The Big Moment
Host: Brad Sherwood
Announcer: John Cramer
Lifespan: Summer 1999
Premise: Families and friends can win $25,000 by completing a difficult task after a week of practice.
Premise: One of the show's correspondents visits the challengers at their home and presents the challenge for them to accomplish, and leaves a video camera for them to record their practice. After one week, the team returns to the studio and has one chance to perform the challenge in front of the audience and the home viewers. If successful, they win $25,000 in money and prizes that were chosen by the contestants. These are some of the challenges presented:
* Teach a newborn puppy five tricks.
* Spin ten plates within 2 minutes, and keep them spinning for 20 seconds.
* Complete an obstacle course while riding a unicycle. The course consisted of three slalom cones. The rider had to negotiate all three cones and return to the start line without falling from the seat, no time limit.
* Memorize and recite "pi" to 100 places.:
(3.1414592653 5897932384 6264338327 9502884197 1693993751 0582097494 4592307816 4062862089 9862803482 5342117067) This was the only challenge played twice, and won twice.
* Perform six tricks with three juggling boxes in order, without dropping any at any time.
* Identify 12 ice cream flavors randomly chosen from a pool of 30. The contestant has five minutes, and may pass and return twice.
* Have three or four people keep a ping-pong ball in play for 50 returns, each time putting down the paddle, and moving to the opposite side.
* Keep three hula hoops spinning simultaneously for 30 seconds.
* Balance a a 6 foot 6 inch ladder on the chin for 10 seconds.
* Answer questions based on the movie "Ghost."
* Perform Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" with all notes in order, not counting tempo.
* Pull a tablecloth out from beneath a set table, without upsetting any pieces.
* Hit four plates in a hockey goal in 90 seconds, with 30 pucks.
* Sink seven pool balls: six near each corner, one in the center, in seven shots, calling the pocket of the center ball. No scratching allowed,
and the contestant could ask a family member to make one shot.
* Name the flags of 30 countries out of a pool of 150. No misses/passes allowed, and 10 seconds for each answer.
* Play the theme from "Rocky" note for note (see "Moonlight Sonata" above) in two minutes, on a set of nine handbells.
* Two people must perform a speech from "The Taming of the Shrew" getting every word right.
Finally, the producers resigned this show as a summer replacement, and it was cut to a half hour to make room for the
"Movie of the Week" ABC now runs. With the half hour show came the Audience Challenge.
After the first team got the chance to play their game, Brad went into the audience and selected someone to perform a stunt at the end of the show for $5,000.
The two games played were:
* Memorize the names and birth months of fifteen chosen audience members. The contestant was
given pictures of the audience members along with their months. For the test, the actual audience members were lined up just like in the picture. Two minutes
were allotted, along with unlimited passes.
* Break into a car with a coat-hanger in 1:30. (Couldn't they just call AAA?)
If I am missing any games played in the show's short run, please send an e-mail. I know I missed at least one full-hour episode.
Home Play: This one doesn't translate to home. The whole point behind the practicing was the $25,000 prize at the end of the road. Although, I've set the pool challenge for a couple of friends, and it gave them fits trying to finish it.
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