Mindreaders
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. (September 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
| Mindreaders | |
|---|---|
 Mindreaders title logo |
|
| Format | Game show |
| Created by | Mark Goodson Bill Todman |
| Starring | Dick Martin Johnny Olson (Announcer) |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes with commercials |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Original run | 1979 – 1980 |
Mindreaders was a game show produced by Goodson-Todman Productions which aired on NBC from August 13, 1979 through January 11, 1980. Although NBC originally agreed to a 26-week run, the network canceled Mindreaders after 22 weeks. The host was Dick Martin and the announcer was Johnny Olson.
Contents |
[edit] The Main Game
A team of four men plays against a team of four women, each consisting of three civilian contestants and a celebrity captain. Host Dick Martin reads a question to the three civilian contestants on one team. Each player locks in an answer. One by one the celebrity captain predicts how each of his/her teammates answered. A correct prediction keeps that team in control and play moves to the next player in line. If the celebrity is incorrect, the celebrity captain of the opposing team gets to predict the controlling teammates' responses. Each correct answer is worth $50, with the money going to the other team if incorrect, and the first team to reach $300 wins the game and goes on to play the end game.
[edit] Judge the Jury
In the end game, the winning team faces 10 randomly selected members of the studio audience who comprise a jury. Each civilian member of the winning team must predict how the jury answered three questions (one player per question). After each question is read, the jury locks in their answers, and the player guesses how many of them answered yes or no. Guessing the number right on the nose wins $500 for the team. Missing the number by one or two higher or lower pays $200. After the three questions, the winning team plays a round called “Celebrity Turnabout”, so called because the tables have turned. Now the civilian players predict how the celebrity captain will answer one last question. Each player makes a guess with the majority rule in effect. The celebrity captain reveals his/her answer, and if the majority of the team is correct, the civilians win 10 times the amount earned in the first half of the bonus game for a maximum total of $15,000.
Teams competed against each other for 3 consecutive games, after which they both retired; thus, it was possible for a team that won all three games to walk away with over $45,000.
The "10 audience members" endgame aspect was later incorporated into the Goodson Productions 1986-89 revival of Card Sharks, which Mindreaders producer Mimi O'Brien also worked on; beginning in the fall of 1986, contestants occasionally had to predict how an "audience polling group" of 10 people with a common bond (originally they were just random groupings, as was the case on Mindreaders) responded to a particular question. This was taken a step further during the show's last year, with the addition of a bonus game in which the champion tried to make an exact prediction of the group's response to a question in order to win a new car.
[edit] Broadcast History
NBC placed Mindreaders at a problematic timeslot, Noon/11 a.m. Central, where it faced ABC's The $20,000 Pyramid and CBS' Young and the Restless, as well as pre-emptions by NBC affiliates for local news. Despite NBC's hopes that Dick Martin's legacy from Laugh-In and Match Game would translate into instant audience appeal, the ratings fell flat, as had those of the shows preceding it in that time slot for the past five years. NBC replaced Mindreaders with Chain Reaction, another short-lived game.
[edit] Pilot
A pilot produced for CBS in 1975, also called "Mindreaders", was hosted by Jack Clark and featured a different format: contestants predicted the majority response to a hypothetical question asked of the entire audience (a similar format was used as the main game of the 1981-82 series, Pitfall). Details on the second pilot attempt, produced four years later, can be found below (see "External links").
[edit] Theme and sounds
The show's theme music is a slightly re-arranged version of a commercial cue from the short-lived 1979 game show, Celebrity Charades. The sound signifying that the jury locked in their answers was later used as the solo player buzz-in sound on the Bill Cullen version of Blockbusters.
[edit] Episode status
The status of the show is unknown, however, it is rumored to be completely wiped, due to a rumor that the show is not in the Goodson-Todman catalogue. The third episode and another episode are the only ones that are known to currently exist.
