Give-N-Take

Very short-lived CBS Game Show in late 1975, created by Bill Carruthers and hosted by Jim Lange, in which four female contestants sat at podiums surrounding a spinning red arrow. A prize was presented along with its retail value, then a question was posed. Whoever answered correctly manipulated the arrow, hitting a button which caused the arrow to slow down on its own until it stopped. Whoever it stopped on could either accept that prize or pass it to an opponent (if the arrow stopped on a vacant area in between the players, whoever stopped it was given the options).

The object was to accumulate the most without going over $5,000; going over said amount locked that player out until she answered a question (in which case she could give a prize to an opponent, hopefully bringing her back under $5,000). After eight prizes, whoever was closest to $5,000 without going over won the game and those prizes.

Give-N-Take was a show that just didn't work — the format has been described as "lame", and the set's primary color was black in an era where pastels were the norm. Its airing history didn't help — it debuted on September 8 (the day The Price Is Right began an experimental week of hour-long shows) at 10:00 AM, replacing Lange's Spin-Off, and couldn't compete against NBC's Celebrity Sweepstakes; when Price permanently expanded on November 3, G-N-T was shunned off to the low-clearance spot of 4:00 PM and died on the 28th.


 * Bonus Round: The winner picked one of the four seats and stopped the arrow once more; if it landed in her area, she won all eight prizes.
 * Personnel:
 * The Announcer: Johnny Jacobs, usually a Chuck Barris standby.
 * Game Show Host: Jim Lange.
 * Studio Audience
 * Show the Folks At Home: Before the final prize, Jacobs read each player's score as they were shown on-screen.


 * Expy: Kind of like Say When!! (NBC, 1961-64) with a spinning arrow.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes: September 26 is among collectors (one of the few instances where the only existing/circulating episode is a master copy), while October 24 is held on audio tape by Archival Television Audio, Inc. There's also this plug from the end of the November 13 Tattletales.
 * Hey, It's That Sound: The arrow-spin cue was adopted in 1981 for Wheel of Fortune's new bonus round.
 * Luck-Based Mission: It was all a matter of where the arrow stopped.
 * Screwed by the Network: Described above. Granted, the show wasn't all that great to begin with, but still...