The Big Showdown

I don't have to elaborate on the infamous moment when Jim Peck tripped and fell down the stairs while making his entrance; he's probably heard all he ever wants to hear about it.

Instead, I'd rather offer a few ideas about why the show didn't make it. I certainly don't think it was the timeslot (2:30 in the East, against the declining "Edge Of Night" on CBS and "The Doctors" (the soap) on NBC, it had a minimum of clearance problems by the ABC affiliates, and it was an alternative to the soaps).

I think the problem was that hard quizzes seemed to be out of favor; the original "Jeopardy!" was canceled about the same time this show started, and I would hardly call CBS's q&a hits "The Joker's Wild" and "Gambit" hard quizzes.

The problem may have been an overabundance of rules. Three categories (1, 2, and 3 points) were used, and the object, in addition to answering the questions, was to hit (exactly) a predetermined "payoff point" worth a predetermined dollar amount. The other problem was the dice-rolling end game (with the numbers 1-5 on each die, with the word "Show" on one and "Down" on the other). Getting "Show" and "Down" on the first roll was worth $5000; otherwise, the number the player rolled became the payoff point worth $250 every time it was hit in 30 seconds. Final Jeopardy! it wasn't, folks, and the end game just seems to clash somehow with the main game, which did require some brains.

Despite all this, Jim Peck had an exclusive contract with ABC for a time; he hosted the forgettable "Hot Seat" (players were hooked up to something called a galvanic response machine in order to determine if they were telling the truth to some personal questions), and "Second Chance" (far superior in its later version, "Press Your Luck" with Peter Tomarken). He also did a short-lived syndicated version of "You Don't Say!" (I'm sure Tom Kennedy didn't feel any loss of ego) and was "court reporter" on "Divorce Court" in the '80s. I think he does mostly fund-raising for his alma mater, Marquette, today.

I'd bring this back if I could tweak the end game somehow to make it more dependent on brains than luck.

Most episodes of this series are lost. One of the surviving episodes was posted on YouTube (it's not just for funny cat videos). The episode is infamous as when the host is walking down the stairs at the beginning, he falls down, causing the episode to be nicknamed "The Big Falldown". He gets up, and while the audience is laughing, says "Sure, you guys would applaud a lynching". The show is largely remembered for this clip. This is a shame as it was actually a great show, a little bit like Jeopardy!, and quite fast-paced. Check out the episode if you can....this is another old forgotten game show that should be revived, and yes, I am just filling up the lines due to IMDb's rule that reviews should run at least 10 lines. Sorry about that.