This is Fair Shake, where I look back at good game shows that didn't last, often because of circumstances beyond the show's control.
When it comes to the greatest game show hosts of all time, you'll hear your usual names that come up in conversation, like Bob Barker, Dick Clark, Richard Dawson, Alex Trebek, and Bill Cullen among others. Whether they're most associated with a single game show (i.e. Dawson with Family Feud, Barker with The Price is Right) or they have the ability to host multiple game show formats (Cullen, Clark, and Jim Perry come to mind for example), these people can make a bad show watchable, a good show great, and a great show legendary.
One name that doesn't come up often enough in conversation is Geoffrey Bruce Owens Edwards. Or just Geoff Edwards for short. Beginning his career for a radio station in Albany, New York. In the late 1950s, he moved to San Diego and worked for KFMB-AM.
In 1963, Edwards, then working for KHJ-AM in Los Angeles, was in the basement of Dallas police headquarters when Jack Ruby fatally shot the man that fatally shot then-President John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald.
By the early 1970s, Edwards has built up a pretty impressive resume, guest starring on I Dream of Jeannie, That Girl, and Petticoat Junction. Beginning in 1973, he began pursuing a game show career, and it's one of the most up-and-down careers in game show history. It's also one of the most prolific.
His first gig was the short-lived Hollywood's Talking, a reboot of Everybody's Talking. However, Edwards did not get along with Jack Barry, the show's creator and a fellow game show host himself (Jack once told Geoff that he did not like his voice and it was annoying. Right before he was about to tape the second set of episodes). The tension never cooled, and Edwards planned to leave the show after its initial 13-week commitment. But the decision was made for him, as CBS cancelled the show following the 13-week commitment due to low ratings. The show that replaced it: a reboot of Match Game.
One thing was certain, Geoff had the chops to host a game show, and he was quickly hired elsewhere. He was picked up by Chuck Barris to host a weekly version of The New Treasure Hunt beginning in the fall of 1973. While hosting Treasure Hunt, Edwards was hired b NBC to host a Bob Stewart creation, Jackpot, which is the focus of this Fair Shake.
Sixteen contestants competed for an entire week; fifteen held riddles, while one was deemed the King of the Hill (or Queen of the Hill if they're a lady, or on the NBC version, the Expert). The fifteen held riddles in wallets worth varying amounts or a Jackpot Riddle. One at a time, the Expert picked a number, and the contestant sitting in that corresponding seat read the dollar amount (ranging from $5 to $200 in $5 increments) and the riddle. If the Expert's right, the contestant sits out for the rest of the round. If the Expert is stumped, the contestant that stumped him or her would take their place.
If the Expert found the Jackpot riddle and answered it correctly, both the Expert and the person holding the riddle win an equal share of the Jackpot. If the Expert missed, the player that stumped him or her took her place and a new round began with the Jackpot carrying over. However, the Expert if they choose can wait for the Jackpot riddle to be asked; this came at a risk, of course. If they missed a riddle, they lost their shot at the Jackpot for the round.
If at any time, the last three digits of the Jackpot matched the target number (designated before the start of the game), they can go for the Super Jackpot, which is the target number multiplied by a number from 5 to 50 (again, in multiples of 5, though 15 and 20 are most likely to appear). If both $995 came up as the target number and 50 came up as the multiplier, the Super Jackpot was worth the maximum $50,000. Legend has it this happened at least once; however, no concrete proof of this exists. It probably won't turn up any time soon, as virtually the entire NBC series was destroyed due to taping practices at the time (i.e. reusing tapes over and over to save money).
Rules for the Super Jackpot changed over the course of the series, but the most common rule is that either the Expert or the player that made the Super Jackpot happen (either via target match or holding the Super Jackpot wildcard, guaranteed to appear at least once every tenth show) had to answer a much more difficult riddle held by Edwards. If either player got it, they split the money. In one of the two surviving episodes available online, a pair of players split a Super Jackpot worth $38,750.
Originally, the player answering the most riddles over a week won a new car as a bonus. Later in the series, the only way to win a car was to answer all 15 riddles in a single game. In the spirit of Valentine's Day, in February 1974, there was a “Valentine Riddle”, netting two players a trip if the Expert got it right. This gimmick would become part of regular gameplay through the remainder of the series as a “Double Bonus”.
Also of note, while games straddled from day to day, they would not from week to week; i.e. a game in progress on Tuesday would continue on Wednesday, but a game in progress on Friday could not continue on Monday; to make up for this, the last riddle on any Friday show would be the Jackpot riddle, played for whatever was in the Jackpot at the time.
You're probably thinking to yourself, hey! That's a pretty solid format. This show could last for years or something. So how in the hell this show didn't get a fair shake?
Two words: Lin. Bolen.
In September 1972, Bolen, at the time just 31 years old, became the first female vice-president of programming for a national TV network, heading NBC's daytime department. Though NBC had a pretty solid daytime lineup, she had a mandate: get young women to watch.
Over the next two years, long-running shows Concentration and Jeopardy! were cancelled by Bolen because she felt it didn't fit the demo she targeted. There is a small silver lining though (if you can believe it): Jeopardy! still had a year left on its deal. To make nice with Merv Griffin, Lin would greenlight Merv's other creation: Wheel of Fortune. The show has been a presence on television since its debut in January 1975.
Bolen also expanded Days of Our Lives and Another World to hour-long serials; the changes may have angered many, but they would make NBC the top network in daytime in three years.
