The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: GSWitch on January 23, 2004, 07:11:25 AM
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20 years ago, NBC had a game show which would be Bill Cullen's (along with Barry-Enright) last network game show, Hot Potato!
The gameplay was fine, but the only gripe I had about it was...NO! NOT THAT! It was whenever new champions were crowned, the bonus round was reset to $5,000! They should've structured it to have it grow until it was won ala Super Password or Now You See It (Henry).
Got any favorite memories?
Mine was when the clowns acted silly over a $5,000 win!
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[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 07:11 AM\'] Got any favorite memories?
Mine was when the clowns acted silly over a $5,000 win! [/quote]
The best one that I remember, which sent me collapsing into giggles (mind you, I was 9), was after the show went to Celebrity Hot (ssssssss......) Potato. As the stars on the teams introduced themselves, Arte Johnson, instead of saying his name, just said something like "Hi, I don't know who I am!".
That is the best memory I have of Hot Potato.
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[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 07:11 AM\'] The gameplay was fine, but the only gripe I had about it was...NO! NOT THAT! [/quote]
Not what? That it inspired thousands of trolls to ask about Bill Cullen tossing a hot potato at the contestants? (Dat wuld b funi) ;-)
As for my favorite HP memory...easily, being introduced to the 411 Operators (and especially Judy) :-) :-)
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[quote name=\'JMFabiano\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 11:18 AM\'] Not what? That it inspired thousands of trolls to ask about Bill Cullen tossing a hot potato at the contestants? (Dat wuld b funi) ;-) [/quote]
[throws potatoes at James, then drags him to the TTD90 room]
As for my favorite HP memory...easily, being introduced to the 411 Operators (and especially Judy) :-) :-)
I call dibs on Alison (captain of the Accountants team). [rowr]
Besides Ali, my memory of HP is the Beekeepers, the Buffalo Bills of HP (five bonus rounds, zero wins).
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The Accountants won $40,000; the most money ever won by a team.
The Waitresses won half that much, winning $20,000.
My favorite moment was during the Celebrity shows, when at the Bonus Game, the team was asked what Ceviche was. A younger-looking Brad Garrett said in a very funny accent, "Ceviche EES (IS) FISH!"
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[quote name=\'gameshowguy2000\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 11:51 AM\'] My favorite moment was during the Celebrity shows, when at the Bonus Game, the team was asked what Ceviche was. A younger-looking Brad Garrett said in a very funny accent, "Ceviche EES (IS) FISH!" [/quote]
I guess you had to be there to understand why it was funny.
I gotta agree with Aaron. The final week, with Arte Johnson and Jan Murray, was my best Hot Potato memory from its original airings.
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[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 07:11 AM\'] 20 years ago, NBC had a game show which would be Bill Cullen's (along with Barry-Enright) last network game show, Hot Potato! [/quote]
And it was William Lawrence Cullen's next-to-last game show overall. His truly last game, as we all know, was The Joker's Wild, where he replaced original host---the late Jack Barry--for its last 2 seasons in syndication.
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The gameplay was fine, but the only gripe I had about it was...
... that it was a blatant rip off of Family Feud.
Why Jake bought that piece of s**t I'll never know.
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[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 02:36 PM\']
The gameplay was fine, but the only gripe I had about it was...
... that it was a blatant rip off of Family Feud.
Why Jake bought that piece of s**t I'll never know. [/quote]
I brought up a similar point in another post, about how Barry-Enright weren't very big in the creativity department (i.e. TJW and Bullseye being alike, similar bonus games). Interesting that they waited 8 years to rip off Feud.
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I mainly remember Jim J. Bullock introducing himself as Kitty Carlisle in one episode, and Bill's extreme patience put to the test by having to suffer through a week with the obnoxious celebrity teens.
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 02:44 PM\'] I brought up a similar point in another post, about how Barry-Enright weren't very big in the creativity department (i.e. TJW and Bullseye being alike, similar bonus games). Interesting that they waited 8 years to rip off Feud. [/quote]
Hey, it took them ten years to rip off Hollywood Squares (Break the Bank).
By comparison, Hollywood Connection (Match Game) was rushed through at four years.
