On the Spot

1/27/03 - 2005 (Retired)

On the Spot is a game played for a car.  There are 3 "paths" that a contestant can take to win the car.  Each path has three prices.  Each price corresponds to one of six small prizes.  If the contestant matches the price to the prize, s/he moves one step further down the path.  If s/he guesses all three prices in the path correctly, s/he wins the car.  If s/he incorrectly pairs a price to a prize, s/he moves back to the spot and can try with one of the other paths.  Some of the prices appear in multiple paths, making a second path trek slightly easier if the contestant has already uncovered that price.  The game continues until the car is won or all three paths have been exhausted.

The game is a little too difficult for what it is, and to make matters worse, it's one of the worst staged games ever.  The "spot prices" are so hard to read that only a close up shot will reveal what they are, and even a contestant standing directly in front of the price could confuse $68 for $89 (as happened on the second playing).  Also, the color scheme seems to have been chosen at random by a 5th grader.  The obscenely-overcolored small price platform set against the backdrop of the already-obscene Hollywood-motif turntable could cause seizures. 

For reasons that should be clear to almost anyone involved, On the Spot was retired in 2005.  People just weren't winning it enough and it looked awful.

Set Changes:  On the third playing of the game, the little circles on the paths that had once shown the price both towards the contestant and away from the contestant were changed.  Now they show the price away from the contestant (but towards the cameras) in a larger, easier-to-read font.  For the contestant's benefit, small pieces of tape with the prices are placed facing the contestant.  Still, a terrible design.