| Host | |
| Peter Tomarken | |
| Announcer | |
| Johnny Gilbert | |
| Broadcast | |
 | |
| Packager | |
| Jay Wolpert Productions Metromedia Video Productions | |
"In 1939, it was Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in a duel to the death in Robin Hood! In 1977, it was Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi in a duel to the death in Star Wars! But today, it's (first contestant) and (second contestant) in a Duel in the Daytime! And now, here is the host of Duel in the Daytime, Peter Tomarken!"
Duel in the Daytime was an unsold game show pilot.
Gameplay[]
Main Game: Duel in the Daytime[]
Two contestants "dueled" by playing various games, each involving a specific skill and offering a specific prize. The Duel consisted of two rounds, each with two games from a choice of six as follows:
Round 1[]
- Inflation (Pricing) – The players had to guess how much the price of a particular product had gone up over the last five years. For every unit they were off (cents in Pilot #2, dollars in Pilot #3), they had to blow up the "inflation bubble" (really a balloon) one pump; play continued until it burst, giving the opponent the win.
- 4×4 (Communication)
- Spelling Eeb (Spelling)
- Roto Foto (Visual Perception)
- Lyric Game (Music) – Contestants were required to sing the first 20 words of various songs, earning 1 point for each correct word, but stopping progress when they made a mistake. In Pilot #2, the game was played for two minutes: as the lyrics were heard, the first player to buzz in would sing from there, but a mistake on the first word gave the opponent a chance to hear more of the song, then buzz in and sing from there. In Pilot #3, each player was simply given three songs to sing. In any case, the player with the most points was the winner.
- Scavenger Hunt (Pantomime)
Round 2[]
- Dateline (Historical Recall)
- Tug O' War (Quiz)
- Blurb (Educated Guess)
- Sloppy Slogans (Pop Knowledge) – Similar to (Celebrity) Whew! and Pie in the Sky, a slogan was given with one word wrong, players scored 5 points for correcting the error, and 5 more for correctly guessing the company. In Pilot #2, each slogan was a toss-up, with the first to buzz in scoring the points for correct guesses, but if they were wrong on either, the opponent had a chance, and the first player to score 30 points was the winner. In Pilot #3, the contestants simply took turns with the first to score 25 points winning the game.
- Grapevine (Gossip)
- Take It Off (Visual Perception) – The contestants were given a portion of a celebrity's face, with the first to correctly identify him/her winning the game.
The winner of each game banked the prize associated with it, and earned a shield. In Round 1, the challenger picked the first game, and in Round 2, the trailing player picked first. The first player to earn three shields won the Duel in the Daytime, kept his/her prizes, and became the day's champion. If there was a tie at two shields apiece, a tiebreaker game was played from "off the board" called Tongue Twisters: Each player was given the same tongue twister, and whoever said it the fastest was the winner.
Bonus Round: Golden Quest[]
The day's winner was shown three screens, each of which had a piece of a question that was scrambled up. When a 30-second clock started, he/she would pick a screen and Peter would read that piece of question. The contestant was required to take as many guesses as possible, with a correct guess at any point awarding a top prize of $10,000. If the champion felt he/she needed more information, he/she could pick another screen, but the potential payoff would be cut in half. If the contestant failed to give the correct answer before time expired, he/she lost and won nothing.
Gallery[]
Rating[]
Trivia[]
- Pilot #3 is held by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, albeit in an unedited form that includes (as noted by The Game Show Pilot Light below) several retakes:
- The first prize up for grabs was a sailboat, whose description had two retakes.
- A judging error in the Tongue Twisters game resulted in it being reshot with a different sentence.
- The bonus round initially had the contestant guessing Popeye off one monitor ("Who is the cartoon character") in four seconds. In the second take, she was unable to guess Tinkerbell despite having the clues "Companion of" and "Name that Fairy". The third and final take had her guess Delilah from two clues.
Links[]
Duel in the Daytime (Pilot #3) at The Game Show Pilot Light