Two way interaction would seem to be a natural for a television game show. HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS? showed the world (or at least, the Columbus, Ohio area) that the idea looked better on paper than it did when brought to the television viewing public.
Using the experimental QUBE interactive system developed by the Warner Cable system, the game itself consisted of two married couples whose job it was to guess the outcome of a series of survey questions asked of the at-home audience. Unlike FAMILY FEUD, the at-home viewers were answering these questions in real-time, as the show was being broadcast. Each half of the couple predicted which answer they thought would be the most popular among the five (later four) choices, alternating between the couples for each round. If one member of the couple was correct, the couple received one point; if both answered correctly, they received two points, and a chance to steal a point from their opponents (or possibly lose one of their points). This would go back and forth until one couple scored a minimum of five points, for which they won an Atari Super Pong 10 set, and would go on to a bonus round in which they could win a portable color TV (the losing couple got dinner for two at a local restaurant).
If the premise sounds complicated, it was even more so when watching the show itself. The overly complex rules of the game slowed down the pace of the game; not a very good thing for a quiz show. The bouncing back and forth between the couples, rather than having all the contestants try to answer in each round, didn't help either, and neither did having the winners declared only after a set number of points were reached (instead of the couple with the most points at the end of regulation play). This caused one episode to end with neither couple being declared the winner (they were asked to come back for the next show, but only one couple did). And it would be rather difficult to believe that married couples would be standing in line to appear on a show for a chance to win a video game.
But the show's biggest flaw was in the use of the QUBE system. In order for the real-time interaction of the home audience, the show would have to be broadcast live. Anybody who knows anything about live TV knows that anything can happen, and often does. Technical difficulties can hamper any live broadcast. And although nothing tremendously awful happened during any of the four experimental episodes, surviving footage of other QUBE-based programs proved that the system could (and did) break down at times. Had this happened during a HDYLYE live broadcast, the results could have been very embarrassing for everyone involved with the show. As it was, three of the four episodes ran over the 30-minute mark. Not a very efficient use of time.
But kudos have to be given to the show's host, Bill Cullen. He does his best to keep the show going, no matter how much the show's pacing drags. Always upbeat, he is easily the one thing the producer's got right with HDYLYE. One has to wonder what was going through Cullen's mind, though, as it became painfully apparent that this was a sinking ship, and there was ultimately no way of fixing it.
All said, this was not the worst game show I've ever seen (1967's REACH FOR THE STARS would probably take that dishonor), just one that was ultimately not very well thought out, overly complicated, and would not likely hold the interest of a nationwide audience. As of this writing, all four episodes are available for viewing on YouTube, so you can see for yourself of how ideas, no matter how sincere, can come up just short of the best intentions.
Using the experimental QUBE interactive system developed by the Warner Cable system, the game itself consisted of two married couples whose job it was to guess the outcome of a series of survey questions asked of the at-home audience. Unlike FAMILY FEUD, the at-home viewers were answering these questions in real-time, as the show was being broadcast. Each half of the couple predicted which answer they thought would be the most popular among the five (later four) choices, alternating between the couples for each round. If one member of the couple was correct, the couple received one point; if both answered correctly, they received two points, and a chance to steal a point from their opponents (or possibly lose one of their points). This would go back and forth until one couple scored a minimum of five points, for which they won an Atari Super Pong 10 set, and would go on to a bonus round in which they could win a portable color TV (the losing couple got dinner for two at a local restaurant).
If the premise sounds complicated, it was even more so when watching the show itself. The overly complex rules of the game slowed down the pace of the game; not a very good thing for a quiz show. The bouncing back and forth between the couples, rather than having all the contestants try to answer in each round, didn't help either, and neither did having the winners declared only after a set number of points were reached (instead of the couple with the most points at the end of regulation play). This caused one episode to end with neither couple being declared the winner (they were asked to come back for the next show, but only one couple did). And it would be rather difficult to believe that married couples would be standing in line to appear on a show for a chance to win a video game.
But the show's biggest flaw was in the use of the QUBE system. In order for the real-time interaction of the home audience, the show would have to be broadcast live. Anybody who knows anything about live TV knows that anything can happen, and often does. Technical difficulties can hamper any live broadcast. And although nothing tremendously awful happened during any of the four experimental episodes, surviving footage of other QUBE-based programs proved that the system could (and did) break down at times. Had this happened during a HDYLYE live broadcast, the results could have been very embarrassing for everyone involved with the show. As it was, three of the four episodes ran over the 30-minute mark. Not a very efficient use of time.
But kudos have to be given to the show's host, Bill Cullen. He does his best to keep the show going, no matter how much the show's pacing drags. Always upbeat, he is easily the one thing the producer's got right with HDYLYE. One has to wonder what was going through Cullen's mind, though, as it became painfully apparent that this was a sinking ship, and there was ultimately no way of fixing it.
All said, this was not the worst game show I've ever seen (1967's REACH FOR THE STARS would probably take that dishonor), just one that was ultimately not very well thought out, overly complicated, and would not likely hold the interest of a nationwide audience. As of this writing, all four episodes are available for viewing on YouTube, so you can see for yourself of how ideas, no matter how sincere, can come up just short of the best intentions.
