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Post by thekid965 on Nov 3, 2013 12:24:19 GMT -5
From 1988, here's the unsold pilot that almost was. According to host and co-creator Wink Martindale, Top Secret was apparently destined for CBS Daytime at one point, but at the last moment they changed their minds. (Based on the 4 March VTR date, it is possible, though by no means confirmed, that this could have been CBS's original intended replacement for Blackout before they decided to appease the Pyramid fans instead.) Whatever the case, Top Secret was evidently so close to making air that the home version was actually manufactured and sold in stores that spring despite the associated TV show being banished to the Island of Misfit Game Shows. Was Top Secret a classic in the making, or did CBS do the right thing by changing course? You make the call. Apologies for the low audio quality, but as always, these aren't my uploads -- I'm just the messenger. Complete in one part
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2013 13:13:27 GMT -5
Do realize that when a Pilot episode is taped, it takes a few months for it to become a regular series. If Top Secret would have debuted on CBS in Daytime, it probably would have taken place by July 1988, but I personally think CBS gave Top Secret the red light because I believe they felt that Family Feud with Ray Combs would do better in the ratings department, since a lot of viewers from back then were more familiar with Family Feud and Top Secret was a totally new show, and maybe Top Secret probably would have bombed like Blackout did.
It seemed to be pretty normal for fresh new game show ideas during the 1980s/early 1990s to bomb in daytime during the 1980s/1990s, which explains the short runs that Blackout, Caesar's Challenge, Hit Man, Time Machine, and Your Number's Up had. I guess CBS learned from past examples that fresh new game show ideas in the 80s and 90s probably wouldn't fly in daytime.
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Post by manekineko on Nov 6, 2013 3:24:52 GMT -5
At the risk of offending someone, this isn't very good.
The concept of buying the clues and only getting $100 for the win seemed anti-climactic. I mean you could end up paying $2500 for the clues.
The other thing is that the comments were all lame/punny. Finding out what they were wasn't nearly as exciting as the contestants made it to be.
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Post by thekid965 on Nov 6, 2013 14:05:48 GMT -5
The concept of buying the clues and only getting $100 for the win seemed anti-climactic. I mean you could end up paying $2500 for the clues. In their defense somewhat, the only way you actually kept any money at all was if you won the overall game; unless and until that happened, you were playing with house money. With that said, I do agree that by 1988, $100 + your final score was definitely much too low for winning the game. In my head, I did come up with a potential solution to this issue. If you managed to knock someone out of the game by guessing their identity, you added however much money they had to your own score, with $100 now becoming the house minimum just in case they were broke when you did so. That, plus a bonus $500 for winning the game, would go quite a ways towards solving this. Another idea would be to play the game with points instead of money, with a flat $1,000 or a bonus prize going to the last person standing. Maybe add a small bonus for every clue you managed to hold on to by the end of the game. This is a problem to be sure, but it is by no means an unsolvable one -- and one of the reasons for pilots and run-throughs is to identify potential problems in a format under development, so they can be addressed before the general public sees it. "Lame/punny" clues never seemed to hurt Scrabble any. And yes, overdirected contestants are a problem on many game show pilots, but remember: The primary goal of a pilot (above and beyond discovering gameplay flaws) is, first and foremost, to get the show sold to a network or distributor. One way of doing that, albeit not the most honest way, would be to have the hired actors you have portraying contestants act like they just won the lottery every time they get a correct answer. For most "normal" people, this is merely annoying, but remember: We're dealing with network execs here, not "normal" people. If they don't see excitement, they can't imagine it... or so goes the theory, anyway.
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