do the same? Put a Corvette, Mercedes or Jaguar out on the wheel to get some eyeballs--TPIR did that for the first couple of years after Drew Carey took over.
For years I've wondered why Wheel hasn't tapped the resources of its corporate parent Sony- I'm sure they could put together some really neat tech packages, movie premiere experiences and the like.
I'd be cool with the two front game winners playing a best of 3/5 series of speed up round puzzles.
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I'd be cool with the two front game winners playing a best of 3/5 series of speed up round puzzles.
I like that less than what I came up with, but I really like this a whole lot. The speed round takes away the luck of the wheel and if you're playing for a massive prize, I like the idea that the player who is best able to call the right letters and solve the puzzles moves forward. Gold star.
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I like that less than what I came up with, but I really like this a whole lot. The speed round takes away the luck of the wheel and if you're playing for a massive prize, I like the idea that the player who is best able to call the right letters and solve the puzzles moves forward. Gold star.
Just lobbing a grenade because I think an hour-long-drawn-out-Wheel is a bad idea full stop, but: you guys are proposing deciding a game of Wheel of Fortune with a series of rounds that involve neither a wheel nor a fortune?
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Thirty years ago the show was lauded for extravagant and lavish prizes, with $50,000 hand-made Italian sports cars, $90,000 Oriental rugs, jewels as big as my little cousin's fist, boats and motorhomes and all sorts of stuff, and yet in that one week they don't offer anything out of the ordinary. Why not offer a first class trip to the location, or a longer trip to do something different instead of aggressively doing the same thing every day for thirty-nine weeks? J.R. linked to us an episode from 1987 where there was a three-week cruise of the Orient in the bonus round. The cars are now run-of-the-mill sedans and no longer even kick in the five-grand to cover the taxes on it. If the syndicated show can't put their back into offering things that are interesting and water-cooler-worthy, then why would we assume that a nighttime version would do the same? Put a Corvette, Mercedes or Jaguar out on the wheel to get some eyeballs--TPIR did that for the first couple of years after Drew Carey took over.
Back in the shopping days, they had such a variety of trip locales, with many trips being secondary cities. (Scottsdale, AZ, Ojai, CA, Black Hills, SD...) One trip I clearly remember was for Asheville, NC -- where the hotel accommodations were for a so-so "Motor Inn" that I stayed at about a year prior.
TPIR does a way better job in mixing up their travel destinations and adding some unusual activities in their itineraries.
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Back in the shopping days, they had such a variety of trip locales, with many trips being secondary cities. (Scottsdale, AZ, Ojai, CA, Black Hills, SD...) One trip I clearly remember was for Asheville, NC -- where the hotel accommodations were for a so-so "Motor Inn" that I stayed at about a year prior.
Which was one of the reasons they got rid of the shopping - prize descriptions were taking up too much time. No shopping meant more game play.
One of the people I worked with was one of the first contestants in 1987 when shopping was eliminated. He didn't tell us how he did, but he was able to say there was no shopping, which fascinated me more than what happened. (He won about $7500 in cash and a $55,000 car, sold the car to his father at cost, and then quit because he wasn't making enough money. We weren't very sympathetic.)
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For a hypothetical hour-long show, I tossed around the idea of bringing back a shopping round to fill time. Make it a space on the wheel valued at $2,500, and if someone lands and solves, then he or she can "buy" a few items from the "Sony Store" (a bunch of tech gizmos at center stage, think Brookstone-style setup). Maybe put a small trip up there and a few quirky household items; the $2,500 goes to the total, prizes purchased follow the old "once you buy a prize......" rule.
Then again, it's been almost 30 years since they offered shopping (not counting the gimmick in the late-90s), so it's prolly a faint memory to most people. Plus, even with additional puzzles -- Toss Ups included -- they prolly don't want prize copy eating up game time.
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Just lobbing a grenade because I think an hour-long-drawn-out-Wheel is a bad idea full stop,
I don't think it's a particularly great idea myself, but I want to play along and not be accused of hating fun or being the "no fun police," and there's not much harm in the creative exercise.
but: you guys are proposing deciding a game of Wheel of Fortune with a series of rounds that involve neither a wheel nor a fortune?
Jeopardy '78 was going to have each player tackle a portion of the board against the clock, something that had not been done before nor after. Plus the speed-up puzzles are generally done with a final spin to establish the value of consonants, and I'm assuming that (again, for the sake of the exercise) that the values on the wheel increase commensurately with the budget so that there's a substantial amount of money to play for with each puzzle.)
I've been an advocate for moving the Toss-ups to the last act of the show and doing a Countdown Round to mitigate the things that should be mitigated, but it got no response. Just because they don't do it that way now doesn't mean that couldn't or shouldn't.
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I like that less than what I came up with, but I really like this a whole lot. The speed round takes away the luck of the wheel and if you're playing for a massive prize, I like the idea that the player who is best able to call the right letters and solve the puzzles moves forward. Gold star.
Just lobbing a grenade because I think an hour-long-drawn-out-Wheel is a bad idea full stop, but: you guys are proposing deciding a game of Wheel of Fortune with a series of rounds that involve neither a wheel nor a fortune?
By the time you get to the playoff, both players have already won a nice chunk of change, so I'd be okay with a round that decides the day's champion by who the better puzzle solver is.
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My thing is that Celebrity Family Feud didn't even draw anything out really. They had two games using the extra time to really play the game and goof around. I think the same really could be done for a primetime Wheel. I wouldn't even worry about having the same group of celebs play one long game over the hour. 6-12 celebs play in two games with a different set of celebs each game. Have some fun, throw in a nicer, longer Round 4 or 5 and relax.
Perhaps, if there is too much time left over at the end have the winner(s) of the first game team up with the winner(s) of the second game and go for one last Bonus Round for more money to the charities.
I'd raise the Wheel values, placing some regular 4 digit wedges on there. Put a nice Prize wedge on the wheel that isn't a trip.
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Perhaps, if there is too much time left over at the end have the winner(s) of the first game team up with the winner(s) of the second game and go for one last Bonus Round for more money to the charities.
Therein lies the difference between Wheel and Feud. With timed games, you have the added bonus of being able to sound the Time's Up Bell whenever things need to cease, whether it's in Round 3 or Round 6. A show with a four round structure like Feud has to have a contingency plan in place for an hour show, and we saw that with Feud- they really taped 12 half hour episodes and paired them together for each hour block.