THE $50,000 PYRAMID SHRINE


Welcome to the first and only page devoted to the shortest lived edition of Pyramid ever created: The $50,000 Pyramid! The fact that this version lastest the shortest was a shame, because I personally thought the show had great potential, that is, if a few changes were made. This shrine of the $50,000 Pyramid has a few pictures, and some information about this revival.

The $50,000 Pyramid debuted on Monday, January 26, 1981. On the premiere episodes, the celebrity players were JoAnne Worley and Sal Viscuso. But what many people don't realize is that the first episode that aired was not the premiere episode. Production began only a few days before that, on January 11th of that year. The real debut guests were Didi Conn and Brian Patrick-Clarke. These shows were supposed to be Nipsey Russell and Lois Nettleton. The second week episodes were taped on January 12. In a nutshell, the television watcher that tuned in on the premiere week of the show were actually watching episodes that were supposed to air during the third week.

The final first run episode of this series run was aired on Friday, May 29, 1981. However, reruns of the show continued until the first week of September 4, 1981 on the same stations as originally run. It was also aired in rerun form for a short time on the defunt CBN channel sometime in 1982.

As far as the actual game play is concerned, you could say that The $50,000 Pyramid was much like the Bill Cullen version of The $25,000 Pyramid. The prizes were scaled down dramatically. In fact, there were no prizes at all during the gameplay, just at The Winners Circle. The structure was pretty much the same. If the contestant wins one maingame, they tryed for $5,000. The second time at the Winners Circle, they tried for $10,000.

To be eligable for the $50,000 grand prize, the player would have to go on to become what was called "The Player Of The Week". To acheive this, contestants had to get a perfect score of 7 points in the fastest time during the main game. (That is why the timer in the main game counted upwards instead of backwards. Reguardless to whether a the Player of the Week won a main game or went to the Winner's Circle, the contestant (after winning a vacation to Europe), played in a special tournament for the grand $50,000 cash prize. It was a round robin style tornament, not EXACTLY like the $100,000 Pyramid in the mid-1980s, but close enough.

It is unknown as to if the episodes of this short lived series are still intact, however if they are still availible, the rights would thus belong to GSN.