Treasure Mall

A short-lived children's game show where contestants answer survey questions, and searching through the Treasure Mall stores for prizes.

Broadcast
Syndication - June 11, 1988 – September 3, 1988

Host
Hal Sparks

Announcer
Ed MacKay

Premise
Two teams of two contestants compete for the right to search through the stores for their hidden treasures. All for the right to try and raid the main treasure chest full of grand prizes.

Question Round
In the first half of each round, the kid contestants were asked a survey question with three possible answers, and all they have to do is to is to guess the most popular answer. The make their choices by secretly locking-in their answers. Each player scored one point for the team by choosing the most popular answer. The first team to score five points goes on to search one of the stores for hidden coins.

The Treasure Mall Stores
Each store was divided up into four different area/sections. Each area has four coins for the teams to find (16 in all). The object of the game was to find as many coins as they can; the teams had 100 seconds (1:40) (25 for each area, 50 for each team member) to do so. Each time a team member found a coin, they must insert it into a bucket held by host Sparks; if a coin is not inserted into the bucket, it doesn't count. When the overall time was up, the coins inside the bucket were counted up and the team received prizes according to how many coins collected. If the team can collect all 16 coins, they win two big prizes.

The game was played in two rounds with two different stores, and the team who won both question rounds or with the most coins at the end of the game are declared the winners and went on to the bonus game.

Bonus Game
Scattered at the mall front/center stage are gift boxes. Contained in each gift box is a key which may or may not unlock the treasure chest. The winning team had 30 seconds to find & collect as many keys as they can. Just like with the coins, the key must go into the bucket in order to count. When the 30 seconds was up, each key was tried out at the chest one at a time. As soon as one key unlocked the chest, the winning team won a grand prize package in the chest including a trip. But if none of them do, the winning team still won a $50 gift certificate for each key found.

Trivia
Host Hal Sparks went on to be a successful comedian. He even starred & hosted shows such as Queer as Folk & Talk Soup. Recently, he was the voice of "Mr. Q", in the GSN original, 20Q.

Link
Rules for Treasure Mall