Ralph Novak was a longtime movie and music critic at People magazine. He gave Charlie Sheen's movie "Cadence" a bad review, causing Charlie to send back a nasty response.
This is a February 1974 pilot episode of the American unsold game show "Money Words". The three contestants competing on this only pilot episode are Ralph, Helen & Dick. 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
Bill Wendell announcing. You'd think it'd be produced in New York, hence Wendell did Letterman and some other New York based game shows. Those assorted colors might have triggered the idea for the set for "spin-off" hosted by Jim Lange a year later.
Man that production was rough. Revealing answers, revealing the wrong tiles because the row selection relied on rhyming letters, a host that didn't explain the entire "bid then challenge" conceit, obvious cuts, score changing between cuts without any in-game events occuring, missed musical cues, two different sets of rules in the endgame... Modern tech (for tile selection) would benefit this game. A tidier opening - taking out the joking with the contestants, and putting in a simple explanation of the challenge system - would help as well.
Yeah, nothing says "This is totally a professional operation and you should give us money," like accidentally revealing part of a four-letter answer, *and then ignoring it and continuing play*. Mistakes happen, but giving away answers and trying to cover it up isn't OK even for a pilot. By game 3 I was feeling way too much Schadenfreude about those seven blanks to start the game. BTW Dick Clark said one of the blocks once fell out of the *Pyramid* Winner's Circle board -- I really wish I could find that one -- so it's really not the mistake that's the problem, especially in that era.
It's like a battleship or a minesweeper of a classic game show from 2/8/1974 on NBC. Bill Wendell was also an announcer for David Letterman (1978-1980) and (1982-1992) on NBC and on CBS (1993-1995).
I kinda see why this didn’t sell, but it could have been a fun show with a few tweaks. For example, I think revealing about 10 of the blanks at the start of each round would have sped up gameplay some. I would have done the scoring differently too, it was a little messed up that a player didn’t even have to get the answer right to collect the money if they weren’t challenged. I liked the bonus game though, kind of a cross between Wheel of Fortune and Scrabble.
1:13 - People Magazine mentioned - when they were just getting started! :D 19:17 - "In addition to the Encyclopaedia, you'll also receive the $100 we started you with..." Well, that's nice of 'em! :D
I like the set and Mike Darow’s hair. The gameplay relies too much on luck to find letters on the game board. After revealing ten blank spaces in a row, I’d want to run out of the studio. Perhaps if they had a DRAGON behind one of those squares for suspense....🙂 And I’m sorry, but that opening spiel “Letters into words....” is just so uninspired! But the rainbow set makes up for it! Thanks for posting this! It was great to see! Wonder if Wink has anything from another Art James game show...one of the most intriguing: The Magnificent Marble Machine!
I agree with both statements about the blank spaces...way too many; and the opening poem. I mean yeah, most letters work out to spell words. duh. I was also gonna complain about the clues and how vague they are, but on further thought; once you get the first word, it gets easier and the clues made sense. I'm also bummed cause I can't see the board so guessing the words is out for me. but that's a personal problem. I'd still like to have seen more of this game. It's very Jeopardy level, so maybe it could be revamped and put on one of the brainy network channels. Discover? BBC? One of those channels that hosts stuff like Masterpiece Theatre or The Actor's Studio (think that's what it's called).
“I’ll try ANTHRACITE.” Yes, it was on the tip of my tongue. Nobody without a degree in geology is going to get that word... unless they’d been given the answers beforehand. I realize pilots are scripted, but this show is missing the air of believability entirely.
i've always said that sometimes daytime network heads can't see a good show when it's staring them in the face there's been a few pilots wink has put up that i think could have sold as is or with a few modifications
This game ended up being a little too awkward for my tastes. It took a while to get used to the rules: one person picks a letter, but anybody can then buzz in (shouldn't the person who picked the letter get first chance to answer?); the "challenge" system wasn't very clear at first, and didn't add to the gameplay (are they trying to put in poker-style "bluffing" as a game mechanic?)
Definitely. As a poker aficionado I'm predisposed to any game that makes a good effort to use bluffing. However, they ruined it with a subtle but fatal flaw: Darrow keeps asking them to answer, even when there's no challenge. Imagine if, on every poker hand ending without showdown, the dealer asked the bettor to flip their hand over! This disincentivizes bluffing: people feel shame at getting caught, even though they shouldn't, and not answering the question is pretty close to admitting you were bluffing. So they've undermined the mechanism. It's surprising we even saw two bluffs in one episode, and you notice it's only the runaway winner who's doing it.
It should've sold. I'd change the score displays to eggcrates or the modified eggcrates used on MoneyMaze. The bonus game should be changed though. It should be something like you get 4 letters that aren't next to each other. 15 seconds to guess.
Thanks for sharing this Wink. I can see why this was not picked up as a series. Calling out blank squares is a waste of time and boring, looking for diagonal words is way too confusing, and the categories are way too difficult to be able to play along at home. I have a 4-year college degree, and I had to look up what the bonus word meant since I have never even heard of it.
It doesn’t help that Darow kept forgetting it was $50 in the second round, until he was told by the producer or a staffer (you can faintly hear a voice before he corrected himself). This pilot should have been edited to remove these obvious mistakes.
Wow. This was...well...I'm not sure how I feel about this pilot. I would love to see more of this gameshow, but I'm guessing it didn't make it in any market. Too bad. I'm thinking Hellen is not so good at this game. Did she even guess a word? Wait, yes she did. She didn't challenge anyone. She played it safe and didn't win. Whereas Dick took all kinds of chances and also didn't win. Interesting. man, those consolation prizes are almost as good as winning the money! Maybe Hellen just came for the take home gifts.
I enjoyed playing along with this game but perhaps increasing the value of the questing would offset the disappointment of picking so many blank squares consecutively.
So they replaced Battleships with Words. What a borefest that was to watch. They should have used that board for a Crosswits clone instead. At least it would have been interesting.
I found the same opening pilot music in this clip in another video of a Canadian children's TV series, "The Waterville Gang", which can be found at this site: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XFZpQHAFtFc.html (look for the music at 5:37; the music for the Canadian video was produced by Score Productions, Ltd.).
What is it with all these game show pilots with returning champions? I like the concept, and it'd be a blast to play, imo, but that's a lot of dead air when they keep hitting blank after blank.
It's not a bad concept. Seems to be a bit flawed with ending the word at a buzz-in, as if you've built a big enough lead, it's too powerful of a means to end the game. I can understand ending the word if no one challenges, but it seems like the buzz-in could be easily abused. I would probably want to see tweaks before I would buy.
This question has been answered before on different pilot videos. One way is that a show makes multiple pilots in order to sell the show. Another way is by making it up as in a plot for a story to build suspense to see if the returning champion will win more. The latter is generally the case, but is not always the case.
