A Jack Barry/Dan Enright Production produced with Columbia-Tristar Television, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment
Hosts:
Jay Jackson (NBC), Jack Barry (NBC), Gene Rayburn (NBC), Bill Wendell (NBC), Win Elliot (NBC), Johnny Olson (NBC sub), Wink Martindale (CBS/1st Syndie), Jim Caldwell (1st Syndie), Patrick Wayne (2nd Syndie)
Announcers:
Bill Wendell (NBC), Bill McCord (NBC), Johnny Olson (NBC), Jay Stewart (CBS/1st Syndie), Charlie O'Donnell (1st Syndie), Mike Darrow (1st Syndie), Art James (1st/2nd Syndie), Larry Van Nuys (2nd Syndie)
Opening Spiel: "From Hollywood, it's everybody's game of strategy, knowledge, and fun... It's Tic Tac Dough!
Synopsis: A tic-tac-toe quiz featuring a dragon.
The Game: Two contestants compete to get three boxes in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The returning champion is represented by an "X," while the challenger uses an "O" as his mark. Nine categories are revealed, such as MAPS OF STATES, FUNNY LADIES and BOTANY. In the CBS and syndicated versions, there are also red boxes representing special categories, and (à la Jim Caldwell:) I'll explain them when we get to them. (/Caldwell) The champion selects a box and tries to answer a question in that box's category. If the champion is correct, the box is credited to him, and money goes into the pot ($100 (CBS), $200 (1st Syndie), $300 (NBC) or $500 (2nd Syndie)). If the champion is incorrect, control passes to the challenger. After a question is played, the categories are shuffled. If a player goes for the center box, a two-part question must be answered. The values for the center box are: $200 (CBS), $300 (1st Syndie), $500 (NBC), and $1000 (2nd Syndie). The first player to make tic-tac-dough wins whatever money is in the pot, and on the NBC version, the champ immediately faces a new challenger. In the CBS and syndie versions, the champ goes on to "face the dragon" for bonus cash and prizes, which I'll tell you about later on.
If the game ended a tie, a new game started with the pot carried over to the next game. On the CBS version a tie game was broken with a jump-in question, and in the 1990 version, the pot from the previous game was reset to zero, and the question values for each subsequent game increased ($2000-center and $1000-outer; if a second tie occured, the value became $3000/$1500).
Red Bonus Categories: The red categories are special categories and are played differently. Among some of the special categories used on the show were:
TOP TEN (TOP THIS): A question with a number of ranked answers, usually ten, is asked. Whoever gives the higher-ranked answer wins the box.
AUCTION: Players bid against each other to see how many parts of a question can be answered. If the player answers all the questions in the bid correctly, the box is won, otherwise the opponent needs to give only one more answer to earn the box.
JUMP-IN CATEGORY: Whoever buzzes in correctly to a question wins the box.
DOUBLE OR NOTHING: The player can earn two boxes or nothing on this category. A question from a selected category is asked, and if the player answers correctly, the player selects another question to be answered. If the player is correct on the second question, both boxes are earned; otherwise, nothing.
Dragon Bonus Round: Behind nine boxes are different amounts of money ($100, $150, $250, $300, $400, $500), a TIC, a TAC, and a DRAGON. The object of the bonus round was to earn $1000 or get both TIC and TAC before hitting the DRAGON, which lost everything. If the bonus round was won, the player won a prize package worth $3000-$5000, plus any money won in excess of the $1000 bonus game money (Ex: $1150 of bonus round money = $150 bonus cash). The player then faced a new challenger.
Dragon BR (CBS): This time there were three X's, three O's, the TIC, the TAC, and the DRAGON. The player chose a symbol and then had to find the three matching symbols (or get both TIC and TAC) to win the prize package.
Dragon BR (1990): The TIC and TAC were jettisoned in this bonus round, and the board added the DRAGONSLAYER, which automatically won the bonus round and doubled the bonus pot. The player chose a symbol, X or O, and the object was to get three of their symbol in a row or find the DRAGONSLAYER. For the first symbol, $500 is won, and the player could choose to stop or go on. Every other symbol found double the pot and if the DRAGONSLAYER is found, the pot is doubled one more time and awarded. The player also wins a prize package worth between $2000-$3000.
New Car: Except on the NBC version, any contestant winning five games in a row won a new car.
Episodes: The entire NBC run is obliterated, the CBS run may be lost, but both syndicated versions survive, the Martindale/Caldwell version being rerun on USA and currently on Game Show Network. The Wayne version has been rerun on USA.
Tic Tac Dough Facts:
This was Wink Martindale's most successful game show to date, next to his 1972 effort, Gambit. Wink later created the syndicated Headline Chasers, USA's Bumper Stumpers, CBN's Second Honeymoon, and an unsold CBS pilot, Top Secret.
Jim Caldwell turned out to be a better infomercial host than a game show host. He currently hawks the Roto-Zip tool on TV.
Jay Jackson appeared in an episode of The Honeymooners as the host of The $99,000 Answer, a game show in which Ralph Kramden was a contestant. (He bombed out on the first question!)