Sale of the Century (American game show)

*Sale of the Century*
Sale of the Century
	File:Sotclogo85.jpg
Created by	Jones-Howard Productions
Starring	Jack Kelly, Joe Garagiola, Jim Perry, Sally Julian, Lee Menning, Summer Bartholomew
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	30 minutes per episode
Original release
Network	NBC; syndicated
Release	September 29, 1969 –; March 24, 1989

Sale of the Century is a television game show format that made its debut in the United States on September 29, 1969, on NBC daytime. The series aired until July 13, 1973, then aired in a weekly syndicated version for one additional year.

The rights to $ale (as it was spelled on-air) would be purchased in 1980 by Australian TV mogul Reg Grundy, who would turn the show into a huge hit in Australia (See the Australian edition), and would eventually succeed in selling NBC his new vision of the format in 1983. The new $ale ran weekday mornings from January 3, 1983 to March 24, 1989, with a concurrent version airing weeknights in syndication from January 1985 to September 1986 (distributed by Genesis Entertainment).

Hosts

In the United States, the show was hosted by Jack Kelly (who earlier appeared on the series Maverick with James Garner) (1969-71), Joe Garagiola (1971-74) and Jim Perry (1983-89). Hostesses for the 1980s version included Sally Julian (1983), Lee Menning (1983-84) and former Miss USA Summer Bartholomew (1984-89). Bill Wendell announced the original edition, and Jay Stewart announced the '80s version, replaced for the last season by Don Morrow. The original version was created and produced by William Jones and Al Howard.

Sale premiered on September 29, 1969 on NBC's daytime schedule at 11 a.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Central, replacing Personality, which was hosted by Larry Blyden. Al Howard, who earlier produced an ABC game called "Supermarket Sweep" (which was revived on Lifetime in 1990, the year after $ale of the Century had expired), and several other business partners packaged the program. Garagiola, who had been a regular on NBC's Today and had recently hosted a game show of his own, "Joe Garagiola's Memory Game," took over for Kelly in August 1971.

"Sale" ran at that time slot for the entirety of its initial three-and-a-half years on the network, and was generally a ratings success against situation comedy reruns on CBS and non-network programming on ABC stations. However, by late 1972, CBS scored a ratings winner with Gambit, hosted by Wink Martindale, at that time slot, and the producers of "Sale" attempted a last-ditch effort at saving the show's audience by changing the three-contestant configuration to that of two married couples, which the competitor used to good effect. It was not enough, and NBC cancelled Sale on July 13, 1973, in favor of the show which introduced Alex Trebek to American audiences, The Wizard of Odds.

Nevertheless, Howard continued the game in syndication for another season, in 1973-1974. This version, with Garagiola hosting again, used the rules from the last several weeks of the NBC run. After production ended, the show went dormant for several years, until Howard sold the worldwide rights for Sale to Austrailian TV producer Reg Grundy. In 1980, building upon the success of his earlier Temptation, Grundy brought the show to prime time in his country, where it became the nation's top-rated show. Eventually its success would prompt him to revive it in the U.S.

Game format

The game format varied in its details over the years; however, the core format, as presented below, remained unchanged.

All contestants were spotted with $20 to start. The host read a series of trivia questions to the three contestants (one of which was usually the winner of the previous show) who had to press a buzzer (if the host is in the middle of reading of a question) if anyone think he/she knew the answer. Correct answers were worth $5, while incorrect answers were minus the same amount. If a player answered incorrectly, the answer was revealed and the game went on to the next question - only one person could buzz-in and answer the question.

On the original episodes from 1969 to 1974, the value of each question varied throughout the game, in $5, $10, and $15 denominations.

According to the several editions of "The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows" by David Schwartz, Steve Ryan, and Fred Wostbrock, during the show's last thirteen weeks on the NBC network and the year in U.S. syndication, "Sale" used two married couples instead of three single competing studio contestants. Host Joe Garagiola, after conducting one round apiece of $5 and $10 questions, then asked a concluding series of five $20 questions to determine the winning couple.

