most heartbreaking moments in game show history

[chris319]

she had tapes of other spinners where they did not apply the "five-second rule"

So if the ball lands in a $10,000 slot and in less than five seconds "jumps" to a $1,000 slot, and they award the $10,000 anyway, they deserved to lose the lawsuit. What do they award if the ball jumps after five seconds, the first amount or the second amount?

The way to write the rule is that the ball must stay in the slot for five seconds after the wheel stops moving.

[Neumms]

Heartbreaking moment? Watching the premiere of "Temptation: The New Sale of the Century."

[fishbulb]

[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'171891\' date=\'Dec 12 2007, 12:25 PM\']
Back in the days of the isolation booth and the "$100,000 Mystery Tune" on $100,000 Name That Tune, the contestant and a sizable chunk of the crowd (and myself as well, watching on TV) thought the money was in the bag when the pianist started playing the first song from Guys & Dolls ("I've got the horse right here / The name is Paul Revere / And here's a guy that says if the weather's clear...") and the response was "Can Do" - unfortunately, the actual title is "Fugue for Tinhorns" (although they would have accepted "I've Got the Horse Right Here" as well).
[/quote]

I remember another Mystery Tune - I'm not sure if it was on the nighttime or daytime show - where they played "Morning" by Edvard Grieg.  It's a familiar classical piece - you've heard it a million times.  Anyway, the contestant said "Morning Glory", and there was a huge sort of groan from the audience when Tom Kennedy said the title was "Morning", and it had to be exact.

[tvrandywest]

[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'171923\' date=\'Dec 12 2007, 06:02 PM\']

she had tapes of other spinners where they did not apply the "five-second rule"

So if the ball lands in a $10,000 slot and in less than five seconds "jumps" to a $1,000 slot, and they award the $10,000 anyway, they deserved to lose the lawsuit. What do they award if the ball jumps after five seconds, the first amount or the second amount?

The way to write the rule is that the ball must stay in the slot for five seconds after the wheel stops moving.
[/quote]
I've worked "Big Spin" for a bunch of years now and know that the rules are clearly written and well judged by the lottery commission's equivalent of S&P. Working with those folks and the Jonathan Goodson team now producing the show, I can't imagine anything like that happening today. But what a story of past sloppiness!

Randy
tvrandywest

[Jay Temple]

Some moments are heartbreakers because of the rules, while some are heartbreakers on game play alone.

The five-second incident above is an example of a rules-based heartbreaker. I'd add the tie game during Kids Week on Jeopardy![/i[ a couple years ago, because the loser of the tiebreaker got the second-place prize, whereas an adult in the same situation would have been a co-champion and won the same cash amount as the other player.

Pure game play:
1. Ya gotta feel bad for the woman on the wrong end of Hal Shears' three jokers.
2. The P+ contestant who had nine of ten in Alphabetics. The one he missed was "imitation," and he had already said "imitate."
3. any J! game where the leader going into FJ got it right but lost because his/her wager wasn't enough

[TimK2003]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'171919\' date=\'Dec 12 2007, 09:44 PM\']
(And I have a fin for anyone who gets him to tell that story on "Anyone Can Play" and then calls him on it.)
[/quote]

Only $5.00 to "Call Larry's Bluff"??  :-P

[dale_grass]

[quote name=\'whewfan\' post=\'171857\' date=\'Dec 12 2007, 10:19 AM\']
The "agony of defeat" puzzle on WOF, where a contestant could've won $60k and bought out the whole studio! She hits bankrupt and loses everything!(the total amount a player could win in prizes was at least $50k then) How ironic! (and yes, I am using the term properly!)[/quote]

No, you're not.  It's a coincidence.  Irony is what happens when, for instance, someone demonstrating gun safety shoots himself with his own gun.

For me, the most heartbreaking moment in game show history was when Richard Karn began hosting Family Feud.

\Sorry, labeling a coincidence as irony is a pet peeve of mine.
\\Shame on you, Alanis Morissette.

[Kevin Prather]

Looks right to me..."The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat" costs a player $62,000. That's not irony?

[comicus]

[quote name=\'whoserman\' post=\'171936\' date=\'Dec 12 2007, 09:47 PM\']
Looks right to me..."The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat" costs a player $62,000. That's not irony?
[/quote]

I think that's a coincidence.  A brutal one, but just a coincidence.

/attempting to channel George Carlin

[Robert Hutchinson]

I think it's in irony's neighborhood, but two specific points against:

1) "The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat" covers both sides of the coin. If it's ironic that she failed to win that huge total, it would be equally ironic had she won it, and I doubt that description would come to mind as easily in the latter situation.

