Here's something you'll never see on game shows today... games that tape anyway despite technical problems. Can you think of any game show that had some technical problem and taped anyway? (Besides TPIR)

Scrabble 93- The stopper stop signs did not work in the first few episodes of Scrabble, so there was no way for the audience to keep track of how many stoppers were picked. On another funny ep., the board did not open.

Jeopardy!- I seem to remember that the new podiums had lights that didn't light up, and that was eventually fixed.

Super Password- On one occasion, the scoreboards didn't work, and they kept score via cue cards.

Family Feud Dawson- The fast money board broke, and it was played on a cue card.

Pictionary- The scoreboard was clever, but sometimes the beads would get caught, and Brian Robbins joked that you can never rely on the scoreboard.

Match Game- The lights went completely out on at least two occasions (once on MG 77, and once on Richard's final MG PM)

Family Feud Combs- As discussed, the strike indicators broke, and strike paddles were used.

This wouldn't count as a technical PROBLEM, but on one occasion on Davidson HS, when they dismantled the set to go to Florida (which made no sense, since they obviously had a different set in Florida) they kept it dismantled, and the celebs stood on risers and had X and O cards (which they did use if the lights stopped working)

The strong natural lighting precluded the use of the regular lighting apparatus, and the oranges-water skis cards were a nice tropical touch.

At various points in the 70's, NABET technicians staged walkouts at all three networks and a number of episodes of their game shows were taped with management personnel manning the cameras. Not really technical problems, but those shows were just barely broadcastable, because the managers weren't as skilled as the regular crews.

MG/HS Hour - During one show's HS portion, one celebrity's "X" started flashing. Jon Bauman joked that "we don't allow flashers on our show" and went to a commercial. When the show resumed, ALL of the symbols were off and the celebrities crossed their arms in front of themselves for an "X" or joined their hands over their heads for an "O."

Davidson HS - I recall at least one regular show (not final-week or pre-Florida trip) in which all of the celebrities used the X/O cards because none of the symbols would light up. JD said that it was due to a technical problem.

Don't know how "techincal" it is, but Bob's kicked some of the TPiR games. I think he kicked Squeeze Play twice when it didn't wanna reveal. :-)

I can remember some lights on the Showcase podiums (podia?) on TPiR having problems occasionally.

And although not really a technical problem, I seem to remember an episode of Liar's Club on USA where the contestant maxed out the display and they had to tape a "1" on the left end. Too few solari's, I suppose. :)

I recall toward the end of a main game of the syndie version with Richard, the whole scoring system froze.

In other words, when a contestant would match an answer in the survey, the answer would flip with the accompanying "clang" -- but its money value wouldn't be added to the bank. Further, when a round ended, the "giving lights" (from the bank to a family's score) would work -- but the appropriate addition couldn't be made on the scoreboard.

I think all was fixed by Fast Money.


Also, on MTV's Remote Control, technical difficulties to a player's scoreboard readout would occur every now and then. Ken Ober would make some remark something to the effect of "we're keeping score in Japanese".

Pat had to write in a 1 and display it on the left of the players two and three day total readouts on a couple on occasions on Syndie WOF when a player cracked $100K before their third bonus round.

I suspect that was the incident that caused the rules to change to a $100 maximum bet per round, assuming the player had more than $100.

The 1988-89 version of LC had a similar rule, but despite the score possibly going over 1000, they only had three digits on the contestant readouts.

If I am not mistaken, Mike Gargiulo won an Emmy for directing an early 1976 episode of The $20,000 Pyramid in which the lights were out on the big board for the entire show.

More from Davidson "Squares": one episode Joan Rivers square just wouldn't light up - the other 8 were fine. They did the show anyway and no mention was made. By the next show everything was back to normal.

No one has yet mentioned the out-of-sync lights, etc. from Face the Music, but they pressed on despite those.

This probably doesn't count....but I recall a Combs Feud where power had gone out just before a faceoff and the families returned (and taping resumed) on the next tape day. The show did make air.

Neither. They're lecturns. A podium is something you stand ON. A lecturn is something you stand AT or BEHIND.

EDIT: Or not. dictionary.com lists "a lecturn" as a second definition for "podium." So I stand self-corrected, but no longer on my grammatical soapbox. Or podium. Sorry.

Showing that MG/HS wasn't entirely familiar with Ocham's Razor. If only the celebrities all had something like large index cards and magic markers that could create an X and O that would easily be visible from the short distance where the contestants were seated...

I recall one Double Dare Obstacle Course in 1987 where on the on-stage clock wasn't working. I don't know where the clock we saw on-screen was from another display or was added in post-production, but the team did complete the course in :53. And there was more than one Physical Challenge where Marc called to stop the clock because a contestant's headgear was falling off.

