Here's a question for you about that special feature from the final year or so of the original version of America's favorite answer and question game:
Was the $500 added to the contestant's score or was the $500 tacked on after the game was over and a winner declared?

This one I'm sure about. The bonus was not added to a player's score during the game.

Here's what I don't get...If NBC was willing to foot the bill for a cash jackpot, why didn't they go ahead and just change the dollar values on the board? The thing that kills me about J! from that era and Split Second is that neither show seems worth the effort for folks who want to be on TV and win money. $40 for describing the genetic composition of a frog, or $5,000 for saying "boobs" to thunderous applause? Is there something about budgets and game shows of this period that I don't know?

Today, you can eat elephant testicles and jump off a building for $50,000, or you can spin a pretty wheel and yell letters for $100,000, or call out random numbers for $1 million.

The logic behind budgets have never quite added up among certain shows.

I wonder if Bolen had any other ideas to try to contemporize J! before NBC decided to kill it off? Perhaps a bonus round which the later Fleming revival had.

This is not intended as a smart-ass answer: the password is RATINGS. Those factor into what a show is willing and able to give.

Yes, it's way more complicated than that, and I'll leave it to board members in the biz to explain in detail if they wish.

I can follow all of the other ones, and think that Match Game gave away about 60% too much money for the task at hand, but what's the one about the genetic composition of a frog?


Dang! They had an elephant testicles episode? Where was TV Guide when you need it?

What show gave $5,000 for saying boobs?

Twins gave popsicles head for a possible 500 some odd dollars. Where's the justice?

I can't recall boob or boobs being a winning answer in the MG7x bonus round, but of course it was one of the most popular fill in the blank responses in the maingame.

Match Game, granted you didn't win the 5-large by directly saying boobs, but it's all part of the joke Adam was making.

And I think the "frog" comment referred to J!

Of course, I might be due a WHOOOOOSH...

Nah, I think you're due something else.

It's hard for you youngsters to realize just how much The $10,000 Pyramid turned everything on its ear. Before Pyramid, all those post-scandals daytime shows were played for small stakes by people who were just happy to be on TV. For the smart ones, showing off on Jeopardy! or Split Second was its own reward. If a "bonus round" existed at all, it was something like the Password Lightning Round, where a big win meant $500. After Pyramid, you almost couldn't get a game show on the air unless you had a big-money (and yes, $5000 was considered big money) bonus round.

The problem for the established shows is that they weren't designed around big-money bonus rounds so they felt they had to adapt, and they usually did so in awkward ways. The Jeopardy bonus was extremely awkward, with Fleming having to stop the momentum of the game every time somebody got four in a row to let us know the bonus was on the line. That's one of the reasons I remember it so well.

No, you're not. That's exactly what I meant, don't worry about it.

What, pray tell?

Brandon Brooks

Don't mind him. He's the same guy who thought making an internet adaptation of the "Wisconsin Lottery Moneygame" was a good idea.

And let it be said that a lot of people would be happy with "SS"'s new car--which, even if it was dumb luck, was not that easy to win.

In "J!"'s case, I had the feeling that the staff knew that they were on borrowed time--they just saw "Concentration" go down and they knew that they were not Lin Bolen's kind of show. Bringing that bonus in was an attempt to keep the wolf from the door, but they knew that she was going to get rid of them sooner or later--especially anyone who knew that Merv had already proposed a show more compatible with her vision of NBC daytime game shows.

Perhaps they could've increased the values, but unless they changed the host, made the material more pop culture or wacky polls, glitzed up the set and ramped up the sweetening as well (and even then that's questionable), they were not long for Lin Bolen's world.

Another thing to consider was that the second and third place contestants used to be able to keep their earnings, so if the values increased, a loser could go home with a good chunk of change for the half-hour.