That brings me to Jackpot. In the summer of 1975, the show was dramatically altered. Actually, I'll Geoff take it from here:
She did a lot of damage! She killed it! Just killed it! She killed "Jackpot"! "Jackpot", as a show, was doing great. It was fun and we had great ratings. Then "The Young and Restless" came on and beat us in the ratings. Well, fine, it's a soap opera, come on. Lin said, "Okay," and got a focus group, and the focus group said, "We don't like riddles." So she changed it and that was the end of the show. If I had said anything, I would have been fired, so I didn't. And Bob Stewart had been told to do it this new way or go off the air.
...We worked the first couple of shows (under the new format) and then we went outside and sat on a fire escape. I remember talking to him about it up there and saying, "We're finished." The whole fun of the show disappeared.
So what exactly got altered? What didn't get altered? Ok, the 16 contestant gimmick wasn't altered. But just about everything else was.
The Super Jackpot riddle was dramatically reduced, now worth just $2,000 to $10,000. There was no target number, there was no multiplier, there weren't even any riddles. It became a straight trivia game with a yes-no, true-false, or multiple choice format. Also the Jackpot rule changed: if it was found, they had to try for it then to claim the money, or hold on to it for a shot at the Super Jackpot. If they failed at any point, the Jackpot was reset to $0 and a new game began with a new Super Jackpot. Also, players could not play for the Super Jackpot if the Jackpot riddle was found last.
That's complicating a game that didn't need complicating. Not only the format change doomed the show, its timeslot, moving to 12:30pm from 12pm, put up the show against the likes of Search for Tomorrow and All My Children killed the show too. Also, NBC had a five-minute newsbreak at 12:55pm, so the show's runtime was cut too. Edwards was right: they were finished. 13 weeks after the gun-to-the-head changes, Jackpot was cancelled on September 26, 1975.
A little tidbit: two weeks after Jackpot came to an end, the show's announcer, Don Pardo, who had been announcing on NBC game shows since 1952, turned up on a little weekly comedy show called Saturday Night Live. He would be the show's announcer until his passing in 2014. Jackpot would be Pardo's last game show as a full-time announcer. He would announce one other game show in his career, a two-week stint on the syndicated Wheel of Fortune in 1988.
As for Geoff, he would do just fine, hosting another short-lived Bob Stewart show in Shoot for the Stars in 1977, reunite with Jack Barry on Play the Percentages, substituted for Bill Cullen for Chain Reaction, host a daily syndicated version of Treasure Hunt, and host the video game-based Starcade (and became a gamer himself believe it or not).
Jackpot would be reborn twice. Following a failed pilot in 1984 hosted by Nipsey Russell, a Canadian production of the show hosted by Mike Darrow emerged on USA Network from 1985 to 1988. I'll talk about when I do the review for the USA game show block.
Just nine months after the USA Network version was cancelled, the show was reborn again in syndication, debuting on September 18, 1989, with its original host Geoff Edwards returning as host. While hosting Jackpot, Edwards hosted California Lottery show The Big Spin and host the Canadian-based USA Network reboot of Chain Reaction, meaning he at one point hosted three game shows not only on opposite sides of the country, but opposite sides of the US-Canadian border. By the way, he was the last person to host a game show on both sides of the American and Canadian border until Howie Mandel hosted both American and Canadian versions of Deal or No Deal in 2007.
The rules for Jackpot 3.0 were the same as the NBC version except a few notable changes: first, the amount of the riddles (this time ranging from $50 to $200 in $5 increments) were only added on correct answers. Second, there was no multiplier for the Super Jackpot, instead the Super Jackpot being worth anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 in $500 increments. Also, if any King of Queen of the Hill ran the table (i.e. answer all fifteen riddles in a single round, they would win a $1,000 bonus).
This version also added a few new gimmicks: Instant Target Match, enabling the player who answered the riddle correctly to augment the Jackpot to the target number, unlocking the Super Jackpot riddle. Double Dollars, where a correct answered doubled the Jackpot in play. And Return Trip, a carryover from the USA Network version, where if the King or Queen answered the riddle correctly, both the player holding the riddle and the King or Queen answering it would play a second week of shows. The Bonus Riddle from the previous versions also carried over.
Also, in a timesaving effort, the gallery of 15 were handed color wallets and Geoff announced the color that would be in play prior to the start of each game.
With the 1989 version a faithful remake, it should have gotten a fair shake. But it didn't. Why?
Two words: Palladium. Entertainment.
The syndication company were having financial problems at the time Jackpot 3.0 went into production. They also were working on The New Lassie. In an effort to raise money as quickly as possible, the company forced the staff to tape ten episodes a day, two to three times as many shows that are normally taped for weekly strip shows. Sound familiar? This is what befell the 2007 version of Sale of the Century. The complete series was taped in about two weeks. But it couldn't stop the inevitable. Palladium Entertainment went bankrupt and without a distributor, Jackpot was pulled from the airwaves following the March 2, 1990 episode.
Edwards would be fine though: he continued to host the Canadian-based reboot of Chain Reaction until 1991 and host California Lottery game The Big Spin until 1995. Edwards retired soon after and traveled extensively. In 2010, he published Going All the Way, where he talked about his many cruises. On March 5, 2014, Edwards died of complications from pneumonia. He was 83. Bob Stewart, the creator of many game shows, but most famously the Pyramid series and The Price is Right, died of natural causes in May 2012. He was 91.
As for Jackpot, it lived on spiritually in Bob Stewart's son Sande's creation, Hollywood Showdown, which aired on Game Show Network from January 2000 to April 2002. It's actually not bad and it's worth checking out if you have a few minutes to kill.