I remember this happening twice--when they rolled in the sushi set and when they rolled in the current set.

Brandon Brooks

This happened quite a bit in the show's infancy and there never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to it. One side of the board would work but the other side wouldn't. And then as Dave mentioned, the famed episode in January 1987 where the entire board went dark around the end of game 1 and into game 2.

John barely had control of the celebrities on a normal day - nothing like having to have him yell at them to make sure to hold up their X or O.

And then on other shows, the amount of money won shown on the contestant podium wouldn't come up...yet another proud moment for John when he asked the staff to put up $500 for the contestant because they couldn't do it before the commercial due to a technical problem and then it still wouldn't appear! :-)

Rob

In a semi-related DD note to Mr. Wuthrich's post, at least twice the clock jumped from 30 to 19 during a physical challenge - in both cases, completion of that challenge was irrelevant to who ended up winning, but they handed them the $80 anyway. Simiarly to what he said, physical challenges went without an on-screen clock, but Marc would explain the music lasted as long as the challenge and "when the music's over, the physical challenge is over."

A "Family Feud" all-star special appeared to have the main game answers flipped manually - they came around less "cleanly" and with more force than on the average day.

There was that famous incident on "Blockbusters" when Bill Cullen asked viewers to use lipstick to draw in an unlighted red hexagon.

And TPIR is the absolute perfect example of this. Chaser lights in "Dice Game" not operating, the sound effect on the wheel going kerplooey, etc. If TPIR stopped down for every error, they'd have one hell of a day in the studio.

-Jason

There was one Family Double Dare ep where the clock did not work during a physical challenge, so they went by the music instead. The team completed the challenge just in time.

Also, in several TPiR episodes with Barker's Bargain Bar, the trilons would not turn, so they were flipped by hand manually.

I hear Karlberg is _still_ trying to wipe that lipstick off of his TV. :)

I hear Daddy's wristwatch might do the trick. :)

Anybody remember when the board went kerblooey and all those weird shapes started appearing? In the back of my mind, I recall watching this on the old CBN, and ISTR Bill ad-libbing something about whether contestants can make a word out of the visible letters, since there so many...um, not-letters. Unfortunately, a ticket or contestant plug followed, so we'll never see it on GSN.

I'll say...the wrong number being revealed in Lucky Seven...Bob forgetting contestants have two chances to win Pick-a-Pair, not one...that contestant in Shell Game that peeked under a shell ("That's dumb!"). Technical difficulties on TPiR should merit their own thread! :-)

I suspect it had more to do with honoring a tighter budget.

Yeah, but that reasoning doesn't give Zach a chance to play Look-At-Me-And-My-Obscure-Knowledge.

The Jeopardy College Championship @ Yale, 2003.

During the final match, the end lectern light pen wouldn't work. After an hour of technical work , and Alex running out of decent questions to take from the audience, the kid wrote his response on a piece of cardboard.

It has aired on GSN. (It was John Hatton's first episode.) The weird shapes, I believe, served a function similar to a screensaver and popped up on the board while the letters were being changed between games. You seldom saw them on the show, though. Isn't this interesting?

This was particularly apparent on an early 1972 ep of TPiR, which featured some horrible camera shots that occasionally looked blurry...Bob himself, upon seeing a tape of this ep via GSN some 25+ yrs later, called it an embarassment.

There was one ep of Face the Music where the score displays on the podium apparently disappeared between games 1 and 2...Ron even mentioned it on the air, saying "I'm going to be keeping track of your scores, because we had a little computer breakdown just now", which he did, recapping the scores every time a subject was guessed.

During one ep of the 80s Treasure Hunt, the big logo sign started to malfunction during the show, more letters going out as the ep went on until it was completely dimmed by the time Emile Autouri's segment rolled around.

During a Christmas-themed daytime FF in 1979 (as was mentioned in an earlier, unrelated thread), there was a computer problem, so Fast Money was played on cue cards that day, w/production assistants writing down the answers and points.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

Now, pre tell, how were any of those technical difficulties?

Brandon Brooks

This was a VERY cosmetic thing that didn't affect game play at all, but the chasing lights on the arches of the Davidson Pyramid set were always out of synch or the whole pattern would just flash on and off.

They didn't really get it corrected so that it consistantly worked until the midway through the second season. It's really amazing how distracting it was actually. I always thought it made the show look a little cheesy and was surprised they didn't fix it quickly. I guess when you're used to the 80s version, which I think was the slickest looking and running game show I've ever seen, maybe the standard is just high.

