The Money Maze (1974–1975) User Reviews

That Was George Clooney's Father?

[richard.fuller1 · 4 October 2004]

Oh, I remember this show!

The husband and wife teams, oh, you know there had to be some arguments in the car on the way home!

Or on the plane, however they departed.

Clooney was just a bit too icky, trying too hard to make the show work. I have no idea what the focus or intention would have been for a game show in '74.

He didn't look like George, and George now certainly doesn't look like his father did 30 years ago.

But oh, those people running thru that maze trying to hit those buttons and their spouse trying to give them directions up above.

It was a nightmare.

Essentially the same feeling you get watching most reality TV shows today.

Rat Race

[DeanNYC · 4/10 · 7 November 2007]

The Moneymaze was perhaps the oddest of all games ever aired. The host of the program was Nick Clooney (who is now - at least in show business circles - best known as the father of George), and they taped it at New York's ABC studios on 66th Street on a massive sound stage. The "star" of the show was in fact the large maze constructed, with multiple square "towers" scattered in various parts of the maze, each with a button on all four sides of them and bright racer lights at the top which could flicker and flash to signify which tower was in play for that round and to show that a contestant successfully got the prize. The studio audience was situated around the sides and back of the maze, above it in bleachers.

The game was played with two teams of two people, (a married couple I believe in every case), and they would answer a series of simple questions to qualify for a chance to go into the maze. Once one team qualified to play for a prize, one of the players went down to the maze, while the other went into "The Crow's Nest," where they could overlook the entire maze and shout out instructions for their partner to get to the tower with the prize and hit the correct button to win.

The big winner of that day's program got to play for a ten thousand dollar bonus. By placing the digits 1, 0, 0, 0 and 0 on various towers within the maze, a team had sixty seconds to go in, get all five numbers and get out of the maze, hitting one final button at the exit to win before the time ran out. They could also win 1000, 100, 10 or 1 dollar, if that was all the zeros they managed to get. One pair managed to get all four zeros, but not the 1, so they ended up with no bonus at all.

Many critics at the time compared this to some lab experiment, as the contestants ran like rats for cheese on the show and it was suggested by many that television had hit a new low with such a display. And apparently production costs to maintain the maze were the highest of any program of its time. The maze had to be constantly changed and that took time, effort and a team of stagehands to do it.

Though it recalled other programs like "Beat The Clock," and may have paved the way for ABC's prime time stunt game, "Almost Anything Goes," The Moneymaze with its skyrocketing production costs and bad reviews only limped along for a season before getting canceled.

A Good Idea Comes Up Short

[hfan77 · 4 June 2009]

I remember watching The Money Maze and it looked like a pretty good idea with contestants running around a maze for cash and prizes. It was also the first and only game show that Nick Clooney hosted. Yes, he's the brother of singer Rosemary and father of superstar actor George. The Cincinnati newscaster who later turned up on TCM and American Life TV did a really good job as host. I remember him singing at the start of each show later in the run "Life's a chance. A happenstance. Come with me and wander free. Try my way and you'll be on top. All the time." I'll always remember his line after each game "You're going to the maze!"

As for the game itself, it was a very simple Q&A game played by two couples with the winner of each round going to the maze for a prize. The couple with the highest score at the end of the game got to go to the "$10,000 Dash" where one player had to find the 1 to win anything.

Unfortunately, The Money Maze was hampered by clearance problems with a number of ABC affiliates (including the station in Minneapolis-St. Paul) blacking out or delaying the show. It also suffered from high production costs, especially for setting up and tearing down the maze after each taping. But it was a good idea that came up short.

I'll conclude by also mentioning that it was also the first game show for announcer Alan Kalter, who later went on to success replacing Bill Wendell on The Late Show with David Letterman.