Retired Game Show Element

Many Game Shows, once they take off and become enduring hits, will try to add new gameplay elements to the show to keep it fresh and interesting. Sometimes, these new elements will work; other times, they just don't for one reason or another:

• Maybe the elements weren't fully fleshed out, or simply weren't that interesting.
• Perhaps they were removed in an attempt at freshening up the show, for ratings, or simply because management said so.
• Or it could've been an either-or situation where nearly everyone chose the same option due to Complacent Gaming Syndrome.

Usually, these elements are retired without fanfare or any mention afterward, making this a game show-specific Subtrope of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.

Examples of Retired Game Show Element include:

Double Dare

• Double Dare had a number of stunts and obstacles retired after the first couple appearances. Most notable is how, for one episode, they tried replacing the pies in the "Catch the Pies in your Large Clown Pants" challenge, with G.I Joe's. This led to a contestant's broken nose and the idea was dropped.

Family Feud

• Subverted with Family Feud. Initially, whoever rang in with the higher answer could choose to have their family play the question or pass it to the other family. At least 99% of the time, "play" was chosen. The play/pass option was retired for the 1988-95 revival, but returned when the current version began in 1999.
• Feud also used a Bullseye (later Bankroll) round from 1992–95 and 2009-10. All five family members played survey questions ranging from $500–$2,500 in value (doubled in the second half/syndicated version), and whoever gave the top answer had that question's value added to the family's jackpot (determining how much they would play for if they proceeded to Fast Money).^[1]
• To a lesser extent, before the introduction of the Bullseye round, the values in the main game were all in dollars, meaning a losing family would walk away with more than just some nice prizes — the dollars they earned were theirs to keep. Once Bullseye debuted, the dollars became points because, as Ray Combs once put it, "the dollars are in your [Bullseye/Bankroll] bank." Even when the show returned in 1999, the main game has inexplicably clung to using points, nullifying the purpose of the change.

Jeopardy!

• For a time in 1997, Jeopardy! tried "Bonus" categories, which were clues written to have two correct responses. Anyone who rang in with a correct response could try for the second right answer (for the same value), or offer the other right answer for another contestant. These were only used three times.

Let's Make A Deal

• The 1984-86 All-New Let's Make a Deal featured a "Door #4" element that would pop up at a random time over the course of the episode. A random contestant would be chosen via the "People Picker Computer" and have the opportunity to make deals with Monty which changed over time.
  • Original Format: A choice between a prize and a mystery amount ranging from $100–$5,000 behind said door.
  • Second Format: Door #4 was quickly changed to a 20-space carnival wheel with spaces ranging from Zonks to a new car. The wheel had a few different layouts as the series progressed.
    • Revived for the Wayne Brady version as Go for a Spin.

The Price Is Right

The current version of The Price Is Right began with only a very small amount of pricing games, and has constantly taken games in and out of the rotation over time. Unlike most other entries on this page, nearly every pricing game ever retired from Price has had some sort of reasoning behind its retirement:

