Winning sort of big

Buzzr has been running promos for a St. Patrick's Day stunt of big winners on their shows. This dovetails nicely with a post of mine a while ago. I mentioned that back in the Buzzr era - basically, the broadcast networks from the '70s through the early '90s - there were fairly tight limits on how much loot any contestant could accumulate.

The enormous money on some of the rigged 1950s shows scared broadcasters away from really big payouts for quite a long time. It wasn't until Millionaire (oddly, a show that's about to be rebooted) came along in 1999 that million dollar prizes or more were put on the line. The rigging scandals were receding into distant memory by then.

Inflation does tricks, of course. No doubt some of the big wins on the upcoming Buzzr stunt would be worth well over a hundred grand in today's debased dollars. But back in the Buzzr era the Standards & Practices people thought that limiting payouts would help keep the shows honest. Regardless of the reason, no big scandals erupted after the 1950s, much to the relief of the game show industry.

By the way, you'll notice a lot of shamrocks and general greenery in the Buzzr promos (see screenshot). It's that famous luck of the Irish, though Ireland's history has been fairly unlucky a lot of the time.

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