Games - Sale of the Century

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	Games - Sale of the Century

Sale of the Century is an international television game show format that has screened in several countries in various incarnations since 1969, but is most reknown in Australia, where it aired for 21 years and has returned under a new title, Temptation, in mid-2005.

The format is a general-knowledge quiz, where contestants (usually three) earn money for correct answers, and occasionaly have the chance to "buy" heavily-discounted prizes with their score money via "Instant Bargains." Long-running championS would compete to win enough money to buy larger prizes, such as trips or cars, at show's end; more successful ones could end up buying all the prizes on offer and/or a large cash jackpot.

After its original run (1969-74) in the USA, the format was purchased by Australian TV mogul Reg Grundy, whose Grundy Television had produced a similarly formatted program called Temptation (as well as a primetime version called The Great Temptation) between 1971 and 1976. The Grundy version of Sale premiered on Nine Network on July 14, 1980 and ran every weeknight until 2001, spawning versions all across the world (including new versions in the United States and the United Kingdom). At its close it was Australia's longest-running game show, a record since surpassed.

The game format varied in its details over the years and in various nations, however the core format which debuted in 1980 Australian version, as presented below, remained unchanged.

Australian edition

In Australia, Tony Barber hosted the original Temptations and was also the initial host of Sale, replaced by Glenn Ridge in 1990. Hostesses over the years included Victoria Nicholls, Alyce Platt, Nicky Buckley, Delvene Delaney, Jo Bailey, and Karina Brown. Pete Smith was Sale's announcer.

Main Game

All contestants were spotted with $20 to start. The host read a trivia question to the three contestants (one of which was usually the winner of the previous show) who had to press a buzzer to answer the question. Correct answers were worth $5, while incorrect answers were minus the same amount. If a player answered incorrectly, the answer was revealed and the game went on to the next question - only one person could answer the question.

Instant Bargain/Giftshop

Once per round, the highest-scored player gets to go to a "giftshop" ("Instant Bargain" in the U.S.), and was offered the chance to sacrifice some part of his/her score to "purchase" a prize. The prizes, and the cost, increased in each round. Contestants were allowed to haggle with the host, who, depending on the game situation, could reduce the cost and offer inducements including actual cash in order to entice the contestant to purchase. If two or more players had the same score at this point, a Dutch auction was conducted for the prize.

=Cashcard===== In later series of the Australian version, the final prize sale was replaced with a "cashcard," a slot-machine device which the contestant spun for an opportunity to either win a cash prize of several thousand Australian dollars (equivalent to perhaps a month's average wages for a middle-class Australian at the time), earn the opportunity to win a car later in the game (see section on major prizes), receive the score he/she sacrificed back, or reduce the score of a competitor slightly.

Who am I?/Fame Game

A longer-format question known as the "Who Am I" question (known in the U.S. as "The Fame Game"), was asked once in each of the three rounds. Here, a succession of increasingly larger clues were given to the identity of a famous person, place, or event. In this round, players could buzz-in and answer at any time, without penalty for an incorrect answer. However, each player only had one chance to answer. If one of the players buzzed-in and answered correctly, he/she had an opportunity to play the "famous faces" subgame, where he/she got to choose randomly from a game board with nine squares featuring the faces of celebrities, mostly performers on the network's shows. Once chosen, the face selected would be spun around to reveal either a relatively small prize (typically appliances or furniture valued at around a weekly wage) or a $25 money card, which awarded $25 to the player's score. Later series added additional $10 and $15 money cards to the gameboard, with the $10 available at the outset, the $15 added at the second "Who am I" and the $25 at the third. Also added in the third "Who am I" was a "wildcard," which offered the choice of $1000 in cash or a chance to pick again.

Fast Money/Speedround

The main game ended with a "fast money" segment ("speedround" in the U.S.), where the host would ask the questions in a particularly rapid-fire manner, attempting to fit in as many questions as possible in a 60 second time limit. Furthermore, there was a shorter 30-second fast money section in round two. Most of the more successful players proved themselves particularly adept at this section.

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