TNPIR'94: Davidson Pilot (1993)

[GuyWithFace]

Posted by Wink Martindale. Includes a number of differences from the eventual series.

I should note that this pilot does not match either of the episodes described in this July 1993 taping report, which may suggest that Doug hosted at least three pilot shows.

[GRWHAMMY the 2nd]

btw,, Mark Kriski's pilot will also be shown (on the 30th of March)

[ooboh]

I obviously haven’t watched too many episodes of The New Price Is Right, but when the show went to series, did they maintain that Plinko distribution?

[GameShowFan1987]

On the Davidson version, Plinko used a different set of slot values than on the daytime show –- the $100 slots were replaced with $2,500. There was also a second layout used on that version of the show with a distribution $100, $500, 0, $5,000, 0, $5,000, 0, $500, $100. It is interesting to note that if this pattern had been used on the daytime show, there is a contestant in Season 24 who would have won the game.

This appears to be a unique layout according to this.

[Mallory16]

This is the first time I ever remember seeing Three Strikes Minus.

I am curious whether this was taped before or after Three Strikes added the sixth window. Like the episode obviously used the hanging dollar sign rather than the dollar sign window, but it could simply be because it looked better that way with 4-digit Three Strikes. Or it could be that the dollar sign window did not yet exist, I don't know!

[GameShowFan1987]

The pilots were taped in July/August of 1993. The sixth window first appeared in daytime on April 11, 1994. Plenty of time for the change to have occurred.

[GuyWithFace]

I obviously haven’t watched too many episodes of The New Price Is Right, but when the show went to series, did they maintain that Plinko distribution?

At least one playing of Plinko during the series used this pilot layout (the distribution listed in the FAQ is incorrect). Other playings used a layout that was mostly identical to the daytime version, the only difference being that the $100 spaces were increased to $2,500.

[GameShowFan1987]

Sure enough, there it is.

Here is the other layout just for reference.

[GRWHAMMY the 2nd]

the Kriski pilot's now live, so have at it with comparing the two hosts

[bonkers77]

Do you know the date of the first video posted by GameShowFan1987? Thanks

[GameShowFan1987]

Don't have the date for the first video but here's a video from an episode with the big wheel instead of The Price Was Right using the second Plinko layout. If I'm not mistaken, the wheel wasn't used until later in the run so that would suggest the pilot layout was used in the earliest episodes.

[gamesurf]

I actually think I might prefer the 2.5K/1K/0/5K/0 layout to the one they actually ended up using. No matter what part of the board the chip bobbles to, there’s some excitement. I don’t know why they scrapped it, maybe they got worried after both pilots hit the 5K twice?

Mark Kriski was… bad. Quite bad. I don’t think he asked a single question to any contestant that he wasn’t required to ask them until game 3, and even then he seemed way out of his depth. Waaaaay too much “going through the motions”.

Doug Davidson is a little quirky, but he had fine instincts as to when to engage and when to back off. He’s goofy, but he’s consistently goofy, and effortlessly goofy, and it doesn’t seem like he’s trying hard to be goofy. Easy to see why he got the job.

[GRWHAMMY the 2nd]

and there's more to this rabbit hole: come mid-May, we'll have a master-quality episode of the series as it aired coming from Wink

[CJBojangles]

If it’s actually #0003N, it’s already available in fantastic quality without a watermark.

[GRWHAMMY the 2nd]

bumped to mention that the Mark Kriski pilot has a quality upgrade from the original upload I linked to at the time (the thumbnail on said original post even points this out now)