Man, when they worked right that set was a thing a beauty tho! ;)

Bryan

I'm surprised no one has as yet mentioned the infamous "dark slides" on PYL...that happened on many occasions, yet, unless somebody hit the "dark slide," they just played on like it wasn't there...:)

Anthony

I was about to "wow", and then I realized you were talking about Davidson PYRAMID and not Davidson Squares. :)

People seem to have forgotten Rafferty Blockbusters as well. But, by all means, please continue.

I believe this particular ep. might have aired on GSN.... I have a clip of the end result after this happened during a Gold Run.

How 'bout last night's D/ND? Not a serious technical difficulty, mind you, but certainly an amusing one. In this era of stopdowns, I'm surprised they left it in. But, spoiler-wary, I'll say no more.

Because Howie made show out of it. Just another example of how, it seems, these people are learning from past mistakes and appear to know what they're doing.

(I'm carefully choosing my words here, and since it had no bearing on gameplay, I don't think it's a big deal anyhow, but....)

I'm thinking two things: 1) with this show, any opportunity for Howie to be Howie is a good one, and that was a golden opportunity, and 2) I'm gonna guess they were gonna pitch to a break around that time anyhow.

And when that happened, I immediately looked, and noticed that Howie doesn't wear an IFB. (Of course he doesn't, how would they conceal it with that bald-assed head? Matt, how do you conceal yours? ;))

Anyhow, if I have avoided bannination, I was amused to realize that it isn't just a prop, that's a set piece that actually gets used.

Not knowing how much you're joking...

I wore one as a news anchor, I don't wear one on QuizBusters. We just use a good old-fashioned floor director and hand signals. On both shows, though, unlike Howie, I'm always facing forward so it's harder to see the wires.

The Chyron broke down once on "Super Password," and Bert Convy had to write down the password and hand it to each celebrity. There was no way to show it to the audience, though.

Also, there were a few times during the second Tournament of Losers where the puzzle slots wouldn't open, so Bert had to write the puzzle words and answers on a piece of posterboard.


Brendan

I recall the survey displays not working on more than a few occasions on Eubanks/Rafferty Card Sharks.... The survey results would be added in post-production by way of the mighty Chyron.

WOOHOO! 100 POSTS!!!

In reference to the maxed-out Solari board from earlier, here's a similar case only it involved an eggcrate display:

On an episode of the Canadian game show Mad Dash I saw from around 1980 or so, one of the couple's displays went from $600 to $200. That occured when they landed on a Double Your $ space on the gigantic gameboard. To rectify that, a placard with the number 1 was used to denote the thousands digit making that score correct as $1,200. That's what happens when you yo-yo back & forth from the Double Your $ space several tines I guess.

They would use the Chyron to display contestant's guesses for Educated guess questions. This began a few months after they debuted, when the answers could be numbers >= 100. When they first debuted EG questions, contestants were given pencil and paper to write down their answers.

I'm surprised no one had mentioned the "Face the Devil" malfunction on TJW that has appeared on some blooper shows -- the one where the contestant broke the giant lever.

I seem to recall that the contestant had to finish the round without using the big lever, no??

There was an incident on the post-all-star "Password" in 75 where Allen asked the contestant panel to test their arrows. Sure enough, one of the contestant's arrows wouldn't go up. Allen then assured everyone that the sound would suffice; suddenly there was a loud thud off-stage and the arrows worked after that.

Not focusing on just you... but why again is this a technical problem?!?!?

People, from what I understand, technical problems are things not working correctly, like having weird shapes on the Blockbusters board. Just because a eggcrate display could not show $1200 doesn't mean it didn't work correctly. In addition, all of those "TPiR difficulties" GS Warhouse mentioned earlier are called flubs. This previous Mad Dash example is not even a difficulty or a flub.

Jeez.

Brandon Brooks

Was that sound the producer s**tting a brick? :)

True dat.



Wouldn't be surprised. Mr. West?



Non-technical Que?

Well, clearly I screwed up that quoting. Ah, well.

Not so badly that I couldn't take care of it.

IFB: Interruptible Feed-Back. The earpiece a television news anchor wears so they can hear what's going on while their mic is open. "Interruptible" because the producer usually has a button and a microphone in the control room that they can press to speak directly to them.

And yet UNinterrupable in that the one wearing the earpiece always has to listen to what the person on the other end is saying.

When you have dumbass producers who can't give time cues, it's not a handy tool.

Rant over.

It also happened again during a 1987 wk w/Jamie Farr and Stuart Pankin, only that time, the prob was that the wrong puzzle had been loaded in the board.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")