• Add 'em Up (1986–88): Too hard and supposedly disliked by the staff.
• Balance Game (1984–85; unofficially "Balance Game '84"): Was considered too confusing.
• Bullseye (1972; unofficially "Bullseye '72"): The fifth game ever played on the show, ousted after the ninth episode because it was nigh Unwinnable. They tried adding a $500 range, playing for a boat, and even ditching the range in favor of rounding the price to the nearest $10; didn't work.
• Bump (1985–91): Likely retired because of Bob's fallout with model Dian Parkinson, who gave the game its own spin by giving the contestants and Bob backrubs and wriggling her hips provocatively while handling the props.
• Buy Or Sell (1992-2008): Too many contestants were confused by it; supposedly disliked by the staff.
• Check Game (1981-2009; originally Blank Check): Supposedly withdrawn to be "revamped for HD"; supposedly disliked by Mike Richards, who in June 2011 claimed it is not retired and in fact they're just looking for "a great way to bring it back". Adam Sandler claimed in October 2011 that it will be coming back, "no lie".
• Clearance Sale (1998-2009): Too similar to Eazy Az 1 2 3.
• Credit Card (1987-2008): Supposedly withdrawn to be "revamped for HD", although Richards claimed in June 2011 that it is not retired. Amusingly, the game was played for nearly a full year after the titular card's "expiration date" of December 2007.
• Double Bullseye (1972): Two-player Retool of Bullseye that required a fourth One-Bid and guaranteed a car giveaway. Ironically, the game ended in less than seven guesses at least twice, suggesting that Bullseye might not have been quite as unwinnable as originally thought. The game actually debuted on Dennis James' nighttime version, which was well-known for its myriad experimentation.
• Double Digits (1973): Played once with one set of rules, resulting in a win; played four more times with a second set of rules, resulting in losses. Incidentally, its game board was recycled from Bullseye.
• Finish Line (1978): Mechanical problems, despite a favorable 12-4 record; it's also too similar to Give Or Keep, although it appears to have been intended as the latter's replacement.
• Fortune Hunter (1997-2000): Too few wins (about 1/3 of its lifespan), took too long to play, and the rules were often confusing for some contestants.
• Gallery Game (1990–91): Overly tacky "art gallery" motif, too few wins.
• Give Or Keep (1972–90): The staff just didn't like it; Roger Dobkowitz had planned a Season 38 comeback until he was sacked.
• Hit Me (1980-2006): Deemed too confusing; the lack of a consistent rule regarding Aces held by the House, whose ruling seemed to hinge on Barker's mood, certainly didn't help.
• Hurdles (1976–83): Too mechanically complex for its own good, malfunctioning frequently towards the end of its life.
• It's Optional (1978–83): Required knowing the price of various car options, which was asking way too much of contestants; to be fair, it was played for five years and won 60% of the time.
• Joker (1994-2007): Drew didn't like that it could be lost even if the contestant played the pricing portion perfectly, which happened several times.^[2]
• Make Your Mark (1994-2008; originally Barker's Marker$): Retired one playing into Season 37 after Drew screwed up the rules. Rather than correct him, the staff decided to make his mistake the "new rules"...then ousted the game right after that taping.
• Mystery Price (1973–74): Rules were too confusing and complicated, despite a favorable 11-6 win record.
• On The Nose (1984–85): Involved sports-related stunts, which was unfair to uncoordinated and/or physically-unfit contestants.
