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Clip description
After advertisements from sponsor companies, four contestants from the studio audience prepare to play ‘True or False’ for their chance to become the next contestant.
Curator’s notes
Advertisements for a variety of products are part and parcel of Wheel of Fortune and the ratio of prize promotion to quiz content in the program is extremely high. Commercial sponsorship made game shows attractive to broadcasters; relatively low production costs, simple sets, small casts, and highly formalised production techniques also made them cheap to produce.
The regional nature of the broadcast is also evident here – the contestants are all from Sydney and even the local phone number of the major sponsor is supplied. This episode predates production of game shows on video tape; after 1960 they were frequently prerecorded onto video and syndicated nationally.
Also noticeable here is limited coverage which at times fails to capture all the action. There are very limited cutaways and none to the studio audience, who are heard at times but never seen except here in the play-off competition. The clip also demonstrates the particular challenges of hosting live-to-air television as somewhat formal but genial host Reg Grundy must be ready to react to the unexpected on the fly.