Instant Bargain

Once per round, the highest-scored player was offered the chance to sacrifice some part of his/her score to "purchase" a prize at a low-cost. The prizes, and the cost, increased in each round. Contestants were allowed to haggle with the host, who, depending on the game situation, could reduce the cost and offer inducements including actual cash in order to entice the contestant to purchase. If two or more players had the same score at this point, a Dutch auction was conducted for the prize. Beginning in 1984, a Sale Surprise was offered in any of the three instant bargains, which are cash bonuses ranging from $500 to $1,000.

On the Jim Perry version, Perry haggled with the contestants and his salesmanship skills (and several memorable instant bargains) made him one of the top-rated game show hosts of the decade.

Instant Cash

The Instant Cash replaced the third instant bargain in 1986, about halfway through the show's run. The player in the lead, as always (auction if there was a tie), would be given the opportunity to play for a cash jackpot, which started at $1,000 and went up by that amount every day until it was won. To play, he/she would have to give up his/her lead over the second-place competitor. If the contestant opted to play, he/she selected one of three boxes. One box contained the jackpot while each of the other boxes contained $100. The pot climbed as high as $16,000 several times. On the second to final episode of the NBC series, a $16,000 Jackpot was hit.

Fame Game

Starting with the '80s version, a "Who am I" question known as "The Fame Game" was asked once in each of the three rounds. Here, a succession of increasingly larger clues were given to the identity of a famous person, place, or event. In this round, players could buzz-in and answer at any time, without penalty for an incorrect answer. However, each player only had one chance to answer. If one of the players buzzed-in and answered correctly, he/she had an opportunity to play a subgame, where he/she got to choose randomly from a game board with nine squares featuring the faces of celebrities, mostly performers on the network's shows. Once chosen, the face selected would be spun around to reveal either a relatively small prize (typically appliances or furniture valued at around a weekly wage) or a $25 bonus money card, which awarded $25 to the player's score. Along with the $25 card was a "Mystery Money or Pick Again," which required the player to choose to select another face or receive a cash prize (between $1.75 & $1500).

Changes

Later series added additional $10 and $15 Money Cards to the gameboard, and in each round another amount was added. On occasion, a $5 money card was also included. The phrase Money Cards was coined by host Jim Perry, carrying that phrase with him from his previous show Card Sharks.
In 1984, the faces were replaced by numbers, 1-9.
Later the board became a randomizer (ala Press Your Luck) which had to be stopped by hiting the buzzer. At that point, the money cards depending on the round ($10 in round one, $15 in round two, and $25 in round three) were revealed at the outset for increased dramatic effect.

A cycle of the question segments and the special games occurred three times on each show, depending on the time used. The format of each program (after 1984) was as follows:

The first cycle usually consists of five $5 questions then an instant bargain, followed by three more $5 questions and the first Fame Game with a $10 Money Card up for grabs.
The second segment was three questions, an instant bargain and five questions before going to a commercial break, with host Perry reading a fact or a statistic about the last question asked prior to the break.
In segment three, the Fame Game was played with a $15 Money Card added, followed by three more questions and an instant bargain (later Instant Cash).
The final segment of the game was three more $5 questions, the last Fame Game with a $25 Money Card added, then the 60-second Speedround to determine the winner.

Speed Round

Originally, when the last Fame Game was played, Jim Perry would ask three final $5 questions, after which the day's winner was determined. In 1984, realizing that most games were decided before this set of questions, the producers introduced a rapid-fire question segment called the Speedround (known in Australia as Fast Money). Perry would get in as many questions as possible within 60 seconds (originally 90), and whomever was ahead at the end of the speedround was the day's winner.

If there was a final tie, the tied players answered a tiebreaker question, where a correct answer from either contestant won the game, while an incorrect answer defeated the contestant in favor of his/her opponent.

Prizes

Starting in January 1988 (and coinciding with the introduction of a new bonus round), a bonus prize was awarded to the winner, and would vary in value depending on how many games they had won prior to that. Originally the winner would pick a prize off a board (numbered 1-6), but after a few weeks the prize was simply awarded to the player, announced by host Jim Perry at the beginning of each program.

