| Host | |
| Phil Guerrero aka PJ Phil | |
| Co-Host | |
| Carol Gold | |
| House Band/Announcers | |
| 3 Style | |
| Broadcast | |
 | |
| Packagers | |
| Owl Television/WNET New York | |
What's the Big Idea! was an unsold pilot produced in Canada for PBS in the US.
Gameplay[]
Two teams of two kids faced-off (one the red team, the other the blue team) in a game of brain-teasing, puzzle solving and identifying inventions.
Main Game[]
The game was played on a rickety game board of nine television sets. On the outer eight TVs are categories; each of which come with a puzzle. Each of these puzzles contained clues to a mystery invention. Also each category was color coded. The green ones were solo play categories, meaning that only the team who selected the category could play. The orange ones were head to head categories, meaning that both teams could play.
To start the round, Phil, the host would give a hint to the invention. Then the team in control would choose a category and one of three events would occur:
- Selecting a green category allowed the team to try and solve the puzzle attached to the category. A successful solve won the category, but an unsuccessful solve gave the opposing team a chance to steal.
- Selecting an orange category, allowed both teams to play at the same time.
- Selecting a category that uncovered a claymation character called "Nasty Thing", turned over control of the category to the opponents.
The puzzle attached to the category could be a visual puzzle to which the answer was the clue, or it could be a physical challenge where the end of the challenge had a hidden word, which was the clue. The team that won the category, scored points and a chance to solve the invention/big idea puzzle. If both teams failed to solve the category puzzle, no points were awarded, the control of the big idea puzzle was not given, and play went on from there. Play also went on, if the team in control was not able to solve the big puzzle. The first team to solve the big puzzle won the round and scored bonus points.
Scoring[]
Here's how the scoring worked in each round:
| Round | Puzzle | Big Puzzle |
|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | 10 points | 50 points |
| Round 2 | 20 points | 75 points |
Should time run out in the middle of a round, Phil would give the remaining clues one by one until one team buzzed in with hopefully the correct answer and scoring in the process.
The team with the most points won the game.
Bonus Round[]
The winning team went on to play a bonus round for a grand prize, and they would try to win it by solving one final invention/big idea puzzle. The final mystery invention was created by a kid.
Phil would read off a series of riddles for the duration of 60 seconds. While answering riddles, the winning team would run around a labyrinth, from station one, to station two and finally to station three. When time was up, Phil would recap the clues that were earned. Then he would give three possible answers as to what the invention is. Then the winning team would pull a lever that corresponded to the one they thought was correct (either A, B or C). Choosing the correct answer won the grand prize.