Let's Ask America Season 2 changes...

[brianhenke]

   Let\'s Ask America started its second season today. Among the changes:

 

  The contestants are introduced before the game begins.

  Kevin now stands behind a podium.

  There is a new set.

  There is a new logo.

  There is a new font.

  There is now a studio audience.

 

  There is a new round format:

 

  R1  $100, $200, $300, $400

  R2: $500, $1000, $1500

  R3: $2000, $4000

 

  There are new sounds for the answer reveal, and when a contestant gets its right.

 

  The bonus round has been tweaked. If a contestant goes all in and wins, he/she

gets 5X their maingame winnings - but if he/she goes all in and misses,  he/she gets...NOTHING! Weird.

 

  Brian

[Joe Mello]

  The bonus round has been tweaked. If a contestant goes all in and wins, they get 5X their maingame winnings - but if they go all in and miss, they get...NOTHING! Weird.

 

 

How is that different from last time?

[BrandonFG]

Initially if you bombed out, you won $1,000 consolation. If you won, it was 4x your maingame winnings.

 

Not a big fan of an all or nothing bonus round being played with what you picked up in the front game.

[clemon79]

Not a big fan of an all or nothing bonus round being played with what you picked up in the front game.

...then don\'t go All In.

[parliboy]

...then don\'t call it a bonus round.

[TLEberle]

I\'d argue that calling it a bonus round is a matter of semantics.

[BrandonFG]

 Not a big fan of an all or nothing bonus round being played with what you picked up in the front game.

...then don\'t go All In.

I personally wouldn\'t, but it doesn\'t change my disliking the concept. Didn\'t like it when Card Sharks did it 12 years ago, and not a fan of it here. I\'m with Gene on this one.

[TLEberle]

Some time ago I put things together that it is possible that a contestant on Millionaire who gets 11 questions right will win more than someone who gets 13 right and one wrong. Brain says \"Boo! Not fair!\" but it makes for good television. I look at the 5x question the same as I do the x10 bonus on Fifth Grader, or the main gameplay of Chance of a Lifetime. On Sale of the Century if you win six games but don\'t cash out you get dick-all instead of a good prize or maybe a car. I\'ve never once heard a complaint about that. What\'s different here?

[BrandonFG]

Thinking about it, I do see Chris\' point more about you at least having the option to walk away here, an option not offered on Card Sharks 2001...so I suppose that\'s kind of an apples and oranges comparison.

 

However, with Sale, I\'d argue that contestants could at least build up the \"cash in front of them\", plus any Instant Bargains/Fame Game loot, so even after six days, they could go home with a nice consolation package of a couple thousand in cash, plus some household appliances and/or trips. So it would be more along the lines of going home with $1,000 on Millionaire IMO.

 

I know the daytime version of 5th Grader offered a Best Buy gift card, but did the FOX version offer anything for a flameout, if you didn\'t reach the $25K safety net?

 

/Contestant coordinators would hate me

//Not a gambler when it comes to the kind of money offered on these shows

[TLEberle]

the \"cash in front of you\" is small relief when you missed out on all the prizes and could have stopped with the car. One time on Temptation Down Under somebody had gone for a particularly high level and missed out. Ed says that he\'s leaving with $35,000 in cash and prizes and the outgoing champ gamely smiles because he missed out on a huge opportunity. That\'s part of what makes good game shows emotionally powerful. Sure, the winner\'s bored means you win a smallish prize every day and have an opportunity to win a pile of cash or a car on day one, but it neuters the risk, which is something that precious few game shows in the old days had.

On the FOX version you either had to stop with what you had won, if you gave a wrong answer you won either $0 or $25,000; depending on if you had reached that prize level yet. Just like Minute to win it, no safe haven, no money.

[parliboy]

To be fair, that Card Sharks didn\'t give you the option of not playing the Money Cards while risking your own money.  You could choose to wager $0, I imagine, on the last question of LAA.  Not that it would make good TV.

[TLEberle]

On the 2001 version of the show the $2,100 that was collected by defeating your opponents was the stake money for the Money Cards; if you wiped out you got either a token cash prize or a stay at the Stratosphere Tower--the prize that losers got too.

[PYLdude]

Hate to take this further off topic, but the CS01 talk got me thinking- I remember that the Money Cards had the same rules from 1980 onward regarding ties. Then they apparently changed that to the original \"tie equals loss\" rule that CS78 used.


I have to wonder when this took place, because I don\'t know if CS01 was on long enough to have seen any major rule change implemented. Then again, Time Machine changed its format altogether about halfway into its run and that was on for barely longer than CS01 was, so I would imagine it\'d be possible.

[BrandonFG]

The \"push = loss\" rule took effect around October. I don\'t even think it was a month into the run.

 

ETA: I tried to pinpoint a date on Google\'s ATGS archive, to no avail. However, someone there mentioned that if you bombed out, you got a $700 consolation prize. I don\'t remember that rule, but can someone confirm?

[Strikerz04]

The \"push = loss\" rule took effect around October. I don\'t even think it was a month into the run.

 

ETA: I tried to pinpoint a date on Google\'s ATGS archive, to no avail. However, someone there mentioned that if you bombed out, you got a $700 consolation prize. I don\'t remember that rule, but can someone confirm?

 

There was an episode where someone bombed and got $700. Then I believe there was another \"Bust\" and was no money given (later in the run).