'Second Chance'

[calliaume]

[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'237000\' date=\'Mar 6 2010, 04:18 PM\']An observation--the Carruthers used the Whammy on PYL, and they'd used it on Beat the Odds. So why did Second Chance have a devil, especially when Joker's Wild had one at the same time?[/quote]
About four days late, but I didn't see a response to this:  Joker's Wild was out of production in spring/summer 1977, when Second Chance aired (although it was rerunning on WOR in New York and on a local Los Angeles station).

[Jeremy Nelson]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'237005\' date=\'Mar 6 2010, 03:49 PM\']It had a brighter feel to it than PYL.  Turning set was cooler than PYL.  Jim Peck has always been a favorite host of mine, so he can do no wrong in my book.  On SC, the  game was about hoping people would win, whereas on PYL, you were hoping people would lose, so you could see the cute animations.  The buzz-in format of PYL was a little less fair to the contestants than the write-it-down system of of Q&A on SC.   I also liked the music package of SC better.[/quote]
Seconded. It seemed like more suspense could be built on SC than PYL. The Whammy has a tendency to dampen the loss of a small fortune, whereas in that same 7 or 8 seconds on SC, I could see Jim Peck saying something poignant, even if it was a eulogy for the contestant's lost score.

One thing I noticed on the pilot pertaining to the Second Chance logo on the floor of the contestant island- the "Chance" part rises during the Big Board Round- you can see it at 10:49 on the first part of the pilot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39WU-9UO4LA...feature=related

I kept playing it back because I couldn't tell- is that raised to show the scores and spins (like on PYL), or were there cameras down there to get contestant shots during the Big Board round? I didn't see any numbers down there, and that's why I'm suggesting the latter.

[JasonA1]

[quote name=\'rollercoaster87\' post=\'237326\' date=\'Mar 11 2010, 01:43 AM\']I kept playing it back because I couldn't tell- is that raised to show the scores and spins (like on PYL), or were there cameras down there to get contestant shots during the Big Board round? I didn't see any numbers down there, and that's why I'm suggesting the latter.[/quote]

I would bet the farm on those being scoreboards a'la PYL. Even by the 80s, I don't think technology was sophisticated enough for good quality cameras to be in that sort of space. And really, the angles of the contestant spinning shots were nowhere close to coming from that area. They likely came from inside the board logo a'la PYL.

-Jason

[That Don Guy]

From what I remember about SC, I don't think there was ever a $70,000 winner, but there were definitely at least two $25,000+ one-day winners, and both were before the board changes.  (I seem to recall that, in addition to replacing the "always $5000" space with a changing value (although the values changed in a fixed sequence, not "randomly"), the highest value space in the first round dropped from $1500 to $1000.)

I do remember one question from the show (and not from the pilot): "What is the best-selling novel of all time?"  The question was asked right about the time Gone With the Wind was going to air on TV for the first time, so all three contestants ended up guessing GWTW, but the answer was Valley of the Dolls.

-- Don