Author Topic: Dawson's Antics (Read 6225 times)

Dbacksfan12 · « **on:** March 05, 2008, 12:54:15 PM »

How exactly did Dawson manage to get all those antics past S&P? While watching today's rerun, a contestant was well out of time, yet he let her give an answer to the fifth question as well.

Wouldn't this be a violation of the rules and need to be enforced? Once or twice, I could see, but it seems like it happens with Dawson a lot.

whewfan · « **Reply #1 on:** March 05, 2008, 01:26:36 PM »

I assume this is during Fast Money.

Sometimes Richard would stumble on a question, or a contestant would misunderstand a question, or the audience might react to an answer in such a way that would throw the player and Richard off. These were usually the circumstances where Richard would disregard the clock and allow the player to answer the questions.

lobster · « **Reply #2 on:** March 05, 2008, 01:33:02 PM »

[quote name=\'whewfan\' post=\'180095\' date=\'Mar 5 2008, 12:26 PM\']
I assume this is during Fast Money.

Sometimes Richard would stumble on a question, or a contestant would misunderstand a question, or the audience might react to an answer in such a way that would throw the player and Richard off. These were usually the circumstances where Richard would disregard the clock and allow the player to answer the questions.
[/quote]

The instance where a host has taken carte blanch in allowing extra time beyond the rules that comes to mind is the last episode of ABC Password where Allen wanted so badly to give away the money in the lightning round but time was ticking and the contestant misread the clue "Shingle" as "Single".. but just as time expired Allen yelled "Five more seconds!" and she ended up winning. I understand the excitement of a show wanting to go out with a bang, but I also never had the impression S&P had an emotional side

mrmatchgame · « **Reply #3 on:** March 05, 2008, 02:03:49 PM »

The thing is that once the light goes on the host is in charge of the ship, and you have to follow their lead, I know this from personal experience.

Dbacksfan12 · « **Reply #4 on:** March 05, 2008, 02:09:58 PM »

[quote name=\'mrmatchgame\' post=\'180102\' date=\'Mar 5 2008, 02:03 PM\']
The thing is that once the light goes on the host is in charge of the ship[/quote]So, if a contestant goes on WWTBAM and misses "What is the capital of the USA" and Meredith says "Too bad you missed it, here's another question", it would fly? I don't think so.

Quote

I know this from personal experience.

Which would be what?

whewfan · « **Reply #5 on:** March 05, 2008, 09:12:47 PM »

The instance where a host has taken carte blanch in allowing extra time beyond the rules that comes to mind is the last episode of ABC Password where Allen wanted so badly to give away the money in the lightning round but time was ticking and the contestant misread the clue "Shingle" as "Single".. but just as time expired Allen yelled "Five more seconds!" and she ended up winning. I understand the excitement of a show wanting to go out with a bang, but I also never had the impression S&P had an emotional side

I had the impression that Allen disliked all the twists with the Password format, especially the difficult to explain Lightning Round. While he was clearly happy to have real people playing, they changed little about the PW 75 format. He also balked a little about some gestures that the celebs got away with in the finale, commenting "We're getting a little too much into Showoffs here." Showoffs was the game that replaced PW75.

Bert Convy also claimed to be a "judge" of close calls. There was an instance in End Game where there was a split second reaction between the correct response and the buzzer. Bert said that the producers told him it was HIS call and he said "close enough" for a win.

Eric Paddon · « **Reply #6 on:** March 05, 2008, 09:22:30 PM »

[quote name=\'lobster\' post=\'180099\' date=\'Mar 5 2008, 01:33 PM\']
The instance where a host has taken carte blanch in allowing extra time beyond the rules that comes to mind is the last episode of ABC Password where Allen wanted so badly to give away the money in the lightning round but time was ticking and the contestant misread the clue "Shingle" as "Single".. but just as time expired Allen yelled "Five more seconds!" and she ended up winning. I understand the excitement of a show wanting to go out with a bang, but I also never had the impression S&P had an emotional side

[/quote]

That's not quite a fair characterization of what happened IMO. The clock kept running when the "single" goof was made on the part of Sam Melville because he was giving clues as if the word was "single", and the music suddenly started and Melville slammed his door revealing the word shut, and Allen's call for five more seconds I think was to make up for how long the clock kept ticking during the confusion when the music was playing and Melville wasn't looking at the screen and then realized he'd read the word wrong. It would have been a case where the contestant would have been unfairly penalized because of a celeb's goof had Allen not granted the time.

Unrealtor · « **Reply #7 on:** March 05, 2008, 10:13:15 PM »

I assume that another factor for letting these sorts of things go is that they were in favor of a contestant who was only playing against the house, and it wasn't obvious whether the advantage would be worth much. If they got to "You have 199 points, and you didn't answer the last question in time, but I think we were delayed in getting through the other questions, so I'm going to let you answer now," that would be a whole different kettle of fish.

/Stay tuned for Bob Barker's Give 'Em the Car, Anyway over most of these CBS stations.
//Now that one would be pretty easy for S&P.

TwoInchQuad · « **Reply #8 on:** March 06, 2008, 12:26:16 AM »

[quote name=\'Unrealtor\' post=\'180194\' date=\'Mar 5 2008, 08:13 PM\']

/Stay tuned for Bob Barker's Give 'Em the Car, Anyway over most of these CBS stations.

