Pandemonium

Pandemonium was an unsold game show pilot involving audience participation from 1979.

Gameplay
The game revolved around audience participation. The first round would begin with the 118 members of the studio audience, seated around host Steve Edwards, being staked $50 (represented in the intro as people rushing around picking up money). Edwards would ask a yes/no question, and the audience members would be given five seconds to lock in an answer with buttons on their desks. Once Edwards revealed the correct answer, the people who had voted incorrectly would "disappear" (in reality, the crew would stop tape, allow the people to exit the set, and then resume); the second question would be done the same way. The third question, however, would be crucial, as only the first four people to correctly answer would move onto the next round; this would be represented by a chromakey display flying in behind Edwards as he read the contestants' names and numbers (while the chromakey would display the people's faces).

Round 2 was called The Bounce Game. Edwards announced that all the people who had "disappeared" in the preceding round had "magically reappeared". The four contestants who had survived the previous round would now get seven "bounces" each. They would need to make them last the entire game. Edwards read out a category, and the players could secretly "withdraw" some of their bounces (from one to four), depending on how much they felt they knew in the category; however, they could not get those bounces back. After that, Edwards then read the first question to the contestant who had answered correctly first to the final question of the previous round. They could either answer the question or bounce (pass) the question to an opponent. That opponent had the same choices; the game continued in this manner until either someone decided to answer, or ran out of bounces (in which case the contestant would be forced to answer). If they answered correctly, they would then be read another question in that same category, and the contestant would try to use how many bounces they had initially withdrawn. (This added a bit of strategy to the game- as players could answer before they ran out of bounces, while opponents had used up some of theirs in trying to get rid of another.) An incorrect answer eliminated that player, irregardless of how many bounces they possessed. When a new category was announced, any previously withdrawn bounces were forfeited (no matter if they were used or not). Play continued as written above until only one contestant was left, who would then move onto the bonus game.

The endgame was called the People Puzzle. The sole remaining contestant would get to meet 10 "citizens from the land of Pandemonium"- people in costumes, such as Santa Claus and Fidel Castro. They would come out two at a time and be holding various props. Edwards would pose a question about one of the pairs of characters to the contestant. If the contestant picked the right character, the character directed the contestant to pick one of ten envelopes, each with a different dollar amount. This would be repeated for the next four pairs, at which point Edwards would reveal the amounts of cash inside the envelopes; that cash would also be duplicated amongst the other remaining contestants. If the player managed to accumulate $2,000 they would win a prize package (in this case, a pair of motorcycles and a Ferrari).

Quotes

 * "Fun! Prizes! Money! Madness! And because every member of our studio audience recieves $50 to start our game, you know you're in the land of Pandemonium!"- Rod Roddy's opening narration