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The devil-may-care attitude of the last week was a high point. Rene Enriquez and the constant hedging by telling the contestant "it's your money" during the bonus. The breakdancing demonstration. Contestants wearing job specific clothes even after it went celebrity. Chyron generated graphics. Soap Opera week was good, as was the athletes and Miss Americas week. The bench moving into position. Michael Winslow!!! It differed from Feud in the strategy of knocking out your opponents. It's all good! All in all a great show with great music.
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Hey, it took them ten years to rip off Hollywood Squares (Break the Bank).
And one could argue HS is a ripoff of Tic Tac Dough. Not that I would...
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 02:43 PM\'] Contestants wearing job specific clothes even after it went celebrity. Chyron generated graphics. Soap Opera week was good, as was the athletes and Miss Americas week. The bench moving into position. Michael Winslow!!! [/quote]
All smoke and mirrors. The gist of the show was attempting to guess the top answers given in a survey.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 06:14 PM\']
All smoke and mirrors. The gist of the show was attempting to guess the top answers given in a survey. [/quote]
Well, yeah, but HP used questions from the Davis Research Co. which may not have been limited to 100 people (heck, maybe they just asked seven people). In addition, HP occassionally used questions of a factual nature, such as "Name a current network game show host."
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 02:44 PM\']
Why Jake bought that piece of s**t I'll never know. [/QUOTE]
I brought up a similar point in another post, about how Barry-Enright weren't very big in the creativity department (i.e. TJW and Bullseye being alike, similar bonus games). Interesting that they waited 8 years to rip off Feud. [/quote]
Play the Percentages's bonus round had shades of Feud, particularly later in the run when it became the "pick the top five answers out of six shown for a survey question, thereby avoiding the one that scored zero", to win.
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[quote name=\'ilb4ever2000\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 05:45 PM\']
Hey, it took them ten years to rip off Hollywood Squares (Break the Bank).
And one could argue HS is a ripoff of Tic Tac Dough. Not that I would... [/quote]
And I will argue that it's not: TTD actually predated HSq.
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[quote name=\'GS Warehouse\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 06:27 PM\'] [quote name=\'ilb4ever2000\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 05:45 PM\']
Hey, it took them ten years to rip off Hollywood Squares (Break the Bank).
And one could argue HS is a ripoff of Tic Tac Dough. Not that I would... [/quote]
And I will argue that it's not: TTD actually predated HSq. [/quote]
Not to take away from your argument, but since TTD predated HSq, you CAN argue that HSq was a rip-off of TTD.
There are reasons that you can't make the argument, but predating isn't one of them.
Doug
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QUOTE (GS Warehouse @ Jan 23 2004, 06:27 PM)
QUOTE (ilb4ever2000 @ Jan 23 2004, 05:45 PM)
QUOTE
Hey, it took them ten years to rip off Hollywood Squares (Break the Bank).
And one could argue HS is a ripoff of Tic Tac Dough. Not that I would...
And I will argue that it's not: TTD actually predated HSq.
Not to take away from your argument, but since TTD predated HSq, you CAN argue that HSq was a rip-off of TTD.
There are reasons that you can't make the argument, but predating isn't one of them.
Doug
Hollywood Squares: October 1966
Tic Tac Dough: July 1956
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 06:04 PM\'] [quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 06:14 PM\']
All smoke and mirrors. The gist of the show was attempting to guess the top answers given in a survey. [/quote]
Well, yeah, but HP used questions from the Davis Research Co. which may not have been limited to 100 people (heck, maybe they just asked seven people). In addition, HP occassionally used questions of a factual nature, such as "Name a current network game show host." [/quote]
Time now for the "It's A Small World" department: my primary place of employment, which also does market research, has collaborated with Davis Research on a number of projects in the past few years (all this well post HOT POTATO). I remember having a brief conversation with one of the execs, who had a vague recollection of compiling some of the surveys that HP wound up using. I didn't pursue it any further (there was no need).
Well, hope you enjoyed this pleasant little anecdote. :)
Doug
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I often feel like I'm one of the only people on earth who liked this show. I will immediately concede that "Hot Potato" had a spectacularly horrid bonus round, why they went with that I'll never understand, as it was totally detached from the front game (not that that's always a bad thing). I will also concede that it's ripoff of "Family Feud" but let's note that "Hot Potato" actually admitted this in their own subtle way (note that Bill's rule speil included "What makes this game different...")
