I, for better and worse, am a fan of Wheel of Fortune. Have been for ages. But I readily admit the show has had some, well….crappy gimmicks over the years.
While some fans feel this is a recent occurance, this isn’t true. The abominable Megaword was from the mid 1990s, and even before THAT they had their 1st Annual (and probably ONLY Annual) Soap Opera College Challenge. College students played against soap stars, with the college kids playing for themselves and the soap actors/actresses playing for their favorite colleges.
Naturally it was a trainwreck. One other oddity: They actually gave away a rather expensive (for the time) convertible *as a Wheel prize*. Here now is that episode (Youtube embedded playlist):
Apologies to the -4 of you who read this. Due to a financial tight spot the site had to be taken down for a couple of weeks. I’d like to thank my webhost, ASmallOrange, for all of their understanding and help through this period. I’d also like to send a word of thanks to Adam Nedeff’s Game Show Utopia - the fill-in page for much of the outage was hosted on the GSU server, and allowed you -4 to have some idea what was up.
Just because the main site was down doesn’t mean that I wasn’t busy generating content:
In the week and a half the site’s been down, I’ve posted eight videos to Youtube. Embedded below are all eight - plus a related video (2 of the 8 were parts 2 and 3 of a ‘95 Wheel I’d uploaded months ago) First, a full episode of Wheel of Fortune from 1995:
Next up, four clips from The Price is Right: Rod Roddy tongue-twisting Showcase:
Followed by the first ever playing of “Spelling Bee”:
Followed by an appearance by Carol Burnett from 1992
And finally an excitable contestant tries to guess $74K+ as a guess for a Pontiac on a 1980s Ten Chances playing:
And finally, two more additions to the Celebrities on Game Shows files: John Ritter on the Bill Cullen-hosted $25,000 Pyramid:
What was just an innocent little rerun of Wheel of Fortune tonight (June 30th) has just turned into something else entirely. A promo aired during tonight’s show - starting this fall, the top bonus prize will be…
One Million Dollars.
Based on the very very brief image in the promo, it appears they’ll be offering the prize the same way they did on the Australian version - which lasted a total of 5 weeks I might add.
The way this works, since I assume many folks don’t watch Australian game shows on a regular basis is as follows:
The wedge is placed on the wheel in a given round - say, the first. the Million spot is one position wide, while on either side are Bankrupts. This is similar to the way the $10,000 space in Round 1 operates now. If you hit the Million and call a correct letter, you take the wedge as you would a prize wedge. If you solve the puzzle, you get the wedge….except, and I don’t know if the US show would do it this way too, but Down Under not only did you have to win the round, and obviously the game - but you couldn’t hit Bankrupt *once* the rest of the game, or you lost it. And if you managed to hold on to the wedge the entire show and ultimately won…then the million dollars becomes one possible prize option out of 24 different wedges/envelopes.
Mind you, it’s hard to tell from a 20 second promo that really only shows 1 substantive image (Bankrupt/Million/Bankrupt) exactly how it’ll work, but there’s a handy frame of reference.
[b]Edit[/b]Wheel’s 26th season apparently doesn’t begin taping until next week - meaning that the image shown is indeed a mock-up.
Welcome to the first actual content of the new site. As part of this feature, I’m going to periodically take a game show, and good or bad I’m going to review it. And the first victim…er…subject?
——————-
You are about to be witness to an examination. Several of you have decided to try your skills against the participants. But be you player or spectator, be prepared. For you have just been invited…to an Inquizition.
Inquizition
Debut Date: October 5, 1998 Last Airing: August 26, 2001 (Last new episode was several months prior) Network: Game Show Network Host: The Inquizitor (identity unknown) Produced by: Sande Stewart Television/Game Show Network.
Background:
In the late 90s, Game Show Network had moved away from short interstitial games and into full program-length game shows. The early attempts weren’t much different from the interstital games in anything but timing. Inquizition was different: It was a traditional game show. You had contestants, you had questions, you had hosts. You didn’t have much of a set, but considering the style of the show, that was part of the look.
The Show:
Four contestants played. They were each given a question by the host, three possible choices to respond with, and a very short amount of time to answer.
A sample question might go something like:
One of Da Vinci’s sketchbooks was bought for nearly $31,000,000 by:
A. Ted Turner
B. The Getty Museum
C. None of the Above.
The contestants only had a second to respond, or else they couldn’t register an answer. The lecterns displayed the contestants responses, and then the host (I’m not about to reference him as “Inquizitor” the entire time) then revealed the answers, and the contestants’ lecterns flashed their updated scores.
Depending on whether anyone missed the answer or was locked out, as well as time constraints, the host would take a moment to comment - usually in the negative - at the contestant regarding their performance.
And that was it. Really. Absolutely straightforward rapid-fire Q&A - and at the one-third and two-thirds marks in each episode, the contestant with the lowest score was eliminated, with the Inquizitor having a final joke or two at their expense first. The host then asked the lowest scoring contest to please leave, at which point the contestant turned their back and the screen flashed white - at which point went go to commercial break.
In round two, the exact same procedure was repeated - now with three contestants. The contestants’ scores were reset to zero - meaning a poor first round didn’t harm your chances to win as long as you weren’t the worst player in each round.
