The Money Maze
Last Update: June 14, 2004 – a new link added.
Airing:
4-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, January 1-July 4, ABC.Personnel:
Nick Clooney, host; Alan Kalter, announcer. A Daphne & Don Lipp Production. Taped in New York City.Description:
One member of a married couple runs through a life-size maze while their spouse calls out instructions. No, seriously.
Game Play:
Two married couples competed. A subject was introduced with two possible clues to an answer. The first couple would choose which clue the second couple would then answer. If correct, the second couple won one point and then had two clues from which to choose for the first couple; if incorrect, the first couple could win the round by answering the clue correctly. Play continued in this manner until all eight clues were used or until a couple won the round (they could then answer the remaining clues left in the subject for additional points). If each couple had four points at the end of the subject, the tie-breaker was the "three-point play" – two more clues were introduced, with the first clue chosen by the couple that rang in first worth one point, and the second worth two points. If the first couple missed the first or the second clue, the other couple could answer and win the round. The couple who won the round ran the maze.The maze was a large maze at ground level in the studio (possibly 50’ x 100’, although I have my doubts), with towers, movable wall boards, and a revolving door in the middle. (Several boards were moved before each taping, and there were a few completely different maze configurations that showed up from week to week.) One member of the couple ran the maze, while the other stood near the original playing area in "the crow’s nest" and called out instructions. A prize was described, then its position was indicated by lighting up a tower in the maze (there were ten in all). The runner then had to find that tower (with the help of their partner, calling out instructions from above) and press a button on the designated side of the tower within 15 seconds to win the prize. (Pressing the wrong side’s button didn’t count.) Three rounds were played in this manner.
In the Catch-Up Round, the team trailing went first, and were offered clues in a new subject. The first clue was worth one point, the second worth two points, and so on until the trailing team either caught up or missed a clue (thereby giving the game to their opponents). If the trailing team caught up, the team leading going into the Catch-Up Round was given an opportunity to answer one final clue for the game. The winning couple ran the $10,000 Dash. (If the two teams were tied going into the Catch-Up Round, both ran the $10,000 Dash.)
End Game:
Again, one member of the couple ran the maze while the other went to the Crow’s Nest. The five digits in $10,000 were hidden in five towers in the maze – the four zeros and the 1. In 60 seconds, the runner had to find the digits and get out of the maze, hitting the big red button on a stand (later looking like a birthday cake) to win the money. They had to hit the 1 in order to win any money at all – four zeros yielded nothing. Just hitting the 1 won one dollar, a 1 and a zero $10, a 1 and two zeroes $100, and so on up to $10,000. A couple that won $10,000 retired from the show, and winning less than that (or nothing, as it was possible to garner $10,000 but not make it out of the maze in time) returned to the next show, for a maximum of three days.Background:
The Moneymaze, the pilot (note the different spelling) was taped early in 1974, also with Clooney (a news anchorman in Cincinnati and brother of singers Rosemary and Betty Clooney) as host. Clooney, however, was without the perm he would have in the series. Game play was slightly different; couples needed to win three prizes in order to run the $10,000 Dash. Although not evident in the pilot, this would have forced games to straddle between episodes, with the possibility of endless games waiting for one couple to successfully run the maze three times in 14 seconds or less. By the time the series started, the format described above was in place. The show was produced by Daphne Productions (in reality talk show host Dick Cavett – hey, don’t laugh, David Susskind’s company produced the original Supermarket Sweep) and Don Lipp Productions, who also had a hand in The Big Showdown.The smartest decision made by the producers was the audience seating. Rather than ten or twelve rows of seats behind the maze, studio audience members were seated in three rows around it. This allowed more participation in the game, as well as a stunning number of shots of the studio audience for the folks back home (including one of the author, age 12, with his family).
