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$50,000 A Minute
Producer: Bob Stewart
Hosts: Geoff Edwards and Meredith McRae
Announcer: Jack Clark
Theme: Borrowed from the 1970's version of Jackpot, just to taunt Geoff Edwards
Celebrities: Ed Begley and Markie Post in one pilot, Shelley Smith and Charlie Siebert in the other one
Taping Info: ABC Television Center, Hollywood
Made it to Air: No
Availability: Trading Circuit.
You have to give Bob Stewart credit. He comes up with an idea, and he'll keep on trying and trying until the idea gets in the air. One of his obsessions was having two people giving a question with a third person getting the answer. He tried this in The $10,000 Sweep, the 1975 version of The Finish Line and this pilot. An unusual element of this pilot is the hosting tandem of Geoff Edwards and Meredith McRae. The music from Jackpot was recycled for both the tense opening and "Jet Set" to introduce the hosts.
There were two teams, made up in the Stewartian order of celebrity and contestant. The twist is that there was one host for one team and one host for the other, with Geoff Edwards joining Markie Post's squad and Meredith McRae hooking up with Ed Begley, Jr. The team's host would give the beginning part of a question, the giving player (either the celebrity or the contestant) would improvise an ending to the question and the contestant would supply the answer. For example, a host would say "What happens when", the giver would see the answer and finish it up with a statement like "you have an allergic reaction to something" and hopefully the contestant would say "sneeze."
One team would try to slap together 7 correct question/answer pairs in the fastest time possible. If the receiver can't make a match, a new combo is given. This time then became the benchmark for the other team to surpass. If the other team is successful, they win the round, otherwise the first team did. However, in order to advance to the bonus game, you had to win two rounds in a row, which could become quite tedious with two equally matched teams. This pilot's first match lasted four rounds. The team that lost the game played the next one (except for the first one).
The $50,000 is a bit of a misnomer, because you can only obtain that money in your fifth bonus match. The bonus game is straight outta Double Talk down to sound effects and font, with the giver trying to convey nine sets of abbreviations. In the losing efforts, Geoff Edwards even did his best Dick Clark impersonation by trying to help with missed clues. Not getting all nine netted $200 per correct.
Yet another word completion game from the Mad Libs factory of Bob Stewart. You can't fault him for trying, because even something as flimsy as Double Talk eventually made the air. This game might have been better if it was 2 out of 3 in the maingame, or lowest aggregate in two games, but the two game thing could have been horrible. And, if you were trying to match times, wouldn't an isolation booth instead of separate words be more fair? As a side note, there may have been an earthquake during the taping of one of these pilots, because Geoff Edwards and Markie Post make brief mention of an "earthquake never striking the same place twice."
 It's $50,000 A Minute, representing a 833% increase over //[[DollarASecond Dollar a Second]]//. |
 Here's your hosts, Geoff Edwards and Meredith McRae. |
 Meredith McRae will team up with Ed Begley, Jr.'s squad. |
 While Geoff Edwards pals with Markie Post. |
 One team completed their set in 37 seconds, so it goes over to the other team. |
 A snippet from the main game... |
 ..and the bonus game. |
 The graphic department worked overtime on the check marks. |
This pilot has been viewed 5932 times since October 6, 2008 and was last modified on Dec 12, 2009 14:46 ET
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