History Series / FindersKeepers

* SongsInTheKeyOfPanic: "Hurry" variant in the Romp, to an extent; the music started out with a somewhat "relaxed" rhythm, but picked up time to that of the normal "room search" cues with around 35 seconds to go. Also counts as a "Nearing the End" variant in both the normal searches and the Romp, with a key-change up every few seconds.

* DontTryThisAtHome: Mindful of the fact that young viewers might be tempted to hide objects and invite friends or siblings to turn their house upside-down to look for them, the producers had the hosts, particularly Eure, point out that the contestants wore protective gear during the Romp, and that the plates, vases, etc. were made of easily breakable clay rather than something more durable (and hence more dangerous when broken) like glass or ceramic.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

The United Kingdom had its own version of the show a few years later on [[Creator/{{ITV}} CITV]], with several changes to the format; there were no hidden pictures (the teams would earn the right to search rooms by matching clues to answers on a "Memory" style board or playing a toss-up search in the Garage), the [[BonusRound Super Search]] covered all eight rooms instead of just six, and the teams played for points instead of money due to (then-current) UK broadcasting regulations governing cash prizes on children's series. A revival presented by Jeff Brazier was produced in 2006

* SuddenDeath: If the game ended in a tie after two rounds, a shortened hidden pictures round was played with the first to two correct answers moving to the Room-to-Room Romp.

Not to be confused with the UrbanFantasy [[Webcomic/FindersKeepers webcomic of the same name]].

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: The aptly named "Dinosaur Den" room, and the inflatable T. Rex also showing up in the Dining Room once or twice.

* CelebrityEdition: The syndicated version, along with the syndicated ''[[Series/DoubleDare1986 Double Dare]]'' and ''Series/FunHouse'', set aside a couple of weeks to pair young TV stars with civilian contestants ([[Series/MarriedWithChildren David Faustino]] and Creator/BrianAustinGreen for one week, [[Series/CharlesInCharge Josie Davis]] and [[Series/SmallWonder Emily Schulman]] for the other week).

!!GameShowTropes in use:

* Personnel:
** TheAnnouncer: (John) Harvey, Bob Lorman, Joe Conklin, and Harry Stephens (USA), Jeremy Stevens (UK).
** GameShowHost: Wesley Eure, then Larry Toffler. Neil Buchanan (of "Art Attack" fame) and Jeff Brazier in the UK.
** LovelyAssistant: The "Finders Keepers Keeper" - Mindy on Eure's version, Kelly on Toffler's. In both cases she was an African-American woman who helped out in the house and modeled some of the prizes.
** StudioAudience: Most of the time.

