Hi folks,

Last night's G$M reminded me of just how much I preferred the original Family Feud set and music to the current versions. GSN got bumped up a tier on my cable system several months ago, and I don't get it any more, so I haven't seen Dawson or Combs in a while.

The set they used last night looked enough like the authentic CBS TV City set from Ray Combs' years, that I wondered: do sets from old shows get destroyed, or are they just dismantled and stored somewhere?

I remember a photo from a TPiR fan site that did a backstage tour of Studio 33. They took a picture of the back of the Plinko board, and in a storage slot on the board were the signs for the dollar values used when the game was played on Doug Davidson's show (a different configuration than on Bob's). This was several years after the Davidson show came and went, and I couldn't figure out why they hung onto those. So I'm wondering if the real Combs set, or parts of it, would be out there somewhere. I doubt they'd hang on to it, taking up storage space all that time, just in case a one-shot revival 15 years later might want to use an authentic set...but I don't know.

Thanks to anyone who can enlighten me.

John

You are correct that storing old sets for possible re-use is not cost efficient, and money seems to be the driving force behind all decisions, now more than ever. Sets from cancelled shows are usually stored until it becomes apparent that the show will not be renewed or picked-up by another network or distributor. From my observations, it appears that shows up-dating their sets usually trash the old ones rather quickly.

But "trashed" is a misleading word. Vista Electronics will strip the electronics for recycling, i.e. the monitors from the Weakest Link podiums have been reused. Some structural elements of a set may be saved as well for unrecognizeable use in future set pieces. The wonderful exceptions are the pieces of sets salvaged on their way to the dumpsters by folks like Bob Boden who has the Dawson FF face-off podium and TPiR's Superball game, among many other great pieces.

TPiR-Live in Vegas is using set pieces (including the big doors) that remained stored in Vegas from Price's 30th anniversary show that was taped at the Rio. Pieces of an old Combs FF set were used in runthroughs for new contestants outside of stage 11 at NBC during the Louie years. After many years of storage and not finding a suitable home, I recently saved the Ferranti-Packard board from the Combs FF on it's trip to the dumpster. It is in reasonably good condition, and has enough spare parts to return it to full operating condition, hopefully at some future date.


Randy
tvrandywest.com

Dude, you should totally fix that and hang it in your living room.

Oh, the possibilities. :)

I wanted to, and I can accommodate the length and width. But the monster is close to 2 feet deep; too much precious space for the occasional laugh. But if I ever rent a "studio apartment", it will be a natural!! ;-)

Randy
tvrandywest.com

I can see it now...invite all the relatives over for Thanksgiving, and as they enter, have the big FAMILY FEUD logo flashing...

It's about damn time they got some use out of those doors.

The only other thing I could think of from that show would be the huge turntables. Is the show using those?

Would the set pieces be owned by Fremantle or Harrah's?

That would be a major undertaking. The driver software alone would require some serious programming.

Do you have any idea how it connects to a controller? Is it over a serial port? If so I bet it's not all THAT hard. (Not suggesting I could do it, but I bet you I know people who could.)

Well, it would probably have to be considered a "display" so perhaps nothing more complicated than a 9-pin Hercules graphics card would have been used.

Well, not necessarily. In the world of MAME-cabinet-making there are a few people who wire seperate LCD displays into their cabinets and then have them display information about whatever game is currently loaded. Usually these connect via RS-232, though these days there are quite a few that connect via USB. I'm thinking the Feud board isn't too far removed from this, and the older tech screams serial connection to me.

Were it only that simple. Ferranti-Packard only sold individual character readouts, and because different users used the readouts in different configurations (race track tote boards, bus signs, etc.) they did not sell packaged systems. It was up to the end user to drive the displays, and this involved a) configuring the display (rows and columns) and b) addressing the individual dots. You then had to interface the low-current signal from the computer to the high-current pulses required to flip the dots.

That works for low-current, pre-configured displays which will be mass produced. Everything about the FF board was a custom job so there wasn't an off-the-shelf solution.

Ferranti Packard is now F-P Electronics. It was acquired by Mark IV Industries of Amherst, NY in 1990.

http://www.fpelectronics.com/markiv/idsys.nsf

Didn't Mark IV own microphone manufacturer Electro Voice at one time?

Hey Lemon, did you ever pick up an SM-48?

I don't know jack about the tech talk... I thought SCSI was how you described an unkempt woman ;-)
But one of the brains who wired that board for the Combs show already offered to do the work when time and inclination permit.

Randy
tvrandywest.com

Nope. I'm saving up for a plasma TV, so I'm trying to keep other frivolous purchases to a minimum for a little while longer.