Notes and Facts
For every five opponents you defeat you win a new car. These included the Chevy Chevette, the Eagle pictured above and the Buick Skyhawk.
One of the memorable and highest money winners on Tic Tac Dough [and in game show history IMO since he did it the hard way] was Lt. Thom
Mckee. His winnings from 46 appearances on the show, 43 opponents he defeated, and winning 8 cars totalled to a whopping $312,700. One of his other achievements was winning the highest pot ever - $36,800.
The players ranked below Thom in money winnings were Kit Salisbury in 2nd with "only" $199,750 and Wilbur Hicks in 3rd with $159,600.
From The CBS Run
- The highest amount a game could be worth was $900.
- Because of the "jump-in's", this is why the podiums at the beginning of the syndicated run had signaling buttons despite the fact that they were never used.
- In the event of a tie game, a jump-in question decided the winner.
- The box with the dragon used a different color scheme consisting of an orange background and
the dragon's eyes blinking in magenta and yellow.
- Champions were retired after reaching the $25,000 mark.
From The Syndicated Run
- Each game (without special categories) had a possible $1,900 up for grabs.
- Johnny Gilbert was the first person to do announcing duties for the syndicated run. He announced for the very first week and returned as a fill-in
for Charlie 'O Donnell in early 1984.
- When the syndicated run first started out, the bonus round used smaller lettering for the dollar values, tic, and tac on the gameboard.
- The board amounts for the bonus game first started out as "Tic, "Tac", $50, $150, $250, $350, $400, $500 and the dragon.
- In the start of the Syndication run, the dragon in the bonus game used a green background with eyes blinking in red and yellow
Special Tournaments
- Tournament of Champions - The 8 top winners from the series squared off in bracketed tournament for charity. No Special Categories, the defeated opponent
from each match played the bonus game, and the final match-up was played best two out of three.
- Miss America - contestants were Miss America's from past time
- Over 80 Tournament - contestants were over the age of 80
- Classy Guys - Cool dudes such as Jed Allen and Wilt Chamberlain participated in this one
Ad for the CBS TTD [courtesy of Aaron Handy III]
Ticket from syndie TTD [courtesy of Aaron Handy III]
The Game Board [from Paul Fullwood]
The game board ran on 9 Apple II computers that served as display slaves to a controlling Altair 8080 system, The display slaves were written in 6502 assembly code and loaded each day from cassette recorders, The Altair interfaced to a custom built control console for the game board.
Miscellaneous
- Before Wink, the hosting job was originally offered to Geoff Edwards.
- Dan Enright reportedly had Wink reherse for a month before the pilot.
- A home
game was released in 1978 by Ideal Games
- In 1983 and 1984, a Tic Tac Dough video game was supposed to come out for the Atari 2600 system but never did.
- After almost 14 years of collecting dust, on Sunday July 16th, 2000 the Jim Caldwell episodes returned to air on Game Show Network.
- Before becoming a writer for Barry & Enright Productions, Scott Wyant was a contestant on TTD who won an amazing 10 games and two automobiles. In addition, Scott was also a contestant for the $1,000,000 pilot and premiere episode of the short-lived cult classic Bullseye.
- Reruns have been seen in various places. On USA Cable from 10/12/87 - 9/7/90 and on Game Show Network in varying eras including Caldwell.
- Later host Jim Caldwell became a infomercial host, including those for "Roto Zip".
- Between 1981 and 1984 when "Tic Tac Dough" (and its sister show, "Joker's Wild") were airing on CBS O & O's (Owned and Operated) there was a $50,000 limit imposed on winnings. Winnings over the amount were donated to charity.
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