• On The Spot (2003–04): Confusing rules, awkward setup, and a low win percentage. A change for its last two playings to not even use all the small prizes, while resulting in wins, didn't exactly help.
• Penny Ante (1979-2002): Subject to prop breakdowns, and a rainstorm destroyed the prop while in storage. The staff had planned to build a new prop, but never got around to it and announced its retirement in Spring 2007.
• The Phone Home Game (1983–89): Took too long to play, plus not enough interest or ratings to justify its usage. Appeared to go into its usual yearly hiatus in 1989, but no Home Viewer Showcase appeared until April 1990 ("Summer Fun", the last HVS until March 2011).
• Poker Game (1975-2007): Truncated rules of Poker and a format whose nature forbade prizes more than $999. It's also the oldest game to never offer a car.
• Professor Price (1977): A setup which had almost nothing to do with the show's core format of identifying prices (trivia questions that had numbers as answers, then determining whether or not the number was in the price of the car) and a win structure that required getting at least one of the trivia questions right. To be fair, while it was only played twice (November 14 and 21, 1977) it was won on both playings, making it the only pricing game with a perfect record.
• Shower Game (1978): Boring game with no actual strategy and a rather large set (it stretched from the Turntable to Door #3!); a viewer's complaint that it reminded them of the Holocaust probably didn't help.
• Split Decision (1995–97): Considered too confusing, despite being played more frequently than Any Number (same prize types) during its lifespan. A contestant who stretched the 30-second format to its limit and knocked off two number cards didn't particularly help matters, either; neither did testing a "three tries" format on May 24 and 30, 1996. Its final playing (January 16, 1997) likely sealed the nail in the coffin after the contestant guessed $512 for the dishwasher on two occasions.
• Super Ball!! (1981–98): Skeeball-type game that often took far too long to play for too little payout, particularly if balls got stuck. Sometime between October 1986 and May 20, 1987, they began showing the first three small prizes together rather than one at a time. certainly streamlined the first half of the game, but didn't help in the long run.
• $uper $aver (1989–96): Retired at Bob's request after he screwed up the rules on-air and cost the contestant the game as a result. Also plagued with mechanical problems.
• Telephone Game (1978): Word of God (Roger) said, quite literally, that "It was lame!" Played just three times, and infamous for the fandom believing it used a completely wrong set of rules.
• Time Is Money (2003–04): Production issues that spent way too much time on filming and editing; a major rule change on its third playing to remove the $500 voucher made the name an Artifact Title and didn't help. Roger had planned a comeback on the Turntable with a smaller set, but never got around to it.
• Trader Bob (1980–85): Too similar to Give Or Keep, only without any room for error.
• Walk Of Fame (1983–85): Problems keeping up with inflation, which made the game too hard. The final playing didn't show the autograph book signatures (Bob, Johnny, Janice, Dian, and Holly) as, while Johnny was still alive, he had suffered the brain hemmorhage which eventually killed him and Gene Wood was announcing.
  • The game originally used three autograph books with one Second Chance, which was reduced to the more familiar two by its third playing (the second playing's contestant won the first three prizes).
  • The pricing portion of Rat Race may be a Spiritual Successor, since they both use "price ascending items within ascending ranges" mechanics.

