For every five opponents you defeat you win a new car. These included the Chevy Chevette, the Eagle pictured above and the Buick Skyhawk.
One of the memorable and highest money winners on Tic Tac Dough [and in game show history IMO since he did it the hard way] was Lt. Thom
Mckee. His winnings from 46 appearances on the show, 43 opponents he defeated, and winning 8 cars totalled to a whopping $312,700. One of his other achievements was winning the highest pot ever - $36,800.
The players ranked below Thom in money winnings were Kit Salisbury in 2nd with "only" $199,750 and Wilbur Hicks in 3rd with $159,600.
From The CBS Run
The highest amount a game could be worth was $900.
Because of the "jump-in's", this is why the podiums at the beginning of the syndicated run had signaling buttons despite the fact that they were never used.
In the event of a tie game, a jump-in question decided the winner.
The box with the dragon used a different color scheme consisting of an orange background and
the dragon's eyes blinking in magenta and yellow.
Champions were retired after reaching the $25,000 mark.
From The Syndicated Run
Each game (without special categories) had a possible $1,900 up for grabs.
Johnny Gilbert was the first person to do announcing duties for the syndicated run. He announced for the very first week and returned as a fill-in
for Charlie 'O Donnell in early 1984.
When the syndicated run first started out, the bonus round used smaller lettering for the dollar values, tic, and tac on the gameboard.
The board amounts for the bonus game first started out as "Tic, "Tac", $50, $150, $250, $350, $400, $500 and the dragon.
In the start of the Syndication run, the dragon in the bonus game used a green background with eyes blinking in red and yellow
Special Tournaments
Tournament of Champions - The 8 top winners from the series squared off in bracketed tournament for charity. No Special Categories, the defeated opponent
from each match played the bonus game, and the final match-up was played best two out of three.
Miss America - contestants were Miss America's from past time
Over 80 Tournament - contestants were over the age of 80
Classy Guys - Cool dudes such as Jed Allen and Wilt Chamberlain participated in this one
Ad for the CBS TTD [courtesy of Aaron Handy III]
Ticket from syndie TTD [courtesy of Aaron Handy III]
The Game Board [from Paul Fullwood]
The game board ran on 9 Apple II computers that served as display slaves to a controlling Altair 8080 system, The display slaves were written in 6502 assembly code and loaded each day from cassette recorders, The Altair interfaced to a custom built control console for the game board.
Miscellaneous
Before Wink, the hosting job was originally offered to Geoff Edwards.
Dan Enright reportedly had Wink reherse for a month before the pilot.
In 1983 and 1984, a Tic Tac Dough video game was supposed to come out for the Atari 2600 system but never did.
After almost 14 years of collecting dust, on Sunday July 16th, 2000 the Jim Caldwell episodes returned to air on Game Show Network.
Before becoming a writer for Barry & Enright Productions, Scott Wyant was a contestant on TTD who won an amazing 10 games and two automobiles. In addition, Scott was also a contestant for the $1,000,000 pilot and premiere episode of the short-lived cult classic Bullseye.
Reruns have been seen in various places. On USA Cable from 10/12/87 - 9/7/90 and on Game Show Network in varying eras including Caldwell.
Later host Jim Caldwell became a infomercial host, including those for "Roto Zip".
Between 1981 and 1984 when "Tic Tac Dough" (and its sister show, "Joker's Wild") were airing on CBS O & O's (Owned and Operated) there was a $50,000 limit imposed on winnings. Winnings over the amount were donated to charity.
