Gambit
Last Update: October 24, 2001 – three more links in Read More About It.
Airing:
10:30-11 a.m. Monday-Friday through August 15, 11-11:30 a.m. Monday-Friday from August 18 on, CBS.
Personnel:
Wink Martindale, host; Elaine Stewart, hostess; Kenny Williams, announcer. A Merrill Heatter-Bob Quigley Production. Taped in Los Angeles.Description:
Q&A and blackjack, with a big deck of cards.Game Play:
Two married couples competed, a returning champion and a challenger. Martindale would read a question, and the first to ring in correctly was given the option of receiving or declining a card (roughly 8-1/2" x 11"). If they answered incorrectly, the opponents got the option. The first card was shown at the beginning of the game; all cards after that weren’t revealed until after they had been accepted or passed. At any point after receiving cards a couple could freeze (as one would stay in blackjack). This forced the other couple to answer each succeeding question correctly and take cards until they either went over 21 or beat the first couples’ hand (answering a question incorrectly at this point meant an automatic loss). So, say the first couple stopped at 18; this meant the second couple had to get 19, 20, or 21 to win the game. Two games won the match. Any 21 was worth at least $500; this amount went up $500 on every program until the jackpot was won.End Game:
The winning couple got to go to the Gambit board, which had 21 boxes. The couple could choose any box, behind each of which was a prize ranging from household appliances to vacations to the very popular $100 of groceries a month for a year at Ralph’s. (In 1975, that was pretty good eating.) The couple was dealt a card for every prize they selected (and so rooted for lots of small cards). I believe the couple had to continue playing up to 16 and had to stand at 17 or above, but I could be wrong there. If they went over 21, they lost everything; if they hit 21, they won a new car.Background:
The pilot for Gambit was shot May 13, 1972, with Wink chosen over Dick Clark to be the host, and premiered that September. Wink came into the show with lots of show business background. He had hosted What's That Song? (NBC, 1963-64), Dream Girl ’67 (ABC, 1967), How’s Your Mother-in-Law? (ABC, 1967-68), and Words and Music (NBC, 1970-71).
A longtime Los Angeles radio personality on KRLA and KHJ in Los Angeles, Wink’s first nationwide splash was as a recording artist with the story song "Deck of Cards."
Gambit did nicely right off the bat, knocking off NBC’s long-running Sale of the Century (which switched from three solo contestants to two couples in its last months in order to compete) and The Wizard of Odds. In 1974, Gambit was switched to 10:30, where it battled
Jeopardy! to a draw and ran over Winning Streak.A Heatter Argument:
The dealer of the cards, Elaine Stewart, was and is Mrs. Merrill Heatter. She was a pinup queen in the 1950s, and appeared in the films Brigadoon and The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond.
A Wink and a Prayer:
Gambit struggled against NBC’s Wheel of Fortune in 1975 (it wouldn’t be the last game in that situation). In August, CBS moved The Price Is Right back to 10:30 a.m., bumping Gambit to 11 and forcing Tattletales back to afternoons. Gambit competed successfully against NBC’s High Rollers (also a Heatter-Quigley property), but wound up against WoF again when NBC expanded it temporarily to an hour, then permanently when they left it as a half-hour 11 a.m. program, in effect flip-flopping WoF and High Rollers. Gambit’s last CBS broadcast was December 10, 1976, with Goodson-Todman’s Double Dare taking its place the following Monday. Wink went on to even greater success with Tic Tac Dough.Honeymoon for Vegas:
NBC brought back a revised version of the program, Las Vegas Gambit, in October 1980 (partially replacing the daytime David Letterman Show, which apparently still galls Dave 18 years later). Wink returned as host (thus hosting Gambit and TTD simultaneously) and Beverly Malden taking over as dealer (she would be replaced by Lee Menning halfway through the run). It was at this point that Gambit’s weaknesses began to show. The end game was reportedly shrunk to 18 cards from 21 (some reports have a "living card deck" of 52 people from the studio audience; information here would be most welcome!). In June 1981, they dropped this end game (these end games?) in favor of a dice game where the couple tried to remove the numbers one through nine from the board. In other words, the end game from High Rollers (which NBC had dropped to make room for Letterman, LVG's predecessor). I have no idea what CBS programmed against LVG (probably sitcom reruns), but it worked; NBC junked Las Vegas Gambit on November 27, 1981. Wink continued with TTD until 1985, produced and hosted the flop Headline Chasers, and soldiered with High Rollers (1987-88, syndicated), The Last Word (1989-90, syndicated), The Great Getaway Game (1990-91, The Travel Channel), Trivial Pursuit, Boggle, Jumble, and Shuffle (1993-95, The Family Channel). His most recent game, Debt, aired on Lifetime from 1996 through September 1998, and he’d probably be happy to host another game if you ask. He’s also hosting a syndicated "Music of Your Life" radio program.Matt Kaiser of ATGS reports Bob Eubanks hosted a 1990 pilot for a different version of Gambit, with simply two players rather than two couples. The pilot wasn’t picked up for a series.
Key Phrases:
The Home Game:
There was none. Aside from using couples as contestants, this would have been very easy to issue as a home game, and it might not be too hard to mount yourself with a bunch of questions from another game and a deck of cards. The Gambit Board might be harder, though.Reruns:
Neither the CBS nor the NBC versions appear to be around anymore, and Heatter-Quigley seems to have let almost all of their shows’ tapes to be destroyed. I swear I might have seen reruns of the CBS version in the late ‘70s on WPIX in New York; I could be mistaken. (Anybody have any 20-year-old New York metro copies of TV Guide lying around their attic?) There is one tape of the original version traded around with a huge win at the Gambit board.Revivals:
I guess the rights still belong to Merrill Heatter (unless MGM/UA has them). I don’t think either one will rush to get this back on the air in any case.Curt Alliaume, Executive Producer:
I’d leave the main game as it is. The end game is what needs a little bit of work. In a new version, there would be eleven boxes on the Gambit board, but the winning couple is also playing against the dealer. For every box they choose on the Gambit board, they receive a card, but then so does the dealer, who must hit up to 16 and stand on 17 or over. If the champions lose the hand, they don’t get the prizes, but they do receive $200 for every card dealt them in the end game. If they win (or push) the hand, they win the prizes received on the Gambit board (and they don’t have to get up to a certain number; they merely have to avoid going over 21). If they hit 21, they win the prizes plus five times the cash bonus for hitting 21, which I would raise: it starts at $1000 and increases a grand a day. If they hit blackjack, they win all the prizes on the Gambit board plus the cash bonus. Five consecutive wins adds the bonus of a new car and allows the couple to retire undefeated. Host: to add a little spice and irk the couples, Bob Eubanks. Theme Music: "Blackjack, " a Rupert Holmes song found on his 1980 album Adventure (only on CD in Japan, so you’ll have to take my word for it – the music works with and without lyrics).My 1975 Grade:
B.Read More About It:
Sound + Vision:
Gambit is a copyrighted title of Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley Productions. This page is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley Productions, MGM Television, their subsidiaries, affiliates, or successor organizations. No challenge to their ownership is implied. Photos originally appeared on eBay. Deck of Cards album copyright Hamilton Records (now defunct, I believe).