This is Fair Shake, where I look back on decent and good game shows that didn’t last long for reasons not always in their control.
Children’s game shows have a very defining line in its history: the time before October 6, 1986, and the time after it. Before then, children’s game shows were usually kids’ versions of adult game shows. Three that immediately come to mind are Junior Partner Pyramid, a kids’ version of The $10,000 Pyramid, Joker! Joker!! Joker!!!, a kids’ version of The Joker’s Wild, and Storybook Squares, a kids’ version of Hollywood Squares where famous celebrities took on the personas of famous fictional characters.
Of course, for the educational-style game, you had your standard quiz bowl-type game show featuring bright high school students facing off. Where I live, that show is It’s Academic, which is actually recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running quiz show in television history. It’s been running in Washington, DC since 1961 and in nearby Baltimore, Maryland since 1971.
On Monday October 6, 1986, upstart kids’ network Nickelodeon dropped the mother of all slime bombs on the game show genre with Double Dare. To say Double Dare was a transformational show for the network and the genre itself would be an understatement. It’s regarded by many as one of, if not the greatest kids’ game show ever produced, and one of the greatest game shows ever, period.
Just over a year later, Nickelodeon premiered a second game show in Finders Keepers. The game was about finding hidden objects, first in a picture, then in a makeshift house. The show did alright for itself, airing two 65-episode seasons on the network, as well as a 65-episode run in syndication. But it’s minor to the Double Dare franchise, which has nearly 550 episodes to its credit (if you include the 2000 revival). With the success of those two shows, it’s natural that imitators would come along.
One of those imitators came in the summer of 1988 with Treasure Mall. The show was hosted by Hal Sparks—yeah, that one that went to replace Greg Kinnear on Talk Soup a decade later. A little tidbit: Sparks was still in high school when he got the Treasure Mall job. Announcing the show was Ed MacKay, who you may remember as the announcer for the 1990 Joker’s Wild reboot.
Here’s the game: two teams, each consisting of a boy and a girl, are asked to give the most popular answer to a survey from three possible choices. Each time someone one the team locks in the most popular choice, they score a point (if both teams lock in the same correct answer, they score two points). The first team to score five points and have an outright lead wins the round and goes coin hunting in a store of their choice, each with its own theme.
The players then had a total of 100 seconds (divided up into four alternating 25-second segments) to find as many of the 16 coins hidden as possible and place them in a nearby bucket (of note, Hal always said the coin had to be in the bucket for it to count). The prizes won were based on how many coins they found, with the best prizes reserved for finding all 16.
The second round is played the same way. If one team swept both rounds, they were on to the bonus round. If they split the two rounds, the team that had more coins from their round won. In the event of a tie, one more survey question was asked to determine the winner.
The bonus round had the winning team searching through gift boxes for keys, at least one of them opening a huge treasure chest. They had to find as many keys as they did within 30 seconds. Each one found (and in the bucket) was worth a $50 gift certificate. If one of the keys they found opened the chest, they would win a treasure trove of prizes.
Sure it was basically a Finders Keepers derivative, but for a children’s show, it wasn’t terrible. The series lasted just 13 weeks in syndication, premiering June 11 and cancelled on Labor Day weekend. So why didn’t the game show get a fair shake? Well, you can blame it on Treasure Mall’s inept tag team partner.
In most markets, Treasure Mall aired back-to-back with Double Dare ripoff Slime Time. It’s often regarded as one of the worst children’s game shows ever and it may be the worst of the Double Dare clones. And I’m including the celebrity pilot. Slime Time being terrible took the competent Treasure Mall down with it, with Slime also getting axed on Labor Day weekend after 13 episodes. Game Show Garbage did a full review of the show and it was actually one of their very first inductions. If you got about five minutes, give it a read.
At least Hal Sparks came out clean on the other side.