[/quote]

I am intrigued by your concept, and would like to view a pilot episode to see how it tests... :^)

-Kevin

TLEberle · « **Reply #9 on:** March 06, 2008, 12:32:12 AM »

[quote name=\'Unrealtor\' post=\'180194\' date=\'Mar 5 2008, 07:13 PM\']I assume that another factor for letting these sorts of things go is that they were in favor of a contestant who was only playing against the house, and it wasn't obvious whether the advantage would be worth much. If they got to "You have 199 points, and you didn't answer the last question in time, but I think we were delayed in getting through the other questions, so I'm going to let you answer now," that would be a whole different kettle of fish.[/quote]How is it different? You're supposed to play the game by the rules, and I'm all for leniency if the host bumbles, but if you stall for five seconds on "Name a month of the year," then it's your own fault when you get five dollars for your single point.

For what it's worth, I think the "let Bert judge the bonus round" was a cheap tactic by the producers, who clearly thought that the round was won, and wanted to throw Bert a bone. By judging that a win happened on Super Password when it didn't, it's depriving the next contestant of a chance at the jackpot.

lobster · « **Reply #10 on:** March 06, 2008, 02:09:00 AM »

[quote name=\'Eric Paddon\' post=\'180180\' date=\'Mar 5 2008, 08:22 PM\']
That's not quite a fair characterization of what happened IMO. The clock kept running when the "single" goof was made on the part of Sam Melville because he was giving clues as if the word was "single", and the music suddenly started and Melville slammed his door revealing the word shut, and Allen's call for five more seconds I think was to make up for how long the clock kept ticking during the confusion when the music was playing and Melville wasn't looking at the screen and then realized he'd read the word wrong.
[/quote]

Hm I don't remember the music playing when they thought the word was solved and he slammed down the flap.. I just remember them screaming in excitement when Allen realized it was read wrong.. I'm sure the upstairs crew was well aware the whole time he was giving clues to the wrong word (hard to imagine they cued the win music because they, too, were fooled by the close spelling of single/shingle) .. and having said that ---

Quote

It would have been a case where the contestant would have been unfairly penalized because of a celeb's goof had Allen not granted the time.

wha? how many times on both Password (and Pyramid) have we seen the celebs goof (whether they gave illegal clues or misread the password/subject) costing the contestant the game? Thousands? Do you consider those instances as the contestant being "unfairly penalized"?

chris319 · « **Reply #11 on:** March 06, 2008, 03:40:00 AM »

Quote

The thing is that once the light goes on the host is in charge of the ship, and you have to follow their lead, I know this from personal experience.

I know from personal experience that ultimately the producer, not the emcee or Standards and Practices, is in charge of and responsible for a show. I also know from personal experience that sometimes producers interpret the bible one way and S&P interpret it another way and they have an argument over it after the fact. Personal experience also tells me that sometimes emcees take liberties with games played against the house (most end games and TPIR stage games). Emcees tend to be more lenient in awarding game wins to contestants (after all it's not their money and they don't have to worry about the prize budget) provided it doesn't disadvantage an opposing contestant. Emcees like to create happy feel-good moments and leave prize budget worries to the producer.

Quote

just as time expired Allen yelled "Five more seconds!"

How do you know Allen wasn't prompted by the producer to say this? (BTW, S&P is not allowed to prompt talent. That's something else I know from personal experience.)

Robert Hutchinson · « **Reply #12 on:** March 06, 2008, 03:43:19 AM »

If I remember the clip correctly, while the clock did keep running for a few seconds after the door closed, they then held the clock for a few seconds afterwards before restarting it. Allen probably didn't notice that, which could explain why he was calling for more time.

And some judgment calls are more . . . judgey than others. I agree that time lost while bad clues are being given shouldn't be returned, but compensating for the time when they're having a celebration and not even looking at the board seems a little more reasonable.

lobster · « **Reply #13 on:** March 06, 2008, 09:31:25 AM »

[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'180237\' date=\'Mar 6 2008, 02:40 AM\']

Quote

just as time expired Allen yelled "Five more seconds!"

How do you know Allen wasn't prompted by the producer to say this? (BTW, S&P is not allowed to prompt talent. That's something else I know from personal experience.)
[/quote]

eh he could have been, but if you've seen the clip it all happens so quickly, it appears awfully ad-libbed.. Allen stated many times that episode how great it would be to give away the show's money on their last ep., so there was a lot of build-up for him personally to want to see a win... and i guess the series ending all on a little celeb screw-up made him protest with that outburst of rule-change ... .. but since you worked on shows I guess you'd be able to tell us if the producer has a vast collection of hand signals they can throw at the host to where they'll immediately know what to do at times like this, including "screw it -- give 'em more time!"

parliboy · « **Reply #14 on:** March 06, 2008, 09:39:08 AM »

At the end of the day, they have an out -- they can claim a production screw-up in addition to the celeb's, since they starting playing the music as soon as the contestant said the problem word. Someone on staff who was high enough on the totem pole to say "She won" said she won. They starting to play the music, then they stopped it. Easy out for a few more seconds of playtime.