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Producer: Goodson-Todman
Host: Dick Martin
Announcer: Johnny Olson
Celebrities: Charles Nelson Reilly, Sarah Purcell
Taping Info: August 3, 1979, NBC Studio 3, Burbank
Other Pilots: No, although there was another pilot called Mindreaders, also by Goodson-Todman, but hosted by Jack Clark and was apparently a different show.
Made it to Air: Yes, from August 13, 1979 (where it replaced All-Star Secrets) to January 11, 1980 (when it was replaced by Chain Reaction)
Availability: UCLA Archive
Like the "pilot" for Showoffs, this was more of a test show than anything, since the show premiered just 10 days later. ESP was a fad in the late 70's, and this show tried to capture that idea. Dick Martin joins the club of Laugh-In regular and game show host, joining Gary Owens, Richard Dawson and Arte Johnson with this show.
The show is made up of two celebrities and six contestants plus leftovers on the solid color remnants from New York Carpet World. The male celebrity and the three male contestants are one team, while the females make up the other. The male team is then asked a question such as "When you invite a woman for an after-dinner drink, would you expect her to stay the night?". The contestants lock in their answers. The male celebrity then asks the first teammate. If they match, they get $50. If they differ, the other team gets $50 and control reverts to the other team. Questions are continually asked until one team gets $300.
The winning team then moved on to the bonus game, where ten people were brought in from the studio audience and polled on three questions, such as "do you smoke?". One of the three players would then try to guess how many agreed, and received $500 if guessed correctly or $200 if within 2 either way. Once each player tried to guess the number, they played "Celebrity Turnabout", where the three players would try to guess the celebrity's mind on a question. If they were correct, their winnings were multiplied by 10.
Unfortunately, the NBC executives couldn't read the viewers minds until after the show aired, because it was off in 5 months, taking over the space held by All-Star Secrets but getting the noon-time death slot of Password Plus (which moved to 12:30), but jettisoned for Chain Reaction. And it was rather odd for Goodson-Todman to take an unsuccessful game such as 1977's The Better Sex and try to make a derivative out of it. At least this didn't having a big "MINDREADERS" sign shuffled over to the winning team.
This pilot has been viewed 4910 times since October 6, 2008 and was last modified on Dec 12, 2009 14:46 ET
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