$ale of the Century to GSN.

[TheInquisitiveOne]

The syndicated version did switch over during its brief run (I have the last episode before they changed over...if I ever find it, you can find it on the usual video sharing site)

 

And didn\'t they transition formats by awarding the champion whatever prize they were building towards?

 

The champion had three choices, if I recall:

 

Take the prize and quit

Take the prize and play on

Refuse the prize and play on

 

It was a mid-tier shopping spree package. The contestant chose choice number 2. It would have made more sense to just give him the prize outright and move on to the Winner\'s Board, instead of adding two more choices which could be considered foolish in some minds.

 

I echo the sentiments of the video quality looking well beyond stellar for a late 80s game show. My goodness was it beautiful.

 

As for the WBMG and the stringent rules that came with it, I always thought that was a weird period not just for $ale, but for NBC game shows in general during that time. A lot of the shows running at that time had small budgets. Classic Concentration had top prize cars that barely hit the $10,000 range, and Scrabble just cut it\'s top prize with an equally-as-tight bonus round (2 words, 10 seconds). Daytime Wheel was fine as is. The only show that managed to go unchanged - strangely - was Super Password.

 

This doesn\'t justify the needless theme weeks with the flat Instant Ca$h jackpot and easy car giveaway tactics.

 

The Inquisitive One

[bradhig]

When did Sale of the Century change the fame game money cards from red background with white numbers to yellow background with red numbers?

[PYLdude]

I would hope he took option #2!


bradhig, IIRC sometime in 1985.

[BrandonFG]

Just watched Marc DeCarlo\'s episode, and they had made the switch by that point, so early-1985 to narrow it down...

[PYLclark86]

When did Sale of the Century change the fame game money cards from red background with white numbers to yellow background with red numbers?

 

Sometime in \'84, after they had gone from the 80s beige set to the gold set used for the rest of the run.

[Sodboy13]

Boy, not only does this mini-tournament break the format of the game, but the format of the tournament itself is kinda broken, too. 9 days of one-and-one games, and the top three winning main game scores advance to the one-game final. We\'re 7 days in, and the leaderboard is at 90, 85, and a 3-way tie at 80 to be broken in an unspecified manner. I imagine at this time, the producers were really hoping for some high scores out of the last two qualifiers. Plus, there\'s the chance that we get a >$80 winner in the last two games, which gives us a \"you won, but not really\" scenario.

 

Problem is, I\'m trying to think of a better way to make it work, as the format is constructed, and having a hard time doing so. Maybe use a WBMG win as the primary method of qualification, with game scores as the tiebreak? But nobody\'s actually won the WBMG in this tournament, so... Then maybe you could use \"correct WBMG answers\" as your primary measuring stick, but again, everybody\'s going to have a score of two, three, or (maybe) four, so there\'s another traffic jam.

 

Really, if they were going to do a 10-day, self-contained tourney like this, it would have been better to have 6 qualifying games with the winners plus three wild cards advancing, three semifinal games, and then your final for the car. As it stands, there\'s a lot gone wrong here.

 

tl;dr These mini-tournaments eat it.

[BrandonFG]

Who is Pucci? Does he have a link?

 

/I know, I know

//Brick wall

///Still...had to give it a shot

[TimK2003]

Boy, not only does this mini-tournament break the format of the game, but the format of the tournament itself is kinda broken, too. 9 days of one-and-one games, and the top three winning main game scores advance to the one-game final. We\'re 7 days in, and the leaderboard is at 90, 85, and a 3-way tie at 80 to be broken in an unspecified manner. I imagine at this time, the producers were really hoping for some high scores out of the last two qualifiers. Plus, there\'s the chance that we get a >$80 winner in the last two games, which gives us a \"you won, but not really\" scenario.

 

Problem is, I\'m trying to think of a better way to make it work, as the format is constructed, and having a hard time doing so. Maybe use a WBMG win as the primary method of qualification, with game scores as the tiebreak? But nobody\'s actually won the WBMG in this tournament, so... Then maybe you could use \"correct WBMG answers\" as your primary measuring stick, but again, everybody\'s going to have a score of two, three, or (maybe) four, so there\'s another traffic jam.