----
!!"Trope it!":
* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: One of the room additions to the Toffler house was a room-sized sewer. At least one episode featured a crew member dressed as ''Series/TheHoneymooners''[='=] Ed Norton in the room.
* AerithAndBob: Eure invoked this trope in a 1987 episode featuring contestants named Amin, Leila, Ingrid, and... Mike. He joked that Mike would have to change his name, as it wasn't funny enough.
* AncientTomb: One of the rooms that debuted in the second Eure season was an Egyptian-style tomb.
* AntiClimax: Some of the Romps never really got going, with the contestants finding only two or even just one clue card; this could be particularly painful to watch if the rest of the episode had either been a CurbStompBattle or gone right to the wire. On at least two occasions in the Toffler era, the winning team found the first clue card in less than 10 seconds, but then spent over 80 seconds in a fruitless search for the second card due to a misunderstanding of the clue.
* BlatantLies: The prizes aren't actually in the house, despite the intro mentioning "our prize-filled house" and saying "what you find is what you keep".[[note]]Once in a long while, a prize in one episode would be a hidden object in another; a Mr. Game Show toy was just one example.[[/note]]
* BucketBoobyTrap: Subverted, as the contents would usually come out of cabinets, boxes on top of shelves, the ceiling, etc.
* CatchPhrase: "FIND IT!" (or, occasionally in the early episodes, "Trash it!", USA), "Whose house? OUR HOUSE!!!!!" (UK).
* CelebrityEdition: The syndicated version, along with the syndicated ''[[Series/DoubleDare1986 Double Dare]]'' and ''Series/FunHouse'', set aside a couple of weeks to pair young TV stars with civilian contestants ([[Series/MarriedWithChildren David Faustino]] and Creator/BrianAustinGreen for one week, [[Series/CharlesInCharge Josie Davis]] and [[Series/SmallWonder Emily Schulman]] for the other week).
* ChristmasEpisode: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1pIWivnFdg This pair]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KujCrx6_Nlo of episodes]] from the first Eure season. A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2_nFv5QNTs third episode]] had a similar setup except that each room represented a different holiday.
* CollapsingCeilingBoss: Entire shelves would collapse in the Toffler era, to the point where the room trashed itself more than the kids actually trashed it.
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: The Red Team vs. the Blue Team.
* CurbStompBattle: Several Toffler episodes in particular, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLNU_nPlvpQ one of which had a final score of $975-$25]] (out of a possible $1,000).
* DepravedDentist: In the second Eure season, Frankenstein's Lab was occasionally furnished as Frankenstein's Dental Office, with a torture chair instead of the usual slab and a sign on the wall reading "V. Frankenstein, D.D.S."
* DontTryThisAtHome: Mindful of the fact that young viewers might be tempted to hide objects and invite friends or siblings to turn their house upside-down to look for them, the producers had the hosts, particularly Eure, point out that the contestants wore protective gear during the Romp, and that the plates, vases, etc. were made of easily breakable clay rather than something more durable (and hence more dangerous when broken) like glass or ceramic.
-->"So that's why you ''can't do this at home'' - only on ''Finders Keepers''."
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The hidden pictures round in the Eure era had a few differences in the first episodes to be filmed. The pictures themselves appeared without the wind chime sound effect used later, while missed objects were circled with a yellow telestrator pen rather than indicated by darkening the picture except for a light circle around the object. The contestant interviews also happened at the beginning of the first round rather than after the second picture clue.
** The ''very'' earliest taped episodes featured no pink paint around the hall window on the top floor and no score displays during the room searches, as well as unusual room configurations - one episode featured what might be the only appearance of the Kids' Room prior to the second Eure season, while another episode or two had a ''principal's office'' as a room, never to be seen again afterwards. Some of the sound effects differed as well; for example, the "winning" bell was used to signal the Instant Prize Room. And while the instant prizes for most of the 1987 season were trips to either Walt Disney World or Space Camp, some of the very earliest episodes featured portable televisions or phone/answering machines as the instant prize.
** The earliest Toffler episodes mainly stuck with rooms from the end of the Eure run, a limited music selection and with Stephens having a ''much'' more subdued announcing style. The Hidden Picture buzzers used either the original doorbell sound effect or a generic "buzz-in" sound before evolving into the updated doorbell effect. The hidden object indicator, when it was used, was also slightly different than the bold "X" superimposed onto a picture of the room (either a different "X" or a triangle).
* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: The aptly named "Dinosaur Den" room, and the inflatable T. Rex also showing up in the Dining Room once or twice.
