To celebrate Alex Trebek's birthday, here is a very rare pilot he did in 1986. Has a little bit of the board game Can't Stop mixed in. Happy Birthday Alex and Enjoy!!
The one thing these failed pilots prove, the simpler the game, the better. If the rules take longer than ten seconds to explain, you've lost the audience. That said, Trebek was stellar as one would expect. A treasure, Alex is.
The great #JeopardyKing passed away yesterday morning from pancreatic cancer. His 80th birthday was his last living birthday, which I'm sure, was not as extravagantly celebrated as it should've been, thanks to the stupid #Covid19 pandemic! Alex was ROBBED of the huge birthday party he should've been able to get...especially since 80 years of age was an incredible milestone for him considering what he was fighting health-wise! Alex, you will NEVER be forgotten! Thanks for the memories!
The show itself has a bit of that 'unsold pilot' oddness you see on stuff like Twisters and On A Roll but the game itself is surprisingly good. With an additional bit of polish this could have been a great show. Happy birthday, Alex!
@@jwgreek8606 Looking at a photo of him on Wikipedia, it does look like him, although he has smaller glasses now and has put on a lot of weight. Kind of a similar situation to Butch Hartman, who was on the Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour.
I can't remember being so excited after discovering an unsold pilot. Great game mechanics-excellent use of risk/reward!-although the second guess is just filler to add fun and possibly some playful bickering; it adds nothing to the game per se. I'm in LOVE with that mechanical board! The design, the bright colours, the geometry… and the bonus game is enjoyable enough. Having experienced Second Guess, I'm ambivalent: I had a great time watching it, but will have to spend the rest of my life wistful at having no more episodes to enjoy! Whoever designed this game did a masterful job.
The way I see it, the couple (or player) who buzzes in gets first choice. The opposing player/couple can either agree with them or Second Guess. Buzz in right, opponent agrees: buzz in gets 1 spin Buzz in wrong, opponent agrees: opponent gets 1 spin Buzz in right or wrong, opponent second guesses incorrectly: buzz in gets 2 spins Buzz in wrong, opponent second guesses correctly: opponent gets 2 spins
I would've watched this show if it had been on the air. Can't say that about a lot of the pilots I see on here, but this had everything a viewer could want and leaves me wishing there was more. Kinda sad this wasn't picked up. Sure hope it wasn't only because they couldn't get Trebek full time or something.
I bet that if the current version of Jeopardy! didn't last as long as it has been, Second Guess would have a shot of making it on the air. Oh, one more thing. One of the contestants, Ted, was known to those who watched Saturday Morning television back in the 70s as the voice of Dorno on "The Herculoids" and Brad Fulton in the "Dr. Shrinker" segment of "The Krofft Supershow".
He actually did 3 game shows at once at one point. He also became the third host to travel between the U.S. and Canada hosting game shows. Jim Perry and Monty Hall are the others.
OK, the big question: would this work today? Probably. Some changes? Some, yes: (1) remove the top six-item line. It rarely would come into play. (2) maybe make the first round to three prizes, and the second is changed to four (which wouldn't take any more time if you eliminate the top-six item). That way, you can get a 4-3 score (How could you know if you won at 3-3 if you don't know the prize values?) (3) on the buzz-in for the question: The first person basically gives an irrelevant answer. Something like two spins if the first answer is accepted and correct; one spin if the second answer is correct.
Hope you're still hanging tough, Alex! Happy 80th! BTW, you folks might recognize Marty Pasetta as the guy behind many of our awards shows seen over the years (but you knew that, didn't you?).
Marty was involved with a lot of game shows over the years. His company produced Catch Phrase (which also featured John Harlan as announcer) while he directed a number of shows including being the inaugural director of Wheel of Fortune. Marty died a number of years ago in a tragic accident where he was run over by his own car.
Good format...could've used a slight bit of streamlining, but dear old Alex is on his A-game here, and the game's a solid watch. I don't know if the whole "second-guess" mechanic should've come with a caveat that a correct second-guess answer would've only gotten *one* spin at that randomizer instead of two would've helped.
And Press Your Luck as well (especially in the bonus game, where the Whammy came into play if certain amounts were fully lit up, and yet they showed on the wheels [as Alex Trebek said, all amounts spun regardless of win status, so if the wheels were full of amounts that had already been lit, thereby allowing no new spaces, you lost what you had earned]).
This is one of the more enjoyable unsold pilots that I have seen. IMHO, it could stand a few tweaks. I like the bonus round and the prize inverse pyramid of the main game but the second guess quiz doesn’t quite work and I would make some changes in its game play. Also the prize computer should be programmed to show two or three different prizes with each spin (no more three-of-a-kind).
Many worse shows made it than this; the power dynamics were interesting and playful. It felt a little rule-heavy in a couple of places, the randomness of the "wheels" felt a little opaque and the bonus round didn't entirely convince. Wonder if the team behind it had been playing the "Can't Stop" dice game?
I really enjoyed this (and yes, Wink, Can't Stop is a great game)! One tweak I'd make, if you "second guess", it's worth 1 spin - for you or your opponents. If you don't, it's 2 spins for you or the enemies. Do you feel REALLY confident, or are you second guessing that?
I gotta love Alex Trebek but this pilot was meh. The main game was boring but I really like the end game! Thanks Wink for posting this pilot and happy birthday Alex!
Two bits of irony here: the OG Sale with Jack Kelly and Joe Garigiola switched to having married couples play towards the end of its' run, and Ray and Marc Ellis were likely the composers of choice for this pilot (like Sale), as this was a Marty Pasetta pilot and they'd just done Catch Phrase.
Around the time they made this pilot the game show market was pretty crowded, both in daytime and nighttime. Would have been nice though, was a good show.
It is theoretically possible to only win one prize (the top) while your opponents win five (lower rungs), and still win the game. Strategy element I guess. The questions are High Rollers type, and thus some are very lame. I would prefer more straight trivia. Bonus round consolations seem high. Would a couple really risk $4350 for a chance at $10,000? Maybe. I didn’t catch if it was just $10,000 (most likely) or $10,000 plus whatever other steps you have claimed. Was I the only one thinking Alex would shout “Joker, Joker...” when the wheels spun? Better than Wordplay, about even with the Blockbusters revival.
I know that. Like I said, you could win five prizes and still lose the game, while your opponent could theoretically win by just winning one top prize.
Probably just because there were a glut of game shows around this time and there was no room for it on the schedule. This was shot for NBC, so they probably went with either Wordplay or Rafferty Blockbusters instead as those were NBC’s next two game shows to debut after this pilot.
I wonder what would've happened to his fairly new (at the time) gig hosting Jeopardy if this show was green-lighted? I know he hosted Classic Concentration at the same time he was doing Jeopardy, but he was (I believe) 7 years into his Jeopardy run when CC ended so he had a little more experience with the former by then
I have a feeling that they were trying to get this on a network, whereas Alex's Jeopardy! has always been in syndication with the exception of a few specials.
NBC was probably choosing whether this or Wordplay would be greenlit. This isn't a bad game, but I think in the end, NBC made the right call going with what they did.
Once in regular production, the show would've likely set up all the prizes for the week's worth of tapings. Bonus: it makes for a lavish, um, showcase.
Toss of the coin? Producer picked one? 🤷♂️ Being a pilot means the producers want to showcase it as it'd normally be. Normally there would've been returning champions, so. Not an unusual thing to do in pilot-space, at least back then. It'd still be done except these days there seems barely anything with a returning champ about.
