Caesars Challenge
Short-lived NBC Game Show from 1993, most notably the last new daytime game on the network and the final new network daytime game ever until CBS revived Let's Make a Deal in 2009. The show was filmed on location at the Caesars Palace casino in Las Vegas, resulting in the show having an obvious Ancient Grome casino overtone, complete with a gladiator as co-host. Despite this, it was a word game; three contestants competed to unscramble words from letters showing on the nine reels on a giant slot machine.
However, despite the similar looking board, this wasn't anything like Countdown; players answered trivia questions from a category related to the word to earn the right to reveal the correct position of one of the letters. Cash was awarded for each correct answer, plus a chance to solve the puzzle.
It's also the only game by Stephen J. Cannell Productions, better known for The Greatest American Hero, The A-Team, and Wiseguy.
- Bonus Round: Two formats were used.
- The first had letters drawn like lottery balls until nine letters that could form a word had been drawn, then Caesar said STOP, and the winner had 10 seconds to guess the word. Letters would be placed, much like the main game, one for each day the contestant has been the champion.
- About halfway through the run, this changed to solving five words (each with one letter more than the last, starting at 5), slowly unscrambling themselves, in 30 seconds.
- Balloon Drop: If the car was won.
- Bonus Space: The "Lucky Slot"; pick the letter that appears in this position and solve the puzzle, and you win a progressive jackpot bonus which starts each day at $500.
- Game Show Winnings Cap: Theoretically eight days under the first bonus format; explicitly three under the second bonus format. Players retired immediately upon winning the car.
- Personnel:
- Game Show Host: Ahmad Rashād.
- The Announcer: Steve Day.
- Studio Audience: They got to play an audience game at the end of the show. Spectators could unscramble words to earn chocolate coins and casino tokens.
- Show the Folks At Home: Sometimes at seemingly random times, Ahmad would keep the topic of the scrambled word from the contestants, in which case he's say "Now, here's the topic for the home audience only".
- Think Music: As the contestants study the scrambled word.
- Also a piece of music played during the second version of the Bonus Round would start slowly and rapidly speed up in tempo as time ran out.
- Carried by the Host: Ahmad's hosting style was...relaxed...to say the least. He made mistakes, and laughed in odd places a lot, yet still seemed in control and professional.
- Catch Phrase: "Caesar says, STOP!", followed by Ahmad's "Caesar says 'Stop', so we do..."
- Pilot: Taped in 1992, with a betting format for the maingame. Amusingly, the last word in the audience game is "PILOT".
- Scenery Porn: Something about that giant letter cage was just so cool, the producers kept it on stage even after they changed the Bonus Round that used it.
- The Greek-influenced set could probably count as such too.
- Those Two Guys: Ahmad Rashād and the various Centurions (most recognizably Dan) would spend a few minutes with jokes and props before starting the game.