A-Maze-ing Debut
: The debut show December 23, 1974 (replacing The $10,000 Pyramid, which moved to 2 p.m. to unseat The Newlywed Game) was a classic. The couples tied after all three rounds, which meant both ran the $10,000 Dash – and both won $10,000. It was a feat I don’t believe they managed to repeat during the rest of the show’s run.Masters of the Maze:
The most famous (or infamous) couple to play the game I can only remember as Warren and his wife (hey, this happened over 20 years ago; be thankful I can remember a first name!). Warren ran the maze, and it became clear he was utterly incapable of following directions (this was not infrequent, as the spouse in the Crow’s Nest sometimes had to clarify instructions by saying "No, my right!"). In any case, during their first run in the $10,000 Dash, Warren found one tower – with a zero – and that was all. Finally, in utter frustration, his wife shouted out, "Get out of the maze, Warren, get the hell out of the maze!" – which may have been one of the first times an expletive was aired on a game show. They did manage to last all three days, and Warren improved somewhat, but they never won the $10,000.Money Troubles:
Oh, how they tried. The Money Maze offered bigger prizes (including, occasionally, a car for a successful 15-second run in the main game). Additional prizes (the option of going for a $500 money tower in addition to the prize offered per round, with 10 additional seconds to accomplish this feat). Nick Clooney singing at the top of every episode, thus reminding us he was from a musical family. Even a week with celebrity-contestant teams rather than married couples (the celebrities, for those interested, were Soupy Sales and Anita Gillette). But nothing worked. (I doubt celebrities would have worked on a full-time basis – the show’s New York base would have limited the availability of celebrities, and the mental image of Arlene Francis or Kitty Carlisle running the maze just isn’t a pretty one.)Primarily, the show’s premise – a maze, after all! -- held this show back. (In a newspaper column recollecting the show, Clooney notes some critics had a field day with it.) Also, the game’s prime competition was CBS’s
Tattletales, which aired right after the hottest program in daytime television, Match Game ’75. Finally, Clooney notes it took two full days to assemble the set, a full day to tape five shows, and another full day to disassemble it, which meant the studio wasn’t available for other programming -- a serious problem. Ultimately, The Money Maze was dropped, along with four other ABC games (Blankety Blanks, Password, Split Second, and The Big Showdown), over a two-week period halfway through the year. The last episode aired July 4, 1975, with the final week’s run repeats from earlier episodes in the series.Without a Clooney:
Nick Clooney was one of the rare game show hosts to run one and only one short-run game in the 1970s. (I can think of a few others, but not many.) Clooney apparently returned to Cincinnati and restarted his journalism career – I’m of the opinion he preferred to keep his family in Kentucky. A host of On Trial in the late ‘80s, he was best known as one of the hosts on the American Movie Classics cable channel. He still makes occasional appearances on the station, but no longer works with them full time (he commuted between New York and his home in Kentucky to tape the introductions, which probably became tiresome). Clooney is currently handling morning drive on WSAI 1530, a big band and popular standards station in Cincinnati. He’s also written two books: a collection of newspaper columns called Nick: Collected Columns of Nick Clooney (Irena Hochman Fine Art Ltd., 1997), and one called Cincinnati: City of Charm -- A Love Story (publisher and release date unavailable). His son George has had some success as a film and television actor. Announcer Alan Kalter currently is the voice of The Late Show with David Letterman.Key Quotes:
The Home Game:
You can’t put a 50’ x 100’ maze in a box. And there’s no way to recreate the maze, even in the hedge mazes of Britain’s finest castles (I tried – no Crow’s Nest).Repeats:
All epsiodes of this series are assumed to be destroyed by ABC except the pilot, which unfortunately doesn’t measure up to the rest of the series.Revivals:
I’d love to see it happen, but wishing won’t make it so. The Money Maze was my favorite game as a youth, and I was crushed when it was cancelled (although not surprised; I’d grown pretty aware of the nature of the television business at age 12). But the show’s goofy game play (and normally I can’t stand programs like that) works against it. It’s also not very adaptable for kids – due to their different heights, taller children would have a possible advantage of seeing above the walls (which were just under six feet high for this run), while smaller children could get lost altogether. The memories of this show are great (and the theme music, by Goodson-Todman perennial Score Productions, was fabulous), but this one will probably never return.My Grade:
B+.Read More About It:
E-Mail Me With Your Memories of The Money Maze
The Money Maze is a copyrighted title of Daphne Productions and Don Lipp Productions. This page is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Daphne Productions, Don Lipp Productions, their subsidiaries, affiliates, or successor organizations. No challenge to their ownership is implied. Photo of Nick Clooney originally appeared in The Cincinnati Enquirer. Photo first appeared on eBay.