Second Chance | |
---|---|
Format | Game Show |
Created by | Bill Carruthers Jan McCormack |
Presented by | Jim Peck |
Narrated by | Jay Stewart Jack Clark Joe Seiter (pilot/substitute) |
Country of origin | United States |
No. of episodes | 95 |
Production | |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production company(s) | The Carruthers Company |
Broadcast | |
Original channel | ABC |
Picture format | NTSC |
Audio format | Mono |
Original run | March 7 – July 15, 1977 |
Chronology | |
Followed by | Press Your Luck (1983-1986) Whammy! (2002-2003) |
Second Chance is an American game show that ran from March 7 to July 15, 1977 on ABC. Jim Peck hosted, with Jay Stewart and Jack Clark serving as announcers.
Second Chance is the predecessor to the more successful CBS game show Press Your Luck, and was produced by The Carruthers Company.
Contents[hide] |
Three contestants competed on each program, consisting of two question rounds and two board rounds.
In the question round, Peck read a question to the three contestants. The players each wrote their answers on a board and placed it on a shelf at the front of their podium (where the other contestants could not see it). Peck then provided information as to how well the contestants answered (e.g., "At least one of you is right"; "At least two of you are wrong"). After supplying three possible answers, Peck offered the contestants a "second chance" to change their answer.
A correct answer on the first guess earned three spins to use in the second half of the round. A correct "second chance" answer earned one spin.
Three questions were played per round, for a possible total of nine spins per contestant.
Each contestant now used their spins to accumulate money and prizes on an 18-space game board. During each spin a lighted cursor rapidly moved about the board. Unlike on Press Your Luck, however, the squares themselves did not change in value. The contestant would stop the light on a square by hitting the plunger in front of them (and is also encouraged to yell "Stop!").
One of three outcomes were possible after stopping the board:
Each round contained a big-money space located at the top of the board (the fourth square, counting clockwise from the top-left corner). During Round 1, landing on the big-money space earned $2,500. Round 2 contained higher cash values, with the big-money space worth $5,000 and an additional spin.
Later in the series, the big-money space in Round 2 still offered an additional spin and rotated values from $1,000–$5,000 in $1,000 increments.
Prizes in Round 1 were generally valued up to $1,000. Prizes in Round 2 included more luxurious items such as rooms of furniture, trips, furs, and automobiles (generally valued up to $3,000).
Any player who landed on a Devil four times over the course of the game forfeited any remaining spins and was eliminated from further play. If a player landed on a Devil, the light would automatically turn red.
Artist and animator "Savage" Steve Holland, later a film director, used Second Chance's Devils as his model for the "Whammy" in Press Your Luck. Peter Tomarken, in the 1983 Press Your Luck pilot, even refers to the Whammy as "a devil".
During their turn, a contestant could pass his/her remaining spins to one of the opponents (usually the contestant in the lead), if they had a fear of the Devil. The one who had spins passed to him was required to use them at the beginning of his next turn. However, landing on a Devil changed any passed spins remaining into earned spins, which gave the player the option to continue or pass their spins to another player.
After each player had taken all spins earned or passed to them at the end of Round 1, the game moved to the second question round followed by the final board round. The player with the highest score at the end of Round 2 won the game and kept their winnings and returned next show. If two or three contestants end the game with $0 without getting four devils, both or all three come back. This has happened at least once on this show.
The show's set was very similar to that of Press Your Luck, including a rotating contestant platform and the presence of the show's logo (albeit duplicated) in the center of the board, replaced by a chroma-key shot of the contestant for their spins. Unlike Press Your Luck, the contestant platform would not rotate to be in front of the board during the question rounds, instead stopping just to the left of the board.
The contestants' area had a shelf to place their answers on, the back of which was used to display their score, and four cards that would flip up whenever a Devil was hit. The area below the score had 18 "dots" on it, one for each spin the contestant had earned or was passed to them.
The gameboard had cash squares in orange and yellow. Three Devils were also on the board, as well as gift boxes. When a player landed on a gift box, the camera would zoom to the slide which would then reveal the prize.
Round 2's big-money space was originally styled like the others, but also had "FREE" at the top and "SPIN" at the bottom (reading, somewhat clumsily, as FREE 5000 SPIN). Later in the run, the $5,000 space became an eggcrate display with a constantly shuffling thousands digit between 1 and 5.
The speed at which the indicator moved around the board was much faster than on Press Your Luck. Originally, only nine patterns were paid for by ABC when the show began; however, after an episode in which a contestant went on a lengthy run at the board (becoming the show's biggest winner in the process), the network ordered more patterns to be added so the incident wouldn't happen again.[1] In 1984, Michael Larson went on a more elaborate run of the board on Press Your Luck, winning $110,237, after which CBS paid for more patterns to be added to the board.
Second Chance debuted on March 7, 1977 at 12:00 Noon, replacing a short-lived variety series starring Don Ho (which, ironically, replaced Peck's own Hot Seat on October 25, 1976). Almost immediately the series faced problems, as it was up against the four-year-old The Young and the Restless on CBS and a new daytime Name That Tune on NBC. On June 10, Tune left the airwaves and was replaced by the new Geoff Edwards game Shoot for the Stars.
However, the competition was not what forced Chance to end. Goodson-Todman was developing a new game for ABC entitled The Better Sex, and Chance had simply been seen by the network as a relatively inexpensive placeholder almost since its debut. Chance aired its last episode on July 15.
Better Sex, however, did not do so well either – after Stars was cancelled on September 30, NBC debuted a new Tom Kennedy-hosted show entitled To Say the Least, which drew a modest audience. Better Sex ended on January 13, 1978 when NBC soaps were expanding air time and was replaced in its time slot by the "debut" of The $20,000 Pyramid.
Second Chance's theme was originally used on the four-episode 1976 version of I've Got a Secret, while a remix of it was used on the 1977-1984 Australian versions of Family Feud.
Second Chance was likely destroyed due to network policies of the era. The only episode known to exist in varying quality is Pilot #3 (taped November 9, 1976), plus an audio clip of an episode opening announced by Jack Clark. The final episode is also available in audio form.