Changes: Mindreaders

Revision as of 23:01, 3 June 2021


Aired
Pilot, August 3, 1979 NBC Daytime, Monday, August 13, 1979 – Friday, January 11, 1980
Number of episodes
109
Run time
30 Minutes
Host
Dick Martin
Announcer
Johnny Olson
Origination
NBC Studio 4, Burbank, California

Mindreaders was the short-lived game of ESP and prediction where celebrities predict what the contestants will say and vice versa.

Game format

Two teams of four players (three civilians and one celebrity) played the game in a battle-of-the-sexes manner.

Main Game

Host Martin read a question to one group of three civilian contestants after which they locked in their answers. The celebrity team captain's job was to predict how they answered that question. A correct prediction keeps control for that celebrity captain and predicts the next player in line. If the celebrity is incorrect, the celebrity captain of the opposing team gets to predict the remaining controlling teammates' responses.

Each correct answer is worth $50, with the money going to the other team for incorrect answers, and the first team to reach $300 wins the game and goes on to play the bonus game.

Bonus Game

The bonus game was played in two parts. The first part was where the winning team got to judge the jury and the second part was where the winning team got to predict what their celebrity team captain said.

Judge the Jury

Host Martin asked three questions to the jury (consisting of 10 members of the studio audience). Each contestant on the winning team played each question (one for each contestant). On each question, the jury locked in their answers depending on the criteria of the question and the player operating on that question predicted how many of the jury members said yes or no. Guessing the number exactly (right on the nose) won $500 for the team while missing the number by one or two earned $200. After playing the three questions, the winning team then played part two called "Celebrity Turnabout".

Celebrity Turnabout

It is called Celebrity Turnabout because the tables have turned, for the winning team now tried to predict if the celebrity captain said yes or no on one last question. Each contestant made a prediction with the majority rule in effect. The celebrity captain then revealed his/her answer, and if the majority of the team is correct, the winning civilians win 10 times the part one cash for a maximum total of $15,000.

All teams competed against each other for three games and left the show afterwards. The maximum any team can win is $45,900.

Personnel

Host: Dick Martin
Announcer: Johnny Olson
Sub-Announcer: Jack Narz
Executive Producer: Ira Skutch
Producer: Mimi O’Brien
Director: Ira Skutch
Set Designer: Bente Christensen

Trivia

Unrelated to this show, their was a pilot in 1978 that was also called Mind Readers produced by the late Bob Stewart and was hosted by the equally late Geoff Edwards where it involves astrological signs instead of ESP and predictions.

The sound indicating that the entire jury locked-in their answers was later used as the solo player buzz-in sound in another short-lived but more successful NBC Goodson-Todman game show, Blockbusters. It was also used as the buzz-in sound in the Bob Eubanks hosted NBC game show, Dream House.

The correct answer bell was also used on Password Plus and Blockbusters. The sound indicating wrong answers was the NBC Claxon.

The win cue from the show was later used for the unsold pilot of Star Words and the original pilot of Body Language in 1983. Additionally, the main theme was used as a re-arranged version of a commercial cue for the equally short-lived 1979 syndicated game show called Celebrity Charades produced by Fein-Schwartz Productions in association with Columbia Pictures Television and was hosted by Jay Johnson & Squeaky.

The idea of having 10 audience members answer a question was later instituted into the CBS revival of Card Sharks, which Mindreaders producer Mimi O'Brien also worked on.

Music

Score Productions

This theme would later be reused on the unsold pilot (along with the win cue) called Puzzlers in 1980.

Photos

Set Design

Host

Ticket

TV Guide Ad

Episode Status

See Also: Mindreaders/Episode Guide
Mindreaders is believed to have been destroyed. The pilot, the third episode and the December 13th episode are the only three known to exist in full. The first two minutes of the December 31st episode also exists.

Link

Mindreaders pilot @ usgameshows.net

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 |-
 |Pilot, August 3, 1979<br />NBC Daytime, Monday, August 13, 1979 – Friday, January 11, 1980
+|-
+| align="center" colspan=2|'''Number of episodes'''
+|-
+|109
 |-
 |align="center" colspan=2|'''Run time'''
@@ Line 47: / Line 51: @@
 *Host: [[Dick Martin]]
 *Announcer: [[Johnny Olson]]
+*Sub-Announcer: Jack Narz
 *Executive Producer: [[Ira Skutch]]
 *Producer: [[Mimi O’Brien]]