Wink Martindale's Awesome Non-Price Clips and Episodes: The Ongoing Thread

[tpir04]

Wink has posted the never-before seen pilot to the NBC game show Hot Potato. Enjoy!

[Grand_game2004]

The theme music was somewhat catchy! I loved that they used the "Play the percentages" game win & bonus round win theme, and I also noticed that they didn't play the 'short dinging' sound until after the 2nd or 3rd correct answer was given! I also noticed that the border surrounding the team names would flash when a team initially got control of a question.

[TPIRfan#9821]

Here's a Jumble:

Hey RatRace10, there's something for you at 4:45

[tpir04]

How mind-boggling that we missed this! 

[GRWHAMMY the 2nd]

Rhis was posted in light of Fred Willard's passing

[goldroadfanatic]

I just watched the What the Blank! pilot and my thoughts are: Fred has the chops to be a good host for Match Game. He knows when to crack a joke and keep the celebrities in check. Also, he has good fun with the contestants and celebrities. Randy West does a great job announcing, as always.

However, the execution of this version seemed like they were going for a parody of Match Game, rather than letting Match Game be Match Game. Probably the most cringeworthy things for me were the inner monologues of Fred and the celebrities, which were distracting, and the fact that we couldn't really keep score of the main game, relying on Randy West's announcing (which was done very well).

It was neat for to have the celebrities write on video writers, kind of anticipating modern tablets, but it seemed like they were put in for the sake of appearing modern.

Many of the questions foreshadowed the Monitor Match questions the current version with Alec Baldwin features, but the jokes were drawn out too much and I was left waiting for the questions to see what could be good answers to them.

Having a photo accompany the Super Match was an interesting touch, but two of the three top answers could have been given without needing the photo, so what was the point of it, to get another laugh in? This also goes for the head-to-head match.

Of note, kudos to the pilot for having good payouts: $25,000 for matching the top answer in the Super Match and then matching the celebrity head-to-head, rather than just $5,000 for the 1998 version of Match Game. In another bit of foreshadowing, the payouts for this pilot carried over to the current version of the show with Alec Baldwin.

Finally, it seemed the pacing was way too slow to fit as many jokes in as possible. Some of the funniest moments in Match Game came from the deliberations of answers, rather than the reveals. It's a shame that most of the deliberations were edited out or so short. The jokes during the reveals made the game move along slowly.

Overall, there were lots of issues with this, but it was better executed than MG2 with Charlene Tilton.

[Reloaden]

The pilot was okay, This probably could of worked with some tweaks. I felt like they tried to hard to make this show feel modern and edgy.

The panel was bland, Anna Nicole was ditzy and Martin Mull was out of place and Zachary looked annoyed.

Fred worked well with what he had. I think the right panel and format he would of been a great host.

The show moved way too slow, the one question took forever to finish and between Fred bantering with the celebrities and the inner thoughts.

The inner thoughts part was cringy and unfunny.

The set was nice i would of done something different with the contestants area, scoreboard and celebrity name plates were needed.

[bigblue999]

Wink uploaded a pilot of Match Game from 2008.

[imhomerjay]

Blech. That was painful.

[PatrickRox80]

What the _____ indeed!

[jude_este]

I can see why George Lopez’s late night talk show Lopez Tonight was picked up over this flaming piece of diapers, had it been picked up it wouldn't have lasted a year or even six months.

[Alfonzo]

P.U! The bonus round was awful and that retro 1973 set is ug-a-lee nowadays. At least it was slightly better than the '98 version.

[pricefan18]

P.U! The bonus round was awful and that retro 1973 set is ug-a-lee nowadays. At least it was slightly better than the '98 version.

I imagine they used it because they had it from when they did the Game Show Marathon 2 years before. Woulda made sense from a cost perspective. Why build a new set from scratch when you could use one you already had in storage?

[Alfonzo]

I imagine they used it because they had it from when they did the Game Show Marathon 2 years before. Woulda made sense from a cost perspective. Why build a new set from scratch when you could use one you already had in storage?

That thought most certainly crossed my mind. It's just weird how "off" that older set looked to me, though.

[pricefan18]

That thought most certainly crossed my mind. It's just weird how "off" that older set looked to me, though.

Maybe the lighting and such adds a bit too? Like it looks different than its' counterpart from that maybe. Incidentally though, John Ricci Jr, who worked on the pilot and was responsible for working the cue cards for Andy, said in a comment it actually WASN'T that set which was a scaled-down model. They actually rebuilt it from scratch using the 70's blueprints that they still had. They wanted to use the 70's Marks-A-Lot markers as well, but they no longer existed by this time. I do have to give them credit for doing this, can't have been a simple task.

He also noted that most everyone who worked on this and had game show experience, wanted the old Super Match format and had the board ready to go if this one didn't work out well in execution (unfortunately it did though just enough in the two pilots, the other one is on YT as well incidentally, with the intro cut though). But Robert Smigel thought it was more about the comedy than the game, so they kept it.

I think it mighta made series had he listened to the others, the rest was actually pretty good I thought, overly vulgar aspects aside. The vibe was pretty 70's with Andy and the panel's chemistry, and his hosting style in general, even if he maybe tried a tad too hard in spots to be like Gene Rayburn was. But that end game ruined it, way too much like Family Feud to where it felt out of place and it took incredibly long. Literally from when the main game ends to the end of the show, it's a good 7 minutes, or almost 1/3 of the entire show.

No good, likely explains some of the editing to keep the show to time as well. Change for the sake of change like that usually doesn't work well (see: The Joker's Wild 1990). If it isn't broke, don't fix it. Even the short-lived Match Game 90 and 98 reboots, didn't mess with the Super Match despite changing other things. Hell even the failed MG 2 and What the Blank pilots used it, and in the former they had a radically different format for literally EVERYTHING else. When they all used it....there's probably a reason lol.