Talk:Beat the Clock

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Contents 1 BTC 2 Removal 3 Super Bonus winner 4 Home game

[edit] BTC

I'm the first to admit I'm not well versed in the history of the show - I haven't seen much in the way of episodes before 1954 aside from perhaps an occasional episode which I may not have known when it was from. My undestanding is that the show was, for the most part, essentially unchanged (production-wise) in its first few years until they started tikering with things in '55. If this is in error, there may be an unnoted lack of information about the show before that point, relative to the information of it's later years. TheHYPO 08:47, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

>>The show began on CBS radio in 1949 with Collyer, who moved with it to television.

I've always read this history, though this site claims that the original radio Beat the Clock was a Bill Cullen quiz show, and that Collyer's similar radio quiz show was titled Time's A Wastin'. Having no idea what history to believe, I've moved this comment into the talk section until some confirmation can be proven

There is a tape of the radio version of Beat the Clock from 1949, and Bill Cullen is the host. It is available from RadioYesteryear.

But is it, as is implied in the previous website, an unrelated show of the same name? And then the question becomes whether TV Beat the Clock has any relation to Collyer's previous radio show TheHYPO 08:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal

>>The super bonus stunt with the bowling pins was won at $6,000.

pulled this from the article. There is no other mention in the article about 'the super bonus stunt with the bowling pins' so it's somewhat meaningless on it's own. (Note, that the bowling pin stunt wasn't actually a super bonus stunt - it was a big cash bonus stunt). In addition, unless someone wants to start an entire list of Big Cash Bonus Stunts and what they were won at, I'd argue that what one bonus stunt went up to (as there were a good many of these stunts both before and after the super Bonus period) is not a pertainant enough fact to be valuable in the article. The only reason the Super Bonuses are listed in the article is because there were only two of them, and it was a notable period since they both climbed to a notably large bonus value.

[edit] Super Bonus winner

Should the article mention that the $64,000 Super Bonus was won by Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel Fontana of Silver Springs, Maryland? This may be their one claim to fame. --Hillrhpc 19:16, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't hurt. I believe I was either trying to omit details that didn't pertain to the actual event (ie: describing what happened) since it was starting to run long, or else I didn't happen to have their name and location handy at the time. I don't see an issue with including it. TheHYPO 23:32, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Home game

My research on the Internet indicates that the home game was produced in two editions, a first edition in 1954 and a second edition in 1957, and that the second edition did not have Roxanne's picture on the cover (for an obvious reason). I have found pictures of the first edition, such as this one here but I haven't yet been able to find a picture of the second edition. It would be interesting to know if the second edition still had Sylvania's name on the box cover and on the clock inside, since the second edition game was still given to contestants during the Fresh and Hazel Bishop seasons.

It is also interesting that Milton-Bradley produced a Beat the Clock game in 1969, which was exactly the same as Lowell's game from 1954, right down to the instructions on how to do the stunts, and credits to Frank Wayne for creating the stunts. The 1969 game, however, had completely new graphics.--Hillrhpc 21:06, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

There are various versions. The original verison was altered. Contestants during the Fresh and Hazel Bishop eras were given boxes with the company's name on the clock on the front of the box. Otherwise it was the same game (I'm pretty sure I saw Roxanne's picture - on the right side of the cover) on the Fresh edition after she had left. Bud would always have his thumb exactly there when showing it, so it was hard to see (perhaps he had the thumb there on purpose), but once he didn't cover it up and I caught it. Hazel Bishop's box had the circle with Roxanne in it removed. Actually, there's one on ebay right now. It's the red box with bud and the Sylvania clock on the cover, and you can see roxanne there. The first episode of Fresh they already had rebranded it, and same with Hazel Bishop. In February-March 57, they came out with the all new game (According to Bud: with all new stunts, the only thing that's the same is that Frank and Bob once again did the stunts). It had a Black (or otherwise very dark) cover. Bud's picture was i nthe top right and half a clock was on the left side of the cover (with Hazel Bishop). I don't see one on ebay right now) The episode where it was introduced was aired about a week ago and they are giving them out on the episodes airing for the rest of this month. TheHYPO 16:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

It has been an interesting week on GSN for BTC. On Thursday night, the episode aired was unsponsored. Friday night was once again sponsored by Sylvania (definately the next episode because the holdovers were the same couple). Saturday night (tonight) is from July 5, 1957 and is unsponsored again. But the home game given to the first guests was the old game (the red cover), and after that they seemed to run out of games entirely. The boy brought on the show wasn't given a crystal radio as previous ones were, but a complete set of every size of Everready flashlights.