 

Really, if they were going to do a 10-day, self-contained tourney like this, it would have been better to have 6 qualifying games with the winners plus three wild cards advancing, three semifinal games, and then your final for the car. As it stands, there\'s a lot gone wrong here.

 

tl;dr These mini-tournaments eat it.

 

 

I give the show\'s writers credit for using love & romance-tinged questions in the show.  However,  I found it noticeably odd that if they were going to go gung-ho on all love-themed questions (which IMHO was a bit overkill), why didn\'t they carry it through to the Fame Game questions, which sounded more like the regular general-knowledge questions they used?

[TLEberle]

There is a difference between broken and a thing somebody doesn\'t like.

[BrandonFG]

Boy, not only does this mini-tournament break the format of the game, but the format of the tournament itself is kinda broken, too. 9 days of one-and-one games, and the top three winning main game scores advance to the one-game final. We\'re 7 days in, and the leaderboard is at 90, 85, and a 3-way tie at 80 to be broken in an unspecified manner. I imagine at this time, the producers were really hoping for some high scores out of the last two qualifiers. Plus, there\'s the chance that we get a >$80 winner in the last two games, which gives us a \"you won, but not really\" scenario.

 

Problem is, I\'m trying to think of a better way to make it work, as the format is constructed, and having a hard time doing so. Maybe use a WBMG win as the primary method of qualification, with game scores as the tiebreak? But nobody\'s actually won the WBMG in this tournament, so... Then maybe you could use \"correct WBMG answers\" as your primary measuring stick, but again, everybody\'s going to have a score of two, three, or (maybe) four, so there\'s another traffic jam.

 

Really, if they were going to do a 10-day, self-contained tourney like this, it would have been better to have 6 qualifying games with the winners plus three wild cards advancing, three semifinal games, and then your final for the car. As it stands, there\'s a lot gone wrong here.

 

tl;dr These mini-tournaments eat it.

 

 

I give the show\'s writers credit for using love & romance-tinged questions in the show.  However,  I found it noticeably odd that if they were going to go gung-ho on all love-themed questions (which IMHO was a bit overkill), why didn\'t they carry it through to the Fame Game questions, which sounded more like the regular general-knowledge questions they used?

My guess is that, considering the writers had to dig a little deeper for Fame Game questions (i.e. birthdate, birthplace, and various tidbits), keeping those generic was an easier way to go. Brainstorming for a bunch of romance-centric subjects was another story...although they probably could\'ve done a lot on Chuck Woolery, with him hosting Love Connection and being on the NBC/Grundy lot.

[TLEberle]

Personally I found it heavy handed and distracting:


\"If your girlfriend\'s hobby is philately what does she collect?\"

 

is not a love-and-romance question, it is a general knowledge question with flowery writing surrounding it.

[Fedya]

Who is Pucci?

Itchy and Scratchy\'s \"friend\", about whom we must never speak?

[Chelsea Thrasher]

Sale of the Century isn\'t doing to well according to Pucci\'s site. Mon: 131K, Tue: 120K, Wed: 89K.

The numbers for Super Password actually provide a bit of a tell with regards to the ratings. SP, most of the time, does numbers in the mid 200s. They do this figure on a generally consistent basis, and better than most anything else they\'ve tried in the slot, actually.

 

Given that Super Password suddenly performed 50-75K under it\'s usual numbers on Tuesday and Wednesday, I don\'t necessarily think a lot should be read into early numbers. At least on those two days some sort of external forced seemed to drag GSN\'s ratings lower than normal.  It happens from time to time.  If $ale is doing a consistent 100K figure six weeks from now? Then yes, there\'s a problem.  But three days is hardly a valid data pool to gauge viewership, especially when reliably consistent series also showed unexpected losses in that time.

[Vahan_Nisanian]

I thought I remember Jamie Locklin saying something along the lines that traditional Q&A shows, like the B&E shows for example, do the worst in terms of ratings.

 

Though, granted, $ale is not exactly the same pace as B&E shows.

[BrandonFG]

Who is Pucci?

Itchy and Scratchy\'s \"friend\", about whom we must never speak?

Well played.