I WISH THEY HAD MADE...

[The Ol' Guy]

Yes, pal, I'm incredibly fortunate to have found one. Just occasionally looking up Dotto in EBay, I found the UK game, since their version was untainted by scandal. There were Dotto trading cards and game books as well. If I knew how to post a link to that webpage, I would - instead, here's a rough description. The UK version did not use famous faces, which surprised me. Each player had a small cardboard box base with a book of matching dot puzzles. When you turned to your matching pages, you'd set a thick piece of glass on top with one side roughly textured. When you answered your question, you would use an ordinary pencil and trace the dots on the rough side of the glass. Typical pictures included a goldfish in a bowl, a college professor, an airplane, and the like. Players would draw tabs from a category box to determine their questions, designed exactly like the Lowell Twenty-One game. It was made by Bell Games, which seemed to have a lot of the same licenses and designs as Lowell, so the two must have had agreements. My guess it that a US version would have come out from Lowell if the scandal had not forced the show off.

[Bob Zager]

[quote name=\'The Ol' Guy\' date=\'Apr 28 2004, 07:59 AM\'] Forgive the caps, but THANK YOU, John - I knew I wasn't nuts (about that, anyway), because I used to watch the show and saw a copy offered as a prize. Jack Linkletter says he didn't remember one, and I've been trying to find out if Carl Jampel is still around to ask! Bless you! We know that Lakeside attempted a copy of Runaround that didn't seem to get mass distribuition - could you or anyone else confirm one more possibility? I'm very certain that in a Sears Christmas wishbook issued somewhere between 1963 and 1966, I saw a copy of a game based on Queen For A Day - possibly Standard Toykraft. That again would be among the ultra-rares. Thanks again, John.

PS - Since some of us celebrate numbers of posts, I'm delighted you all have allowed me to slip in and babble 200 times - and glad this one is a note of appreciation. Thanks to all. [/quote]
 I remember very well seeing the promos for a Runaround home game, that I asked for a copy for Christmas back in 1972.  Never got one, and have never seen an actual game.  From my recollection, the box shown in the promos indicated that it was electric, and it wouldn't surprise me, if indeed it was to be electric, that the game didn't hit store shelves because of safety standards.

I was surprised to read of a Rebus Game from Ideal.  I checked inside the comprehensive book "American Games," by Alex Malloy, and DIDN'T see a listing for it, under TV Game Show games, nor under the Ideal toy listings.  I wouldn't say it means the Rebus Game game never existed, because there were some other rare, and/or hard-to-find games not listed (The book listed just one game from Gamut of Games, but they released Dealer's Choice and Diamond Head home games, as well as a good number of other fun games not relating to game shows).

Among the more recent game show games "planned--but not released," were a Beat the Geeks game from Imagination Entertainment, and Twenty One, based on the Maury Povich version, from Mattel.  I confirmed such games were in the works through reliable sources at each company.

[The Ol' Guy]

It would be interesting to see how many games had at least gone into development stages at various game companies. According to Matt, there were prototypes of Tattletales and Who Do You Trust, and most of us know about how Parker jumped the gun with Top Secret. Weren't there rumors of Cardinal developing a version of Greed? Parker and B&E had an agreement for a Play The Percentages home game - anyone know of any others that, like Runaround, were only a hair away from release?

[Jimmy Owen]

I wonder if "Runaround" was gonna be like those electric football games where nobody ever went the right way.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'The Ol' Guy\' date=\'Apr 29 2004, 08:10 PM\'] Parker and B&E had an agreement for a Play The Percentages home game [/quote]
 Wonder if it was PtP's cancellation or the fact that PtP had 6 format changes in a 26 week run that kept the home game from being made....

[JohnTheGameMan]

I believe that Lakeside was the company that made the home version of Runaround.  This is the same company that originally made the game of Perfection, which Milton Bradley has now.
I'm surprised to learn that Mattel had plans to make a home version of Maury's "21".  If the show lasted longer than it did, it would have been a possibility.
And yes, while Parker did pre-release the game "Top Secret", I have to wonder if this game was supposed to be a network game or a syndicated game.

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'JohnTheGameMan\' date=\'Apr 30 2004, 12:48 AM\'] And yes, while Parker did pre-release the game "Top Secret", I have to wonder if this game was supposed to be a network game or a syndicated game. [/quote]
 Network game--CBS.

