Treasure Mall

Syndicated children's Game Show in which two teams of kids answered survey-type questions in a "mall" order to earn the right to search one of its "stores" for coins, which counted toward prizes. Hosted by a young Hal Sparks and paired with Slime Time, one of the most blatant Double Dare ripoffs in existence.

Two teams, each consisting of a boy and a girl, answered a multiple-choice survey-based question (such as "what do third graders say they wish they could change about their mom?"). Each kid locked in his or her own answer, and all matching answers scored a point. Questions were asked until one team scored five points, at which point that team earned the right to search a store in the mall. Each store contained 16 coins, and prizes were awarded based on how many they found; finding all 16 won the team the two best prizes available. The process was repeated, and the team that had found the most coins after two rounds had the chance to unlock the Treasure Chest. This consisted of tearing through a number of boxes onstage to find keys, after which each would be tried in the Treasure Chest; finding a key that unlocked it won the grand prize package, which included a trip for the entire family.

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The following Game Show tropes appear in Treasure Mall:

• Bonus Round: The Treasure Mall Treasure Chest.
• Confetti Drop: Confetti cannons fired if a team unlocked the Treasure Chest; a good amount of it was stashed in the boxes the team had to search through to find the keys here as well.
• Consolation Prize: For the losing team; also, a $50 gift certificate per key found in the Bonus Round if unsuccessful.
• Covered in Gunge: To find the coins, you had to dig through props filled with it.
• Personnel:
  • Game Show Host: Hal Sparks.
  • The Announcer: Ed MacKay.
  • Studio Audience: Not shown, but definitely heard.
• Prize Letdown: A sewing machine, on a kids' show! Granted, they did offer the standard TV/Nintendo/stereo fare as well, and the grand prize haul wasn't too shabby.

Tropes used in Treasure Mall include:

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The red team vs. the green team, as indicated by their outfits.
• Excited Kids' Show Host: Of the Over Sixes variety.
• Follow the Leader: One of many games that followed the "messy kids' show" trend of the late 1980s.
• Hey, It's That Sound: The weird buzzer that sounded when a key failed to open the Treasure Chest was also used when a team didn't match on I'm Telling Both shows were produced, at least in part, by Saban Productions.
• Hollywood Giftwrap: Inverted big time in the Bonus Round, and precisely what made it so damn hard. You had a grand total of 30 seconds to unwrap the boxes and find keys; most teams were lucky to find three or four.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Has never been rerun.
• Recycled in Space: Finders Keepers IN A MALL!
• Short Runner: Ran from June through September 1988.
• Timed Mission: Each store was divided into four sections, two per contestant, and you could spend 25 seconds in each; in the Bonus Round, you had 30 seconds to find the keys in the boxes in order to open the Treasure Chest.
• Totally Radical: Hal Sparks' hosting technique, and HOW.