Bonus Games

The 1980s show went through three bonus games during its six year run:

The Traditional Shopping Format - this was used throughout the original series' run, and also for the first two seasons of the '80s version (plus the syndicated version from January 1985 until December 1985). A series of six prizes was offered, culminating in a luxury car. A contestant could take his or her cumulative winnings, buy a prize, and retire, or elect to return the next day and try to win enough to buy the next most expensive prize.

On the daytime version, the next steps after the car were, first, a cash jackpot (starting at $50K and increased by $1K each day until won), and then the cash and all the prizes on the stage (in the first few weeks of the show, the cash jackpot was not used; instead the show threw in enough cash to make the lot worth an even $95,000). Only one player, Barbara Phillips, won everything on stage during the daytime shopping format. Other big winners (listed below) would retire with just the cash jackpot instead. Originally, a player can buy every prize on the stage including the cash jackpot with $650 or more. When the speedround was incorporated, it took $760 to win everything ($650 for the cash jackpot only, $540 for the car).

When the syndicated nighttime version aired, the shopping format was changed, due to the fact that virtually every champion retired with just the cash jackpot. The luxury automobile (available for $530 or more) would be followed next by all of the prizes (at $640 or more), and then at $750 or more every prize on the stage and the cash jackpot. This modification resulted in many big winners.

Big Winners during shopping era

Barbara Philips: Won $151,689 in cash and prizes on the NBC daytime version in 1983. She became the first contestant to win over $150,000 on a daytime network show (NBC game shows had no maximum winnings cap limit, like CBS and ABC did during this time). Phillips won in dramatic fashion, needing $5 to win it all and answering the final $5 question correctly.
Kathy Riley: In the 1984 NBC daytime version she stopped and took a $78,000 cash jackpot. She did so in an anti-climatic fashion. Kathy (who had $85, enough to win the jackpot) had a $15 lead over Bob (contestant to the left), and Roger (the middle contestant) was well out of it, trailing by $60. On the first of the last three questions in the main game, Roger answered correctly, which automatically gave Kathy the win since Bob needed to correctly answer all three questions to achieve a tie; on the second question, Bob, contestant one, missed it; then, although host Jim Perry was supposed to ask the last question, he suddenly realized that Kathy had already won. He then said, "Oh, the hell with the last question, she's got it!" discarding it and awarding the game to Kathy.
David Rogers: In 1984, he won $122,084 in cash and prizes, including a $109,000 cash jackpot, the highest ever won on the show. Rogers was among the first big winners since the incorporation of the speed round.
Bill Baxter Another 1984 winner, Bill won a $70,000 cash jackpot in somewhat dramatic fashion, needing $86 and the win. Baxter answered the second to last question right, which gave him $90 with five seconds remaining in the speedround. On the last question, Baxter took a chance and answered it correctly as time expired, otherwise he would have lost $5. With $659, Bill purchased the cash jackpot (worth $650) and left the program with total winnings of $85,256.
Stephanie Holmquist Stephanie first appeared on the show in 1984. She purchased a cash jackpot of $74,000 with her bank account on the show, turning down the opportunity to go for the lot. In 1985, she appeared again, this time in the Tournament of Champions, where she won $35,000 in cash along with a Porsche. Her total winnings were $152,897, which was the highest ever in daytime at that time, and would remain that way until Tom O'Brien came along in 1987 with the winner's board.
Bill Fogel In late-1984, Bill purchased a $61,000 cash jackpot, but not before winning the game with $145, the highest one-day total in the series history. Fogel, who had $721 in his bank account, decided not to go for everything on the stage, despite the fact he needed only $39 and a win to buy the lot, which would have given him over $131,700 in winnings. He left with $66,459 in cash and prizes. Bill was eventually the last of the big-money winners of the daytime shopping era, as the format went to the winner's board soon thereafter. Interestingly, this took place during the week Jim Perry was celebrating his birthday.
John Goss: Was the first contestant on the syndicated version to win the entire lot, doing so early in 1985. John, who scored $95, exactly what he needed to win everything, retired undefeated with a grand total of $156,339 in cash and prizes, including a $72,000 cash jackpot and $8,000 cash accumulated during his reign.
Helaine Lowery: Another syndicated contestant, after almost losing in her last speedround, she won $142,974 in cash and prizes (including a jackpot of $64,000).
Alice Conkright: She won $141,406 (including a $77,000 jackpot) in 1985. Moreover, she won all the prizes plus the jackpot in six programs, the fastest player to ever do so. Alice was known to not buy a single instant bargain, including one in which Jim Perry went down to his knees in an attempt to get her to buy a bargain as well as offering her $2,000 cash. Alice also blew all of her challengers away, often winning by at least $125, hence the shortest time she won everything. (Strangely enough, her first win was over a contestant named Michael Friedman, who was playing for the entire lot himself.)
Tim Holleran: The winningest contestant in American "Sale" history. He won $166,875 in cash and prizes in 1985 on the syndicated version, including a $90,000 cash jackpot. Two years later, Holleran competed in the International Sale Tournament of Champions, and was the United States representative in the finals. He finished second place to Cary Young of Australia, but ended up winning close to $20,000 extra in the tournament.