[The Ol' Guy]

..and that's an interesting point to check, John - Lakeside did indeed dissolve as a company, leading to the classic purchase of their better properties by other companies -Perquackey, Perfection, Kismet, Spare-Time Bowling, Aggrivation and several others (many of these once made by smaller companies themselves). Perhaps Lakeside was facing it's own demise when Runaround was developed and they didn't have the ability, time or money to send it out to shelves? I'll try and find out when Lakeside went away. May be a clue to the answer....

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'The Ol' Guy\' date=\'Apr 30 2004, 07:56 AM\'] ..and that's an interesting point to check, John - Lakeside did indeed dissolve as a company, leading to the classic purchase of their better properties by other companies -Perquackey, Perfection, Kismet, Spare-Time Bowling, Aggrivation and several others (many of these once made by smaller companies themselves). Perhaps Lakeside was facing it's own demise when Runaround was developed and they didn't have the ability, time or money to send it out to shelves? I'll try and find out when Lakeside went away. May be a clue to the answer.... [/quote]
Lakeside existed quite a few years after the Runaround game would have been made, as an Entertainment Tonight trivia game came out by that company circa 1985(and a collection of games from Lakeside was given away in the third place door during a Big Deal on LMAD85). Matt O. said a while back that Lakeside went under a few years after that.

[The Ol' Guy]

leave it to the z-man to know! Thanks, Zach.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'The Ol' Guy\' date=\'Apr 30 2004, 10:51 AM\'] leave it to the z-man to know! Thanks, Zach. [/quote]
 Well, except for the part where I'm supposed to know what happened to Lakeside.  Zach may very well have that information, but I don't believe it came from me.  I don't think Lakeside ever ended up with a game show adaptation (Runaround notwithstanding) so that puts them outside my radar.

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Apr 30 2004, 10:39 AM\'] [quote name=\'The Ol' Guy\' date=\'Apr 30 2004, 10:51 AM\'] leave it to the z-man to know! Thanks, Zach. [/quote]
Well, except for the part where I'm supposed to know what happened to Lakeside.  Zach may very well have that information, but I don't believe it came from me.  I don't think Lakeside ever ended up with a game show adaptation (Runaround notwithstanding) so that puts them outside my radar. [/quote]
 On a side note: What happened to the Cardinal "Finders Keepers" game that was advertised during the Eure era of the show?  Pressman later put an edition out, but the box was much different....is Cardinal even in business now?

[The Ol' Guy]

Yeah, Cardinal is still kicking around - www.cardinalgames.com. With the exception of their $25,000 Pyramid and perhaps Figure It Out, Cardinal always seemed to get the weak sisters in home games - Pressman had Double Dare, they took Finders Keepers. Pressman got Wheel Of Fortune, they took $1M Chance of a Lifetime. They have some Simpson and Friends-licensed games going for them currently. Both Cardinal and Pressman make a lot of classic games that they release under their own label and lease to major chains - most of your Pavillion line of games at Toys R Us - poker keno, mancala, checkers, chinese checkers, chess, labyrinths - are a mix of Pressman and Cardinal-made products.

[Bob Zager]

[quote name=\'Dsmith\' date=\'May 2 2004, 02:27 AM\']
On a side note: What happened to the Cardinal "Finders Keepers" game that was advertised during the Eure era of the show?  Pressman later put an edition out, but the box was much different....is Cardinal even in business now? [/quote]
 If Pressman did indeed release a box game version of Finder's Keepers, that's news to me.  I have the Finder's Keepers game, which was packaged in a similar manner to the Pressman Double Dare, but it DOES say on the box that it's from Cardinal!

The game hit store shelves a short time before the series went into syndication, with Larry Toffler hosting instead of Wesley Eure.  The original "prototype," box was larger, and much nicer looking, and I believe featured an illustration from the shows set, with Wesley Eure in view.  I'm sure that played a major role in the decision to redesign the game box and illustrations on it.

[SamJ93]

And Matt (the other one) nailed the Best of Ten end game. Use actual questions and use Ben's actual results as the mark to beat.

Interestingly enough, I saw a game called "Beat the Experts" at Barnes & Noble a couple days ago that centered around this concept...according to the back of the box, you're given a category and 10 (or similar number thereof) questions, and then see how you stack up to the answers of an "expert" in the field (Buzz Aldrin for astronomy, Dr. Joyce Brothers for psychology, etc.) It looked kind of fun, really (and similar to "Beat the Geeks," I guess, except for using actual celebrities).

Back to lurking now...

--Sam