After several minutes, yet another contestant was eliminated. Down to two contestants now, the game shifted to the final round…which is exactly the same game as the first two rounds. Yet more questions are asked of the two. They continued this for several more minutes. Lowest scorer is eliminated prior to the final break.
Upon coming back from the final commercial, the winning contestant was congratulated by the Inquizitor for having survived. Aside from the somewhat silly way of having contestants leave, the game had been rather straightforward through now. At this point, things veer off course: In reality, for winning the game the contestant who survived received $500 cash ($250 in the first season). On television, however, they “won their freedom”, at which point they bowed their heads and thanked the Inquizitor. The host then announced that tonight’s inquizition was concluded, laid down the book they were reading from, and the same sound and effect as the contestants elimination played - at which point the show’s credits played.
The problem with the gameplay was simple: Unless you happened to be playing the interactive game for the change to earn the prizes offered by it, the entire show was sitting and watching the four contestants answer a series of A, B, or Neither questions for 30 minutes. It’s a multiple choice exam where you yell at your TV rather than fill in a bubble sheet. The gameplay isn’t particularly bad, it’s just dull.
The gimmick of the show, which dutifully covers both the host and the aesthetic elements of the show (set, music, etc.) tended to stay in the background through the Q&A portions - aside from having to look at the same shot of the same spartan and partially CGI set. The problem is that the gimmick, when it did move to the forefront, became so laughably cheesy that it was hard to really get into the show - between the gameplay and the gimmick you were either bored to tears or laughing your behind off at the cheesiness - usually not both at the same time.
Many game shows have had their Q&A elements and their gimmicks. Shows like Joker’s Wild, Tic Tac Dough, etc. The trick there is that they tended to blend the gimmick and the questions in such a way that neither was heavily concentrated, and the end product worked. Here, you switch between strong concentrations of either/or.
One other little thing: it’s been pointed out to me that the contestants on this show all wore hospital scrubs during the game. Why? I don’t have the first clue - I’m sure there’s a reason, but considering I didn’t even notice until someone else told me, it’s not a big deal. Of course, given the choice between scrubs and a suit, I’d take the scrubs any day of the week.
Then there’s the host. Really? The apparent secrecy regarding the true identity of the host is such that TEN YEARS LATER - and SEVEN after the last rerun aired - and the actual identity of the host has yet to be revealed. A persistent rumor is that the host is legendary game show producer Bob Stewart - but no one actually knows for sure. That, friends, is taking a gimmick seriously. Admittedly, the host brings an otherwise bright spot to a dull game. He’s amusing…and he was one of the first game show hosts who specifically was mean-spirited towards contestants - a radical departure from the types of Bill Cullen and Chuck Woolery.
Videos:
Assembled into four parts, and strung together by the playlist embedded below, is the very same 1999 episode used to make the stills on this page. The three rounds are essentially the exact same save the number of players involved.
Final Score: 6/10.
The Q&A element wasn’t that bad - it just wasn’t that great. There was no “hook” to keep viewers interested other than the interactive game - so unless you were playing it then the entire show for you was watching these 4/3/2 answer questions in order to win “their freedom” (IE: $500). And the payout for winning - $500 - was ridiculously low. GSN had been shelling out only token amounts to it’s winners before - that’s just how the old style games worked. They hadn’t yet learned that airing a 30 minute program requires the prize budget of a 30 minute - not a 3 minute one. Not a horrible format - just not a very good one. The host was decent enough - if you factor out the “winning your freedom” garbage, etc. The set fit the gimmick - but was otherwise horrendous.
It’s not the worst game show ever - hell, it’s actually about middle of the road just for GSN originals. It’s just not very good. If GSN ever wanted to run this again on weekends instead of, say, Chain Reaction - I’d have no problem. But you probably don’t need to go out of your way to see this show - it’s not worth that much effort.
I’m hoping one day in the future, folks will look back at this post and see this as the day that my site started to actually grow into what it’ll be then. I’ve finally managed to do a design I really and truly like - I’ve got all the same content as I did previously already (save for the collection pages I need to update for the new format) and the new system should make it incredibly easy to add more AFter all this time, I think I’ve finally got the look I want.
First and foremost, I’d simply like to say that Mr. McKay was truly one of the finest sports broadcasters in the history of the television medium. Point blank. I’m unfortunately young enough that I didn’t get to see him in his heyday, however, what of his career (1980s onward) I saw, in addition to all the comments from his peers and followers in the business - truly speaks to what a legend in the field we lost. With the passing of a great in the news/politics divisions in Tim Russert as well, the industry has lost two of it’s great broadcasters in a very short time.
But to return to Jim McKay for a moment: One thing that many folks didn’t know is that Jim McKay hosted a game show. In 1955, Jim was the first of two hosts of a short-lived series titled Make the Connection. Jim hosted the series’ first six episodes, while future Match Game host Gene Rayburn hosted the final seven.
Presented below is Jim McKay’s sixth and final episode of Make the Connection, from July 28, 1955.
Honestly, I like the song just because I like cheesy 80s music. So to see cheesy 80s music morph into a worldwide sensation 20 years after the fact warms my heart. Here is, I believe, the BEST non-actual-video Rickrolls
CSS 2.0
