Face the Music
Host: Ron Ely
Music: Lisa Donovan (vocal), Tommy Oliver (conductor)
Premise: Three contestants play a combination music game and photo ID challenge for a shot at $10,000.
Rules: In round one, three contestants are shown several photographs. After that, the contestants try to name a song played by the orchestra or sung by Lisa. Whoever named the song could score 10 points by identifying the photo the song was associated with. Players who were incorrect on either portion were locked out of the next question.
Round two
The band and/or Lisa would perform a song, and whoever buzzed in with the name got a chance to guess the topic. All songs for a particular round would pertain to a person, place, thing, fictional character, and so forth. A correct identification of the topic won 20 points. An incorrect song answer locked that player out of the next song, but guesses were free. After round two, the low scorer of the three is eliminated, and we get a commercial break, and it's time for round three.
Round three featured the remaining challengers, playing a similar game for 30 points per correct guess. The high scorer moved on to the Championship Round. In the Championship Round, the challenger met the champion for up to $10,000 in cash. A song was played and a photo shown. Whoever buzzed in and identified the song could win $10,000 in cash by naming who the photo was of (the photos began at childhood and ranged through maturity, finally ending with a recent color photo.) Originally, the top prize was made up of prizes as well, but soon changed to the cash jackpot. Each photo and song needed to name the celebrity reduced the value to $5000 in prizes, then $4000, and so forth down to $1000. Whoever correctly named the celebrity won the game, got the prizes/cash and returned on the next show at the Championship Round. Players who won five games also won a Datsun, and the single champ who won ten games retired with a trip around the world, along with all the cash and prizes accumulated to that point.
Home Play: A good game deserves a good box game. This isn't one of them. I commend Troy N. Diggs for his 'net version.
Travis' Review: First, I don't care much for the old musical guessing games, and adding pop culture personalities from before I was born doesn't help, either when watching in reruns. The puzzle idea is pretty clever.
My Rating: +2
Notable Players:
Sarabeth Rothfeld was the only person over the course of the show's run to win the ten games, along with the trip round-the-world, totalling $50,000 in cash and prizes over the two weeks.