That said, it's a darn fine ripoff. First off, the questions they came up with were wonderful. It's not likely you're going to come in knowing America's 7 most-purchased dishes and drinks at diners and restaurants, but it's a nice test of common logic that could easily win a round if you just think about. It also posessed an element of strategy similar to "Split Second"...Come up with the most obvious answers and toss the potato to your opponents and leave them to come up with the more obscure answers. The "knocked out of the round" element and making the pass-play option available for an entire round of play made this a more strategic version of "Feud" (not better or worse version, just strategic). I thought it was a good game.
Memories of Hot Potato, since a few people have shared those: One that quickly comes to mind is an episode where the question was "What did people say was their favorite situation comedy currently on the air?" What makes this a classic is that either the team members weren't paying attention or just outright forgot the question, because late in the round, two contestants answer "Knots Landing" and "60 Minutes."
Also coming to mind is the "Boot Hill" bonus game question from the final civilian week, with Bill announcing five shows later during the first Celebrity week that due to the research department's error, the Coast Guard Rescue Team would get an additional $15,000. It comes to mind not just for being a feel-good moment, but also because the fellow who watched the show and spotted the error and called Barry & Enright Productions contacted me about 2 years ago to ask if I had any episode where Bill announced it; apparently, in the original run, NBC skipped a few episodes during the format change and never aired Bill's correction. So there's my antecdote.
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[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Jan 23 2004, 07:11 AM\'] Got any favorite memories?
Mine was when the clowns acted silly over a $5,000 win! [/quote]
The only non-"generic" memories I have are the team of Dominican Monks (introducing themselves as "I'm Brother <first name only>", and later pointing out to Bill that they had to donate their winnings to charity as they had taken vows of poverty), and, after Celebrity HP started, Bill announcing one day that a team of Coast Guardsmen was going to get $15,000 because although they had supposedly missed the question "In what state is Tombstone?", there really is a town named Tombstone in the "wrong" state, and somebody from the town had actually written to the show to point this out.
-- Don
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The only non-"generic" memories I have are the team of Dominican Monks (introducing themselves as "I'm Brother <first name only>", and later pointing out to Bill that they had to donate their winnings to charity as they had taken vows of poverty)
And in a matchup not unlike one you might see on Comedy Central's 1999 entry Vs, one of the eps saw the Monks playing against a team of Probation Officers. :-)
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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I forgot to mention that there were two sound effects that could be found on other NBC games.
1). In the middle of the run, a sharp DING! was heard for a correct answer (instead of a tingalingalng). They borrowed it from Sale of The Century.
2). The bonus round had 2 revealing answer sound effects. The 2nd sound would later be used on WordPlay to indicate score!
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2). The bonus round had 2 revealing answer sound effects. The 2nd sound would later be used on WordPlay to indicate score!
Wordplay had a few recycled sound effects...for starters, the "bonus word audience reveal" sound was the same as the "booth deactivation" sound from the short-lived 1976 entry Hot Seat.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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"Brad Garrett's Hot Potato" just might be the way to pay homage to HP's 20th anniversary, as Brad just may be out of work twofold come May(with the demise of Squares, on which he's been a semi-regular and the possible end of Raymond).
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[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Jan 25 2004, 11:23 AM\'] "Brad Garrett's Hot Potato" just might be the way to pay homage to HP's 20th anniversary, as Brad just may be out of work twofold come May(with the demise of Squares, on which he's been a semi-regular and the possible end of Raymond). [/quote]
Or it might be a really, really bad idea.
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Here's what I didn't understand:
I don't know why Bill had to use "Correct" or "Incorrect" just to indicate if an answer made the list.
Why couldn't he just say "That made the list" or "That didn't make the list."
How can you have "right" or "wrong" answers on a survey question show such as HP?
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[quote name=\'gameshowguy2000\' date=\'Jan 26 2004, 12:26 AM\'] How can you have "right" or "wrong" answers on a survey question show such as HP? [/quote]
The same way you can have "right" or "wrong" answers on a survey question show such as Family Feud.
As for the way Bill addressed right or wrong answers, we can't do anything about it, as he's dead, but maybe, just maybe, we can get Bob Barker to start addressing "Punch-A-Bunch" by it's name, instead of calling it "The Punchboard".
