The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: wdm1219inpenna on September 19, 2024, 07:16:35 AM
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I do not ever recall seeing this happened but I'm wondering what if...
Jack had 7 questions in front of his podium for the Mystery category which paid off double the dollar value.
What would have happened had all 7 questions been used up and someone spun the Mystery category and wanted to play it?
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I do not ever recall seeing this happened but I'm wondering what if...
Jack had 7 questions in front of his podium for the Mystery category which paid off double the dollar value.
What would have happened had all 7 questions been used up and someone spun the Mystery category and wanted to play it?
Speculation here - when Jim Peck subbed for Bill Cullen there were stopdowns as Jim was much faster than Bill so Jim would exhaust the question stacks provided to him and they needed to be refreshed. My guess is quick stopdown, throw a new seven cards on the podium and pick it up.
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I do not ever recall seeing this happened but I'm wondering what if...
Jack had 7 questions in front of his podium for the Mystery category which paid off double the dollar value.
What would have happened had all 7 questions been used up and someone spun the Mystery category and wanted to play it?
Speculation here - when Jim Peck subbed for Bill Cullen there were stopdowns as Jim was much faster than Bill so Jim would exhaust the question stacks provided to him and they needed to be refreshed. My guess is quick stopdown, throw a new seven cards on the podium and pick it up.
Or just throw to a commercial break, and come back with another full rack of Mystery Qs and a short "while you were away..." explanation.
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as Jim was much faster than Bill
Apropos of nothing, *STILL* one of my favorite bits of game show minutiae is that there was an episode of Cullen TJW where only one question was asked for the entire show.
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Apropos of nothing, *STILL* one of my favorite bits of game show minutiae is that there was an episode of Cullen TJW where only one question was asked for the entire show.
Huh? How is that even possible? I must be out of the loop on that one because it's the first I've heard of that. Is there a link to it anywhere?
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Huh? How is that even possible? I must be out of the loop on that one because it's the first I've heard of that. Is there a link to it anywhere?
While I've never seen the episode, I know others can vouch for me / correct me on this. But I'm pretty sure the sequence went:
* Bonus round
* Main game - 3 jokers came up, question asked, game was won
* Bonus round
* Audience game
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Huh? How is that even possible? I must be out of the loop on that one because it's the first I've heard of that. Is there a link to it anywhere?
While I've never seen the episode, I know others can vouch for me / correct me on this. But I'm pretty sure the sequence went:
* Bonus round
* Main game - 3 jokers came up, question asked, game was won
* Bonus round
* Audience game
This is how it's accounted for in Adam Nedeff's Quizmaster (p. 486).
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Huh? How is that even possible? I must be out of the loop on that one because it's the first I've heard of that. Is there a link to it anywhere?
While I've never seen the episode, I know others can vouch for me / correct me on this. But I'm pretty sure the sequence went:
* Bonus round
* Main game - 3 jokers came up, question asked, game was won
* Bonus round
* Audience game
Add to that a leisurely interview of the champion at the top of show, then another one with the oncoming challenger. The audience game is a fun way to ride off into the sunset on a Friday but for a show that's supposed to be fast-action and chock-a-block full of quiz questions, the audience game taking up the final segment was a stake in the heart.
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I always wondered why they bothered having both the Mystery category, with its doubled amounts, and Potpourri, which was pretty much the same thing but with normal amounts.
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I always wondered why they bothered having both the Mystery category, with its doubled amounts, and Potpourri, which was pretty much the same thing but with normal amounts.
Maybe a way to change the game strategy up. If the main strategic decision of Joker's Wild strategy is picking a lower-valued question in a category you're more comfortable with versus picking a higher-valued question in a category you're less comfortable with, increasing the value of the mystery category makes it more likely for interesting decisions to come up.
Not sure why they'd keep potpourri around in that case though.
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I always wondered why they bothered having both the Mystery category, with its doubled amounts, and Potpourri, which was pretty much the same thing but with normal amounts.
Maybe a way to change the game strategy up. If the main strategic decision of Joker's Wild strategy is picking a lower-valued question in a category you're more comfortable with versus picking a higher-valued question in a category you're less comfortable with, increasing the value of the mystery category makes it more likely for interesting decisions to come up.
Not sure why they'd keep potpourri around in that case though.
Did Mystery and Pot Luck co-exist? To me it seems like the latter didn't come up often later in the run, but it's been a while since I've watched TJW so I could be wrong about that.
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Going to the main subject of how to deal with running out of questions, I have some observations:
- The Monty Hall Split Second appeared to have only a fixed number of questions programmed into the computer for the Countdown Round. I recall one episode where the round went so long that Monty Hall provided a picture clue and orally stated the three parts of the question. When that didn't end the round, Hall proceeded to do a question without the screen (listing three books of the Bible and asking the contestants whether they were in the Old Testament or New Testament).
- From my observations, the It's Academic Grab Bag round appeared to work on the following system: the first twelve or so questions were specific to the episode (and included three visual questions), and then the show proceeded to a backup set of questions (mostly reused year after year) that was used as needed as the season progressed. (I conclude this based on the observation that different local versions used the same backup questions but on different air dates.)
- From what I saw of the 1990 The Joker's Wild original format, there were 20 categories available in round two. If the round went longer than 10 spins, then the host would offer choices from the unchosen categories in order. If the round went longer than 19 spins (and so all categories but one were played), the host offered the remaining category plus a previously played category. (This system is really simple to implement as a host; you just put the played categories in one pile and the unplayed categories in another, and when you run out of categories, you pick up the unplayed pile and go through those again.)