The Winner's Board - In late-1984 on NBC and 1986 in syndication, the producers did away with the shopping format. Instead, the contestant would face a 20-square board. The Winner's Board contained ten prizes; eight of them had two matching cards (one of which was $3000 cash), plus two Win cards (if picked, the next number selected resulted in an automatic match) and one $10,000 and Car card. The contestant called off numbers and the first prize matched is the first prize won, but in order to win $10,000 or the car, the player must select one of the two Win cards first before selecting a number that has the $10,000 or the Car card. Like the Australian version, once the board was cleared by the champion, he/she faced a final decision: either leave with all the prizes earned off the board, or risk them and play one final game. A loss cost the player all his or her prizes from the board, while a win netted him or her an extra $50,000 in cash. Other prizes won during the main game from instant bargains, cash bonuses and fame game prizes were not at risk during the process. This format proved to be the more successful of the three end games, lasting for three years.

Amazingly, no contestant that accepted the challenge ever lost his or her final game, although the closest to do so was Mark DeCarlo, who later went on to host the game show Studs. DeCarlo, on an April 1985 episode, who had been trailing for most of the game, ended the speed round tied at $50 with Deborah Opendale, the contestant to his right (the other contestant was Howard Spector). A tiebreaker question was asked, and Deborah buzzed in and answered incorrectly. DeCarlo won the game, and retired with $115,257 in cash and prizes.

On that episode, both Deborah and Howard purchased Instant Bargains, which helped DeCarlo stay in the game. Howard purchased an IB along with $1,500 cash (including $1,000 in a Sale Surprise; this occurred when Howard and Deborah were tied for the lead) plus $600 cash from the Fame Game board, while Deborah earned $1,000 cash on an IB (with some pre-hosting help from DeCarlo) and also earned $200 from a previous IB which did not affect the outcome of the game at the time.

Interesting, DeCarlo won the championship by correctly answering a tie-breaking question, and went on a long winning streak, even winning by a huge margin on many occasions. Jim Perry, who was instrumental in launching DeCarlo's television career after $ale, later appeared on DeCarlo's Studs as a special guest on one episode in 1991.