2) Wheel of Fortune, being a game show played for fairly high stakes, features the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat all the time.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'171923\' date=\'Dec 12 2007, 06:02 PM\']
What do they award if the ball jumps after five seconds, the first amount or the second amount?[/quote]
The first amount. Basically the rule was that they paid off the first slot the ball stayed in for five seconds following three complete revolutions of the wheel.

The way to write the rule is that the ball must stay in the slot for five seconds after the wheel stops moving.

All fine and good, but IIRC what happened was that the jumping up and down and cavorting about was what disloged the ball. That would have happened if the wheel were moving or stationary.

[dale_grass]

[quote name=\'whoserman\' post=\'171936\' date=\'Dec 12 2007, 10:47 PM\']
Looks right to me..."The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat" costs a player $62,000. That's not irony?
[/quote]
Irony would be if, for example, she were wearing a T-shirt that read "The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat," or the phrase was emblazoned on her family's coat of arms, or she worked for Wide World of Sports for twelve years.  Irony is an incongruity in a sequence of events.  Coincidence is a random connection made between two things.  The fact that she suffered an agonizing loss on a puzzle that mentioned agonizing loss is a coincidence.

\I knew I'd hear back about this eventually.
\\Oh well, at least I'm beefing up the post count.
\\\Why that's important, I haven't the foggiest.

[ChuckNet]

My personal choices...

- The "Famous Losers" heartbreaker from the $20K Pyramid (which would repeat itself just 3 years later during the 2nd week of the $25K...Jay Johnson offers "Things from a newspaper" as a clue for Things You Clip - a HUGE no-no - but the judges don't catch it until they're celebrating the apparent $25K win!)
- Shatner's major slip-up on the $20K Pyramid that led to his chair-tossing incident
- $otC: Dawn McKellar goes for $99K in March 84...only to lose by *$2*!
- TJW: A 1982 ep where the champion's down by more than $200 over his opponent's $500, but Fast Forward's a category, which Jack reminds him of...he takes his final spin and gets 2 jokers and a non-FF category, so what does he choose? The non-FF category showing on the wheels.
- TJW: Hal Shear is on the verge of a huge comeback after getting FF Spelling on his final spin, but w/only 2 more correct answers to go before tying his opponent, misspells "Schenectady".
- MG-HS: Contestant is faced w/this Head-to-Head phrase: "______ Pizza"...partner Jon Bauman writes an answer down, but then discards it, and writes down another one that he decides to go with...contestant's answer is "Pepperoni Pizza"...guess what Jon had written down before discarding it in favor of "Large Pizza"?
- FF: On a Combs daytime show from 1989, the winning family has 199 points after the next-to-last question in Fast Money...last question is "Name the month when you use your AC the most", to which they answered June...guess how many points it (surprisingly) got?
- Treasure Hunt: Despite wanting to take the box, Michelle listens to her husband and keeps the $899 instead...which costs her $46,000!! (Her distraught husband left the studio as they went to commercial)
- WWtBaM: Katie Knudsen's $218K loss, after agonizing for an eternity whether or not to answer the $500K question
- Any Perry CS ep. where a contestant bet it all in the Money Cards, only to lose it all on a double

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[ChuckNet]

Back in the days of the isolation booth and the "$100,000 Mystery Tune" on $100,000 Name That Tune, the contestant and a sizable chunk of the crowd (and myself as well, watching on TV) thought the money was in the bag when the pianist started playing the first song from Guys & Dolls ("I've got the horse right here / The name is Paul Revere / And here's a guy that says if the weather's clear...") and the response was "Can Do" - unfortunately, the actual title is "Fugue for Tinhorns" (although they would have accepted "I've Got the Horse Right Here" as well).

A similar instance ALMOST occured again...a contestant was played "The Bus Stop Song", but answered "If You Will Marry Me" and was ruled incorrect, but was brought back (and won) after it was discovered that there existed a song w/the latter title that had the same music.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[Kevin Prather]

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' post=\'172176\' date=\'Dec 15 2007, 04:00 PM\']
- WWtBaM: Katie Knudsen's $218K loss, after agonizing for an eternity whether or not to answer the $500K question[/quote]
That was a tough one, especially since she came close to locking in the right answer within the first minute or two.

- Any Perry CS ep. where a contestant bet it all in the Money Cards, only to lose it all on a double

There's also one where the contestant bet the lot, over $10k, with a King showing, only to have the last card be not just an ace, but the third ace of the game.