Games - The Magnificent Marble Machine

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	Games - The Magnificent Marble Machine

The Magnificent Marble Machine was a short-lived American game show that was based on pinball, and starred Art James. The show ran on NBC from July 7, 1975 to June 11, 1976, but was interrupted for about two weeks in January, due to scheduling changes on the network. It aired in both half-hour slots between 12 Noon and 1 p.m. Eastern/11 a.m. and Noon Central. Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley, executive producers of the long-running NBC game "Hollywood Squares", packaged this program.

Game play

Two contestants (one a returning champion) competed, each paired with a celebrity partner, in this two-stage game.

In the first half of the game, the teams answered general knowledge questions, frequently invloving puns or other wordplay, which were displayed on the machine's huge electronic marquee. First, the players were shown blanks on the bottom line, denoting the number of words and letters in the answer; then a clue would crawl across the upper line. If no team buzzed in once the clue was revealed, letters of the answer then filled in at random as time progressed, similar to that with Scrabble's speedword.

(Sample questions: "He's center and he's square./#### #####" Answer: Paul Lynde. "An athlete's supporter/###" Answer: Fan)

Often, the host would preface the clue with an aditional clue: (e.g., the blanked-out answer "### ### #####" would appear, and the host might ask, "What does this man pull out?", then the clue, "A showy organist," would appear. Answer: all the stops.)

For any given question, only the contestant or the celebrity would be elligible to buzz in; this alternated with each question, and was indicated by lighted panels in front of the elligible player.

Correct answers were worth one point, and five points allowed the winning team to advance to the game's second stage – playing a giant pinball machine (20 feet high and 12 feet long) that served as The Magnificent Marble Machine's centerpiece.

Each team member manipulated one flipper button (each controlling two flippers), and it was their goal to keep the ball in play for as long as possible while accumulating points by hitting bumpers, noisemakers and lights. Hitting the large numbered bumpers won the contestant prizes, while hitting bumpers 2 and 3 in combination won a larger announced prize (such as a car or trip). Play on a ball ended if it fell into one of the two "out holes"; the flippers were disabled when the allocated 60 seconds expired. At some point, a bonus was added for hitting all seven numbered bumpers at least once.

If a team reached a target score after playing two balls (15,000 for each new champion, minus 1,000 for each return visit), the team played a bonus "gold money ball," where the player earned $200 for each bumper or noisemaker hit (later changed to $500 for each numbered bumper, with all other devices worthless).

The Magnificent Marble Machine was one of the most hyped game shows on NBC's daytime schedule, as programmers were hoping to cash in on the pinball craze. However, critics and viewers roundly panned the show; modifying the rules and changing the format to all celebrities (with guests playing for home audience members, and a studio audience member playing the bonus round) failed.

It wasn't long before NBC was forced to realize that The Magnificent Marble Machine was a dud, and a rather expensive one to boot. Although the last original episode aired in March 1976, NBC aired reruns until June, because of a technical strike affecting the network. The network finally cancelled the program when its replacement series, "The Fun Factory," was ready. Unfortunately, the career of host James was more or less sidetracked by the failure of this game, and a previous one he hosted early in 1975, "Blank Check." After this show's demise, James would only get two more hosting jobs, 1981's "Super Pay Cards" and 1985's "Catch Phrase." Neither of these games ran on a network.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Magnificent Marble Machine ]

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