Other big winners during this version included:

Jeff Colbern: He won $123,753 in cash and prizes in 1985.
Linda Credit: In 1987, she won $140,457 in cash and prizes, including a $14,000 Instant Cash jackpot. She then played in the 1988 tournament of champions and won another $5,700, for a total of $146,157. One of the last big winners during the Winner's Board era.
Tom O'Brien Towards the end of the winner's board era, Tom O'Brien, who was a writer from Connecticut at the time, had won $102,000 in cash and prizes before his eleventh game. When the game was over, Tom had won back all his major prizes plus an extra $50,000. He won a total of $152,847 in his first eleven games. He was brought back for the final Tournament of Champions in 1988 and added another $21,000 to his winnings, giving him the biggest ever daytime total of $173,064 cash and prizes.
Curtis Warren: One of the last big winners on the syndicated show, in 1986. He would later go on to win $1.41 million on Greed in 2000, which at the time was the all-time winnings record (has since been broken 4 times, most recently by Brad Rutter). (Curtis' totals are on his page.)
Lisa Muňoz: Another big syndicated WB winner, taking home $122,551 in cash and prizes.

The Winner's Big Money Game - The format for the final round changed once again in January 1988. The winner of the day would receive a bonus prize worth roughly $3000 (in the first few weeks of the WBMG format, they would pick one of 6 prizes off a board), and then would play this final round. To begin the bonus game, Jim Perry would present three envelopes (red, yellow and blue) and the winner would select the envelope of his/her choice. Perry then would read a series of 6-word puzzles one word at a time. Correctly solving four puzzles in 20 seconds (originally five puzzles in 25 seconds) won the bonus round. One incorrect guess was allowed; two misses ended the game. Passing and returning to a puzzle was allowed. The clock began when the first word of each puzzle was revealed, and the player stopped the clock by hitting a red plunger in front of them.

An example of a six word puzzle would be Baseball-Team-Tommy-Lasorda-Loudly-Manages, where the correct answer would be The Los Angeles Dodgers.

The new champion played for $5,000 on the first day; and after every main game win, the champion played for $1,000 extra (meaning $6,000, $7,000, $8,000, $9,000 and $10,000), regardless if he or she won the previous day's bonus game. On the seventh trip to the bonus round, the champion played for an automobile. If the champion was unsuccessful at winning the car, the champion retired undefeated; if he or she was successful in winning the car, then he or she earned the right to play for an additional $50,000 in the following day's bonus game, on the condition, of course, that he or she win the main game. The $50,000 bonus was won only once by Rani White in May 1988, who won it in dramatic fashion, with one second left to spare. The $50,000 level was reached only one other time by contestant Phil Cambry, but he failed to win the $50,000 thanks in part to an incorrect response on the third puzzle.

In total, up to $95,000 in cash could be won as well as the automobile if a player won every single bonus round. No one ever did.

The last big winner on Sale was Darryl Garrison, who retired with over $78,000 in cash and prizes on the third-to-last show. He made it to day 7, failing to win the car in his last Winner's Big Money Game.

Special Weeks

Over the years, the NBC Sale had several special weeks, including College Week, Brides Week, Teen Week and others, as well as a few Tournament of Champions. Beginning in 1988, during these special weeks, all Winner's Big Money Games were worth $5,000, and on the week-ending program, all five winners of the week would play a special round for the right to win a new automobile. The Fame Game board was brought in, and each player had one turn at the board. The object is to hit a plunger in front of a podium to stop the randomized light on a number (1-9), and the player who is closest to the number 9 on the board won the car. In the event of a tie, a spinoff would occur.

Altogether, a player could stay until accumulating enough to buy the whole lot (original, first season of NBC and first 11 months of syndicated version), up to 11 days during the Winner's Board era, and up to 8 days during the Winner's Big Money Game era.

Trivia

$ale of the Century wrapped up its 5 1/2 year run on NBC Friday, March 24, 1989, the same day Super Password breathed its final gasp. Unfortunately, its series finale, which saw John Rambo, having won his second game, about to try for $6000 in the WBMG, was interrupted by an NBC News Special Report concerning the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster, which occurred the previous day. An original fully-intact master of $ale of the Century's final telecast is, however, available in the game show tape-trading circuit.
Part of the segment was shown in the 1988 movie Rain Man when the people at the institution watched it on TV.

Slot Machine

As with many American game shows of past and present, a slot machine based on and named for $ale of the Century has been manufactured for use in American casinos. The image and voice of Joe Garagiola are featured in the machine.

References