%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
* HiddenObjectGame: Half the game was finding hidden pictures, the other half was finding hidden objects.
* ImpossiblyTackyClothes:
** One of the configurations of the Living Room in the 1987 Eure season was birthday party-themed, and one episode with this setup supposedly took place on Wesley's birthday; the clue for the room was in his birthday card (read by Harvey), and the hidden object was his gift from the crew: a stereotypical game show host's loud and tacky sport jacket, which he confessed to the home audience he hated. Harvey gave his closing spiel wearing the coat, saying that Wesley might not like it, but he did.
** Carried over to the second Eure season, when Wesley wore suits, some of which were in "interesting" taste to say the least... often with the ''sleeves rolled up'' on the jacket.
* LamePunReaction: The studio audience were not shy about groaning at really bad puns in picture titles or clues; for example, in a 1988 Eure episode, one hidden picture showed a chef tossing a salad, and Wesley said the picture wasn't ready as the salad was "just getting dressed". Cue CollectiveGroan from the audience and Wesley saying he didn't write it.
* LargeHam: Harry Stephens, the final announcer, really leaned into each word during his opening spiel. "Iiiif YOU can find the LOBSTER hidden in this picture!!..." ...And then fell flat halfway through the most important parts of the spiel — "[=FINDERrrrrrrrs=] keepers" and "[=LARRyyyyyyyy=] toffler".
* NintendoHard:
** The Romp during the Eure era (the Closet in particular derailed many Romps due to the sheer number of hiding places). Inverted many times in the Toffler era, as most of the clue cards could be seen before the kids even entered the room.
** In one 1987 episode, the second hidden picture showed three birds in a nest, and all but one of the hidden items were concealed in the shapes of the branches and leaves. Eure described the picture as "one of the hardest ones I've ever seen on ''Finders Keepers''."[[note]] The contestants did eventually catch on to the picture's gimmick and found three out of five objects.[[/note]]
* NobodyPoops:
** None of the bathrooms in the American version had toilets; Harvey even lampshaded this in one of his "Let's take a look at the rooms" spiels with "The world famous ''Finders Keepers'' bathroom - toilet not included!" That didn't keep them from [[ToiletHumour being referenced]], though.
** Averted in the UK version, in which the bathroom did feature a toilet.
* NoOSHACompliance: Completely averted. The winning team always wore helmets and elbow/knee pads during the Romp, and Eure often commented about the emphasis on safety and the use of materials that would not hurt anyone. He even took a plate from the Kitchen and smashed it over his own head without injury to make the point. Not that the contestants necessarily took note of this; for example, in a 1987 episode, one contestant struggled to get the hidden object, a bottle of cough syrup, out of a vase in the Dining Room, and brought the whole vase to Eure... who promptly smashed it with his fist and held up the cough syrup for confirmation from the judges.
* OddballInTheSeries: The only Nick game show not to return to the network after its syndicated run (unlike ''Double Dare''), and the only one for many years that taped in Los Angeles (all the others taped either in Philadelphia or Orlando, with ''Series/MakeTheGrade'' taping in New York before moving to Orlando; ''Series/BrainSurge'' would be Nick's first LA-based game since the syndicated ''FK'' ended).
* OpeningNarration: Whoever the announcer, his opening spiel would always be "If you can find the [object] hidden in this picture, then you could win a run through our prize-filled house, where what you find is what you keep, on... ''Finders Keepers''!"
* PlayerNudge: Guessing an incorrect item in the room search meant the other team instantly claimed the money. If the host sees a contestant holding a wrong item, he will ask "Is that your answer?" or "Are you sure?" as a hint to guess something else.
* ProductDisplacement: In a 1988 Eure episode, the Romp clue in the Pastry Shop was "This box contains a baker's dozen." A box that was clearly from Dunkin Donuts was concealed on one of the shelves, but the word "Dunkin" had been pasted over to just leave "Donuts" on the box.