Pyramid

• On The $25,000 Pyramid, the "7-11" bonus offered a choice — the team could take $50 per word or try to get all seven words for the $1,100 bonus. "Play it safe" was retired because almost nobody ever took it.
• The John Davidson $100,000 used more bonus categories, such as Double Trouble ^[3] and Gamble For A Grand/Trip.^[4]

Supermarket Sweep

• The first Lifetime season of Supermarket Sweep had a giant monster (such as Frankenstein's Monster or a gorilla) that would occasionally roam the aisles, and contestants would have to turn around if they encountered it.

Wheel Of Fortune

• Perhaps the most famous element that was retired from Wheel of Fortune was the shopping. Until the late 1980s, contestants used their cash winnings to buy prizes. On a whim, the producers experimented with a play-for-cash format on the nighttime version in October 1987, and it proved so successful that the shopping was permanently ousted from there. The daytime show continued to use shopping until the first CBS episode (July 17, 1989), which began using a scaled-down version of the play-for-cash format.
• Several categories have been retired over time. See here for a list; at least three were only used once, and one more didn't last a full season.
• From 1993-96, the show tried puzzles that included differently-colored letters as part of a home viewer sweepstakes. The differently-colored letters spelled out a word, which home viewers could then mail to the show to enter a prize drawing. Variants included red letters that spelled a common word; gold letters that spelled the name of an Academy Award winner; half red/half blue letters that spelled out the last name of a President; and half red/half blue letters that spelled out an Olympic event. Between 1992 and 1995, the "red letters unscrambled to form a common word" variant became part of the actual game, with a $500 bonus to the contestant if s/he could unscramble the word.
• Puzzler, used in Seasons 16 and 17. It was a mini-puzzle that could come after any of the first three rounds, with an answer related to the puzzle immediately before it. Solving the Puzzler in five seconds won a $3,000 bonus.
• The Preview Puzzle, present only in Season 17, was a partially-filled puzzle intended as a teaser for viewers at the top of the show, with no bearing on the game. This and the Puzzler were removed in season 18 and effectively replaced with the current Toss-Up rounds.
• Many wedges were also retired from the Wheel:
  • Countless dollar values, such as $1,500, a decent enough close-second if you can't hit $5,000.
  • Buy A Vowel, a single (two from Round 2 onward) wedge that contestants could land on in order to buy a vowel. Landing on it without having $250, or after all vowels in the puzzle had been bought, essentially turned it into another Lose A Turn. It was used from the original 1973 pilot until some point in 1975, lasting long enough to see the ousting of the original two-digit spaces and the arrival of gift certificates, a format which appeared in both of Milton-Bradley's Home Games. While the wedge was eventually retired, it's been hotly debated whether contestants were allowed to buy vowels at their discretion, and it's been suggested the thing was redundant all along.
  • The second Lose A Turn wedge, used for a time in 1975 for later rounds.
  • The Star Bonus token in April 1978, which allowed a contestant earning it to overtake the leading contestant in a bonus round at the end of the puzzle, played for one of the four big prizes in the show (the difficulty of the puzzle corresponded with the prize's value). However, there was no guarantee that the Star Bonus round would be played, so when it unexpectedly was the episode would be awkwardly edited to fit it in. The prizes designated for the Star Bonus were also available during regular rounds, meaning that any contestant could earn enough money to buy them and render an opponent's token useless. In addition, the day's eventual top-winner after the last regular round could claim the Star Bonus token.
  • Season 13 had Double Play, a token which could be used to double the value of the contestant's next spin. Far too many contestants wasted it by using it before hitting Bankrupt or Lose A Turn, or just never got around to using it.^[5]
  • The original Jackpot space, used from 1986-88 in daytime only; instead of adding the value of each spin like the current Jackpot does, this one merely increased by $1,000 every day until it was won. The highest known value for it was $21,000.
  • Surprise, a special prize which, if won, was not revealed until after the puzzle was solved. This was used for most of the 1990s.
  • 25 Wedge and Big Money Wedge, both used only in Season 25. The former offered a prize that was 25 of something (sometimes $2,500; i.e., 25 $100 bills), and the latter alternated among three different cash values (which were treated as an odd cross between a prize and a regular cash space: Like a prize it was not multiplied by the number of times the letter called appears in the puzzle, but if claimed the money could be used to buy a vowel as if it came from a cash space), Bankrupt and Lose A Turn. Season 25 also included a double-sized $2,500 wedge sponsored by Dawn dish soap for three weeks.
  • The $10,000 cash prize, a 1/3-size $10,000 wedge surrounded by 1/3-size Bankrupts. It was treated as a cash prize and could not be spent on vowels. This was re-worked in Season 26 for the identically-structured Million Dollar Wedge.
  • The Free Spin. Originally a wedge that could be landed on to claim a Free Spin token, then replaced on October 16, 1989 for a singular token placed on a money wedge. Any time that a contestant lost a turn, s/he could use Free Spin to get an Extra Turn right away, or opt to hold it until later. It was replaced by the Free Play wedge, where the extra turn is taken as soon as the wedge is hit, and no extra turn is offered if the first turn is successful. (The wedge also offers a free vowel.)
• The format of the bonus round initially allowed the player to pick from 5 prizes displayed on stage. Then the format changed to the contestant choosing a random envelope from the letters W-H-E-E-L, before being replaced with the bonus wheel used now.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

• The American Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? axed the Fastest Finger when the syndicated run debuted and just had contestants brought in one at a time. Later on, they removed the 50:50 (replaced by Double Dip amidst fan allegations that it wasn't actually random, basically started by Norm MacDonald), Phone-A-Friend (devolved into Phone-A-Person-To-Use-Google) and Switch The Question (Exactly What It Says on the Tin).
• In September 2010, the Clock system was replaced by Super Mix, which also dumped Double Dip and Ask The Expert for two of Jump The Question.

1. ↑ (Bankroll {1994-95} only used three questions, and one person from each family went up to answer all three.)
2. ↑ (The game had been scheduled to return on February 29, 2008, but was replaced by Bonus Game.)
3. ↑ ($500 for getting seven two-word phrases in 45 seconds)
4. ↑ (25 seconds to get all seven words for $1,000 or a trip)
5. ↑ (Word of God is that it also would've been discarded had someone used it before landing on a prize wedge, although that never happened.)