Simple Questions & Answers Thread

[RatRace10]

Whichever one they want, as long as it's not taken.

[blozier2006]

When the first four contestants are called down (pre-COVID with an audience present), do they have to stand at the podiums based on the order they were called (first called goes to red, second called blue, third called yellow, fourth called green)?

Or, do they just go to whatever podium they want to when running down to the podiums?

- actpir

Anywhere they want, so long as it hasn't already been taken by one of the contestants before them.

[TPIRfan#9821]

Secondary hypothesis: I think they are more or less directed to go to a specific podium, since the majority of the episodes this season have gone red, yellow, blue, green or yellow, red, green, blue, and recently some contestants have gone toward one podium and then jetted to another out of nowhere. However, there are have been a couple of aberrations to suggest that if they don't see where their directed to go to, the show doesn't reshoot and just goes with it.

[BillyGr]

Secondary hypothesis: I think they are more or less directed to go to a specific podium, since the majority of the episodes this season have gone red, yellow, blue, green or yellow, red, green, blue, and recently some contestants have gone toward one podium and then jetted to another out of nowhere. However, there are have been a couple of aberrations to suggest that if they don't see where their directed to go to, the show doesn't reshoot and just goes with it.

Seems the most sensible would be to fill the two middle ones first (whichever is closer to the side you come out), just since then the 3rd & 4th contestants wouldn't be walking behind the others to get to their spots.  Not that it probably matters as all are spaced out pretty well, just a bit less passing interaction that way.

[actpir]

Note: Piggybacking off my question after reading the responses (thank you to those who have responded). Again, asking this regarding pre-COVID audiences.

So, if the first four can go to whatever podium they want to (assuming they are not directed where to go), the first one called could go to the green podium, letting them bid last during the 'one bid'?

- actpir

[blozier2006]

So, if the first four can go to whatever podium they want to (assuming they are not directed where to go), the first one called could go to the green podium, letting them bid last during the 'one bid'?

Could and frequently did (on pre-Covid recaps, look for a note towards the top about "first four order" or something like that).

[JhayPrice]

Is there any Dice Game wipeout with all four guesses in the numbers incorrect? I've never seen any playing since the game's inception, since the odds of failing to guess one right or roll a number exactly right would be very low.

[SamJ93]

When did TPiR begin stationing a studio page at the front of the audience to assist contestants who may have trouble getting up the stairs? They're not there in the Pluto TV reruns, though I definitely remember one being there in the late-90's...

[temptation1979ga]

I’ve seen a couple of the pages get camera time on these reruns and Bob even mentioned one by name, as he tried to stop a lady from going onstage as soon as her name was called, instead of stopping in Contestant’s Row first.

[gamesurf]

Is there any Dice Game wipeout with all four guesses in the numbers incorrect? I've never seen any playing since the game's inception, since the odds of failing to guess one right or roll a number exactly right would be very low.

At minimum, it hasn't happened since Season 29, which is when tpirstats started keeping track.

Don't know for sure on the other 24 seasons of Dice Game's existence, but ever since tpirstats started tracking detailed stats, Dice Game has been played 366 times, and only 23 times has somebody rolled no ones/sixes/perfect numbers. So a contestant only gets the opportunity to make four bad decisions about once in every 16 playings.

If we guesstimate Dice Game gets played about 20 times per season, that leaves only about 30 contestants total from seasons 4-28 who had the OPPORTUNITY to get all four wrong. Maybe a few more accounting for its earliest playings where digits 0-9 were on the board.

Maybe one of those 30 was really dumb and got all four digits wrong (including the first digit), but it strikes me as extremely unlikely.

[pricefan18]

At minimum, it hasn't happened since Season 29, which is when tpirstats started keeping track.

Don't know for sure on the other 24 seasons of Dice Game's existence, but ever since tpirstats started tracking detailed stats, Dice Game has been played 366 times, and only 23 times has somebody rolled no ones/sixes/perfect numbers. So a contestant only gets the opportunity to make four bad decisions about once in every 16 playings.

If we guesstimate Dice Game gets played about 20 times per season, that leaves only about 30 contestants total from seasons 4-28 who had the OPPORTUNITY to get all four wrong. Maybe a few more accounting for its earliest playings where digits 0-9 were on the board.

Maybe one of those 30 was really dumb and got all four digits wrong (including the first digit), but it strikes me as extremely unlikely.

You do have to factor in the smaller rotation of games in it's earlier per season numbers, especially the super super early ones. Each game typically gets played about what every week and a half or so roughly on the Pluto reruns, and you'd have to figure the earlier you go back from this period, the shorter the period of time between playings would be. Even factoring that in though, the odds are still pretty low I'd guess of this happening, given 4 rolls and at LEAST 2:6 odds under the standard rules of getting a guaranteed correct number on each one, with the odds going to 3:6 or 50:50 of getting one if the number isn't a 1 or 6 outright. Be interesting to find out for certain that said, but I'd suspect it is very uncommon at the very least.

EDIT: There's also the fact that when they went to the Deluxe Dice Game, it was pretty easy to guess early on what the second number in the price was (generally speaking a 1, 2 or at best maybe a 3), as most cars of that period, or at least the ones used in the game, weren't gonna be above $14,000. So that woulda made the odds of getting all 4 wrong even smaller, even in a case where the roll WASN'T a 1, 6 or the actual number.

[pricefan18]

Just watching the tail end of the 3am Pluto airing, and I noticed that both Showcases were over $10,000 in price, which somehow surprised me. I'm not sure how often that's happened in episodes I've seen from this era, but I didn't expect it. When did this first happen on the daytime show? I can't imagine it was that all that long before this period.

[actual_retail_tice]

 

Just watching the tail end of the 3am Pluto airing, and I noticed that both Showcases were over $10,000 in price, which somehow surprised me. I'm not sure how often that's happened in episodes I've seen from this era, but I didn't expect it. When did this first happen on the daytime show? I can't imagine it was that all that long before this period.

I'm very interested in keeping track with how prices changed over the course of the show, but I can only guess at the answer to this. There was an episode from early in Season 11 (1982) where both showcases were WELL over $10,000; the low showcase was $13K. By 1982, both showcase being over $10,000 was definitely not the norm, but not all that rare, either. I would guess that it happened for the first time right after prices took a big jump around 1979 or 1980.

By 1986, and without any unusual jump in inflation to cause it, showcases under $10,000 abruptly became a lot less common, and I guess it was a choice on the producers' part.

[actpir]

Note: I am asking two questions, but based around the same subject.

1. Why do contestants' name tags have their first legal name written, as in the name that is provided on their driver's license/I.D.?

2. If someone had a nickname/shortened name (Johnny for Jonathan for example), but it wasn't on their I.D., and they would rather have their nickname on their name tag as opposed to their first name, could they simply ask the person who writes names on name tags to put their nickname instead, or is that not allowed?

- actpir

[Timotheus]

Just a guess, but I presume it's much quicker to write dozens and dozens of name tags when you don't have to ask each person what they want written, and you can just go by the easier method of what's going to be on the official paperwork.