Deeeerrrr-der-der-DERR-derrr, der-de-dellernerner der-der etc.
Well the gameshow world is very boring at the moment so it’s time to introduce a new irregular feature to the Bar where we look at shows of yesterday and try and work out how we would modernize them for today’s audiences. These do not necessarily have to be UK ones, although some exposure to the UK is nice.
The Show: Tic Tac Dough
What is it?
TTD is a quiz based around noughts and crosses. Players alternately picked squares with randomly determined question categories on. Correct answers owned the square and added money to a pot. The first person to get a straight line won everything in the pot (which rolled over in the case of tied games which happened frequently because of the low level difficulty of many of the questions), played a luck based bonus game (Beat the Dragon) for a prize package and could keep on playing. Unlike other shows of the era (and in this era we’re referring to the classic Wink Martindale fronted episodes of the late seventies and early eighties), there was no upper limit on how many times you could win.
http://youtu.be/A7e3G8hRBcM
Was this ever on in the UK?
It certainly was. We had a popular domestic version in the 60s called Criss Cross Quiz. Whatsmore, the Martindale version of the show was shown on sattelite channel Lifestyle in the early 90s. You know, the one with David Hamilton.
How would I make it work in 2012?
Well it’s certainly quite a fun format, but there are definitely a few things I would change. First of all, given that the whole thing is about money, I’d be sure to set it in a bank. Maybe even a bank vault. Then instead of screens, why don’t we change the game board elements for safety deposit boxes? I think that would work. I’m also thinking about ditching the categories and maybe just going for plain numbers, and to make it more strategic and exciting how about increasing the size of the game to five by five and having four players tussle it out? I think it would be very important to emphasise the inherent strategy of the game by having lengthy, increasingly INTERMINABLE GAPS AFTER EACH SODDING BIT, AND AT THE END OF THE SERIES YOU COULD GET PEOPLE WHO HAVE ALREADY WON LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY AND MAKE THEM DO THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA FOR NOT MUCH MORE MONEY AND BUILD IT UP LIKE IT’S UNIQUE AND EXCITING AND FOR EXAMPLE NOT JUST FUCKING TRITE AND THE ENTIRE ENTERPRISE JUST FEELS IMMENSELY LAZY AND OH GOD, OH GOD HELP ME AAAARGH
Next time we’ll be looking at The Joker’s Wild.