Hot Potato debuted on January 23, 1984. Sadly, it was given the noon time slot right from
the very beginning. The pic on the left is a ticket plug for the show. Hot Potato was short
lived, and replaced another short lived show, "Go" with Kevin o'Connell. It was given the
noon slot from the start, and it is the time that it got that is most likely to blame. To
boost ratings (or attempt to), Hot Potato went down the celebrity scene, with "Celebrity Hot Potato", starting with the April 16, 1984 episode. But it didn't help matters at all.
Celebrity Hot Potato, and the entire series, was canceled on June 29, 1984. But the rerun
history of this show is incredible, if I say so myself.
This is a funny coinidence. The first reruns of the show were on USA Network. The first
rerun aired on USA on June 29, 1987 (exactly 3 years after the show was canceled). USA
stopped airing the show on June 23, 1990. However, for a short period of time, it returned
from September 10, 1990 to December 28, 1990. Sony's Game Show Network currently has the
rights to Hot Potato. GSN aired Hot Potato from October 11, 1997 to April 12, 1998. GSN
has NOT ever aired a "Celebrity Hot Potato".
The game of Hot Potato was quite simple to play, and it was a game that was playable at home.
There were two teams of players, with 3 people to a team. All 3 players on the show had the
same occupation, or had something in common. The frontgame was played like this:
Bill asked a question that had a number of answers to it. And to win the round, a team had to
come up with the 7th correct answer to the question, or knock out all three members of the
other team, which would happen by challenging and them giving an incorrect answer. It took 2
winning games in order to go to the bonus game. But first, more about the frontend. See, if you
didn't think you could come up with one of the answers, all you had to do was challenge another
player to see if they knew the answer. If they didn't know an answer, then they got
asked to "sit on the bench". If they knew an answer, they got control of the game, and the
player that challenged gets knocked out and sits on the bench. If a team was able to answer
all seven answers correctly, without stopping or passing control, they got a "7 Straight
Jackpot". It started at $500. Every game after, $500 more was added. The highest it got to
and ended up getting won was a jackpot of $5,500.
Now, I'd like to talk a little about the bonus game. The bonus game originated as a game show pilot in the mid 1970s, entitled "Decisions, Decisions". The game was never made into a full show, but it was the basis for the bonus round here. (Incidently, Bill Cullen hosted the pilot, making it work out nicely). Bill would tell you the topic for the round. Most of the time, the question was worded out like, "Which of these two...." and he would fill in the blank with anything from noise levels to salery, from number of
people to who's married. Each show had a different topic. Everytime the team answered a question correctly, they got $500 added to the pot. If they were not sure on one, they had a pass they could use. However they would then have to answer the next one. They were allowed to stop the game whenever they wanted to, however if they answered 5 questions right, they won a jackpot. If it was the first time they went up there, the jackpot was $5000. Everytime a team loses, $5000 is added to the jackpot. If they win the bonus round, the jackpot is $5000 again, assuming they win another frontgame.