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Jan 25 2004, 10:34 PM\'] As for the way Bill addressed right or wrong answers, we can't do anything about it, as he's dead, but maybe, just maybe, we can get Bob Barker to start addressing "Punch-A-Bunch" by it's name, instead of calling it "The Punchboard". [/quote]
In Bob's defense, the name of the game USED TO BE "Punchboard", but apparently a redesign of the board eliminated the row that spelled out the game's name. (Yes, I realize it always said "Punch-A-Bunch" across the top.) And fer God's sake, WE know what the game is, if he wants to call it "The P.X. Anus Sneermonger Game", does it really matter?
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 26 2004, 02:05 AM\'] In Bob's defense, the name of the game USED TO BE "Punchboard", but apparently a redesign of the board eliminated the row that spelled out the game's name. (Yes, I realize it always said "Punch-A-Bunch" across the top.) And fer God's sake, WE know what the game is, if he wants to call it "The P.X. Anus Sneermonger Game", does it really matter? [/quote]
Apparently my attempts at sarcasm fell sadly short. :)
I, too, couldn't give two squats what Bob calls the game; I was just trying to show how ridiculous it was to gripe over the way Bill Cullen addressed answers on HP.
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Would you say HP is the longest running 20 week (or so) series ever? A year on CBN, three on USA and a year or so on GSN.
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Jan 26 2004, 11:24 AM\'] Would you say HP is the longest running 20 week (or so) series ever? A year on CBN, three on USA and a year or so on GSN. [/quote]
Heck no, PYL had more rerun years than HP did. HP's rerun life was six or so years(1 year on CBN, about 3 years combined in two runs on USA, and 18 months or so on GSN reruns in two runs). PYL had a year of syndie reruns, eight years of USA reruns, and almost 2.5 years on GSN.
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[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Jan 26 2004, 11:55 AM\'] [quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Jan 26 2004, 11:24 AM\'] Would you say HP is the longest running 20 week (or so) series ever? A year on CBN, three on USA and a year or so on GSN. [/quote]
Heck no, PYL had more rerun years than HP did. HP's rerun life was six or so years(1 year on CBN, about 3 years combined in two runs on USA, and 18 months or so on GSN reruns in two runs). PYL had a year of syndie reruns, eight years of USA reruns, and almost 2.5 years on GSN. [/quote]
But Press Your Luck ran for three years in its original run--considerably longer than the 20 weeks for Hot Potato. Hence, Jimmy's question.
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Jan 26 2004, 08:28 AM\'] Apparently my attempts at sarcasm fell sadly short. :)
[/quote]
Only because it hit too close to home. We DO have people around here who DO bitch about that precise issue. :)
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As to B&E's speed in ripping off formats - I sent Dan a tape of a cable show to review called HOLD ON!, a Bible quiz where two teams take turns assigning question categories to each other, hoping to find just the right questions that will knock down members of the other team. You score points by answering the question assigned your team, and get bonuses for knocking down all the players on the other team. He wrote back with several helpful suggestions - trimming the teams from 5 players to 3 players, avoid long, repetative questions, etc. Then a few months later, Hot Potato appears. They can move fast when they want to.
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Jan 26 2004, 10:28 AM\']I, too, couldn't give two squats what Bob calls the game[/quote]
But, but, he DOES call it Punch-A-Bunch every now and then!
(It's Esoteric Trivia vs. Biting Sarcasm, today on Hot [hiss!] Potato!)
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[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' date=\'Jan 26 2004, 12:51 PM\'] (It's Esoteric Trivia vs. Biting Sarcasm, today on Hot [hiss!] Potato!)
[/quote]
Now, THERE'S AN idea for a hybrid game show - a half hour of Hot (hiss!) Potato followed by a half hour of Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. Now here are your hosts, Bill Cullen and Kenny Blankenship.....
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[quote name=\'gameshowguy2000\' date=\'Jan 26 2004, 12:26 AM\']Here's what I didn't understand:
I don't know why Bill had to use "Correct" or "Incorrect" just to indicate if an answer made the list.
Why couldn't he just say "That made the list" or "That didn't make the list."
How can you have "right" or "wrong" answers on a survey question show such as HP?[/quote]
Because some of the questions were general-knowledge list questions and not just surveys.
And you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Mr. Cullen had done quite a few game shows before "Hot Potato."