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I feel like we explored this topic recently, though there's one angle I haven't thought of:
I have never seen anyone spin three of a kind Mystery Meat. Maybe one or two and jokers to fill out, but never all the same. If that's true, if the players exhaust all of those questions and the show doesn't want to do a jump cut and have Jack/Jim/Bill explain why new questions have magically appeared, there is always an out-draw for the player--either another category to choose or a joker that can be converted into one of the other four categories.
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I have never seen anyone spin three of a kind Mystery Meat. Maybe one or two and jokers to fill out, but never all the same. If that's true, if the players exhaust all of those questions and the show doesn't want to do a jump cut and have Jack/Jim/Bill explain why new questions have magically appeared, there is always an out-draw for the player--either another category to choose or a joker that can be converted into one of the other four categories.
Would be extremely awkward if it's a champion's catch-up spin and they need to pick the mystery category to stay in the game or win.
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Maybe the solution was as simple as Jack announcing that he would draw the next question from the top of a stack in his podium. It'd still be a mystery as to what the category would be -- choosing a number had no effect on the contestant being unable to predict what they would be asked.
Or maybe they determined that any single category never went through more than, say, five questions in a game (certainly not a potpourri category, and certainly not a category with doubled values that would end the game more quickly), so they never expected to need a backup plan.
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Or maybe they determined that any single category never went through more than, say, five questions in a game (certainly not a potpourri category, and certainly not a category with doubled values that would end the game more quickly), so they never expected to need a backup plan.
Should probably check the Bing Crosby and horse racing episode to see how often those categories were actually picked. (They were picked frequently enough for Barry to riff on them, so it might be a good estimate of the most questions used in a single category in one game.)
Just watched the game again. It went 14 spins, with Bing Crosby chosen 6 times, horse racing 4 times (one of which was off the board), natural wonders twice, religion once, capitals once. So even so, Bing Crosby didn't get picked 7 times as would be required to exhaust the mystery category.
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Here's a case where there was 7 questions in a category, assisted by a super-easy topic and a tossed question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0TFG33sgRg
I'm sure the what-if was played out in the office the day the Mystery category was proposed. The simple resolution would be to have Jack restock the slots on air if there isn't a break opportunity. I can't see them closing off a category, but I suppose that's a possibility
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Chiming in here. I've worked with a former Joker writer, Terry McDonnell, who filled me in on this. Now to be clear, this won't answer all of our questions, but I can tell you this for sure...
The non-Mystery Category categories had FOURTEEN questions apiece. After each five-episode taping, the writers wrote questions to bring every category back up to 14. According to Terry, when he worked there, neither the show bible nor the contestant briefing even made mention of "In the event that we run out of questions," because the feeling was there was no way it was ever going to happen. Terry's departure from the company actually coincided with the arrival of the Mystery Category and before the introduction of Fast Forward, but I'm presuming the regular categories continued to have 14.
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Chiming in here. I've worked with a former Joker writer, Terry McDonnell, who filled me in on this. Now to be clear, this won't answer all of our questions, but I can tell you this for sure...
The non-Mystery Category categories had FOURTEEN questions apiece. After each five-episode taping, the writers wrote questions to bring every category back up to 14. According to Terry, when he worked there, neither the show bible nor the contestant briefing even made mention of "In the event that we run out of questions," because the feeling was there was no way it was ever going to happen. Terry's departure from the company actually coincided with the arrival of the Mystery Category and before the introduction of Fast Forward, but I'm presuming the regular categories continued to have 14.
Interesting - thanks for sharing that!!
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I remembered the number fourteen, and with the number of defined categories (each with their own comic image) it isn’t like you can’t direct the writers room to plus up on Biggest and the Best and Fact or Foto tout suite, and leave those out of game packs until they are filled.
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The non-Mystery Category categories had FOURTEEN questions apiece. [...] Terry's departure from the company actually coincided with the arrival of the Mystery Category and before the introduction of Fast Forward, but I'm presuming the regular categories continued to have 14.
Now I'm wondering if the reason they came up with 7 questions was because the values would be doubled, so they thought they'd only need half the material.
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Now I'm wondering if the reason they came up with 7 questions was because the values would be doubled, so they thought they'd only need half the material.
I suspect more for aesthetics than any other reason (too cumbersome to display any more questions at the host lectern). Also the available numbers need to be clearly visible to the contestants (or there needs to be a supplemental off-stage indicator like the one for Academic Challenge I describe below).
Although Academic Challenge in Cleveland had ten packets displayed in two rows on the host lectern. A behind-the-scenes video also showed the off-camera lightboard with the packet numbers available lit up. In 1981 (when the video was filmed) they had gone from three packet rounds per team to two, so packets 8, 9, and 10 were unavailable (but the envelopes were still on the host lectern).
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The non-Mystery Category categories had FOURTEEN questions apiece. [...] Terry's departure from the company actually coincided with the arrival of the Mystery Category and before the introduction of Fast Forward, but I'm presuming the regular categories continued to have 14.
Now I'm wondering if the reason they came up with 7 questions was because the values would be doubled, so they thought they'd only need half the material.
Depending on how a contestant reaches the Mystery Category on their spin, there is anywhere between $700 and $2800 TOTAL up for grabs within a single game (7x $100 to 7x $400).
Assuming a match yields nothing but Mystery spin choices, the average value for using all seven questions is $1400, so you really need some really dumb contestants and/or some unusually difficult questions to not come up with a $500+ champ before exhausting all seven questions.