Treasure Mall

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Treasure Mall
Genre	Game show
Created by	Ellen Levy
Directed by	Rob Fielder
Presented by	Hal Sparks
Narrated by	Ed MacKay
Theme music composer	Andrew Dimitroff
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
Production
Executive producer(s)	Haim Saban Robert Unkel Peter R. Berlin Rob Fielder
Producer(s)	Peter R. Berlin
Location(s)	Chris Craft TV Los Angeles, CA
Running time	30 minutes with commercials
Broadcast
Original channel	Syndicated
Original run	11 June 1988 – September, 1988

Treasure Mall was a weekly syndicated kids game show, running from June 11-September 3, 1988. Future Queer as Folk star, comedian Hal Sparks was the host.

It was commonly paired with the kids game show Slime Time in syndication. The two shows debuted and were cancelled on the same dates.

[edit] Gameplay

Two teams, each consisting of one boy and one girl, competed. In round 1, teams heard survey questions with three possible answers. (For example: We asked sixth graders what they would do if they saw a bug on their friends shoulder. Would they brush it off, tell their friend, or wait and see what happens?) Each teammate locked in what they believed was the most popular answer. A right answer won a point for their team. The first team to reach 5 points won the right to enter a store in the Treasure Mall.

Every store in the mall had a theme; Toy Store, Fashion Boutique, etc. The stores were divided into four distinct sections, with 4 coins hidden in each section. One teammate had 25 seconds to search the first section for coins, dropping them into a bucket Hal was holding. The coins had to go into the bucket for them to count. When time ran out, the process was repeated with the other teammate in the next section. After each teammate searched two areas, the coins were counted up. The team won a prize depending on how well they did; the more coins they collected, the better the prize. Two valuable prizes were won if a team managed to find all 16 coins.

Round 2 was played exactly the same way, except that the team won the right to enter a different store. The team who had more coins at the end of this round won the game and advanced to the bonus round.

In the bonus round, a series of gift boxes sat center stage, in front of a large golden treasure chest. Inside the gift boxes were keys, and the team had 30 seconds to go through the boxes and collect as many keys as they could. The keys had to go into the bucket Hal was holding in order to count. After time ran out, Hal tried each key out in the the treasure chest. If one of the keys opened the chest, the team won a large prize package. If none of them did, the team still won a $50 gift certificate for each key they found.