* RansackedRoom: The premise of the show: find the hidden object by turning the room upside-down, and don't be afraid to make a mess while doing so.[[note]] Of course, while some teams lost the main game by being too tentative in their searches, others were too eager and either lost the main game by accidentally throwing hidden objects in with the rest of the mess or stalled in the Romp by immediately trashing the room rather than listening to the clue and taking a few seconds to think about what it described, often something already in plain view.[[/note]]
* TheScrooge: One episode from the first Eure season had Wesley and Harvey imply that producer Michael Klinghoffer was a bit of a penny-pincher, using the "birthday party" configuration of the Living Room to get a free birthday party for his wife Judy.[[note]]Eure and Harvey also had turns as the "birthday boy" for this version of the Living Room.[[/note]]
* ShoutOut:
** Many of the "fantasy room" designs, to various {{Fairy Tale}}s, ComicStrip/BuckRogers, {{Dracula}}, and Literature/{{Frankenstein}}, just to name a few.
** One of the hidden picture artists in the Eure era was a caricaturist, drawing pictures featuring Creator/BorisKarloff as Film/{{Frankenstein|1931}}'s monster, Creator/BelaLugosi as Film/{{Dracula|1931}}, Creator/CharlieChaplin, the Creator/MarxBrothers, the main quartet from ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'', Creator/TomSelleck as Series/MagnumPI, Creator/BruceWillis and Cybill Shepherd as Dave and Maddie from ''Series/{{Moonlighting}}'', Ralph Macchio as Daniel from ''Film/TheKarateKid'', Music/{{Madonna}}, Music/MichaelJackson, Music/TheMonkees, [[Film/PeeweesBigAdventure Pee-wee Herman on his bike]], and many others.
** The hidden pictures occasionally had oblique pop culture reference titles; for example, a picture of a canine detective from the 1987 Eure series was entitled "Not Theatre/TheRealInspectorHound", a reference to the Creator/TomStoppard play, while a 1988 picture featuring one boxer punching another so hard he has flipped upside-down was referred to as "A One-Way Ticket to Palookaville", a reference to the famous "ICouldaBeenAContender" scene in ''Film/OnTheWaterfront''.
** In the second Eure season, the shop window in the General Store read "Klinghoffer's General Store", a reference to series producer Michael Klinghoffer.
** [[YouWannaGetSued Zigzagged with the "Caveman's Lair"]], a living room based on that of WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones; while it was never directly referred to as their living room, most of the clues referred to "Fred and Barney" somehow.
* SongsInTheKeyOfPanic: "Hurry" variant in the Romp, to an extent; the music started out with a somewhat "relaxed" rhythm, but picked up time to that of the normal "room search" cues with around 35 seconds to go. Also counts as a "Nearing the End" variant in both the normal searches and the Romp, with a key-change up every few seconds.
* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Series/{{Camouflage}}'' (regarding the hidden pictures) and ''Series/{{Jackpot}}'' (with the riddles given to point the kids toward the objects they needed to find).
* SteadiCam: The version hosted by Eure used one on the top floor of the house.
* ThinkMusic: During the Eure era, the Hidden Pictures round would feature a "circling" theme (a snippet of which accompanied the announcer's opening "If you can find the [object] hidden in this picture..." spiel) after Wesley read a clue and waited for one of the teams to buzz in. Less prominent in the Toffler era, when it would be replaced by a drumbeat as soon as the teams buzzed in (which often happened as soon as Larry finished reading the clue).
* TimeKeepsOnTicking: During the Romp, once the clock started, it ran continuously, even while teams were moving on to the next room. This put a premium on getting to the next room quickly. A wrong turn, especially when moving to the upper floor or lower floor could end up torpedoing the team. More blatant in the UK version, where the host would often hold up the team until they shouted out the answer to the clue. In the US, the host would read the clue and let the team get on with it (occasionally asking the team what they were looking for as they were going about it). Good thing, too, since 90 seconds is quite brutal enough without the team having to shout out the answer.
* TimedMission: The individual room searches (30 seconds), and the Romp especially (6 rooms in 90 seconds in the US; all 8 rooms in 3 or 4 minutes in the UK).

* ProductDisplacement:
** In a 1988 Eure episode, the Romp clue in the Pastry Shop was "This box contains a baker's dozen." A box that was clearly from Dunkin Donuts was concealed on one of the shelves, but the word "Dunkin" had been pasted over to just leave "Donuts" on the box.
** There was also a 1988 episode where a team had to find the Mr. Gameshow board game.

* ProductDisplacement: In a 1988 Eure episode, the Romp clue in the Pastry Shop was "This box contains a baker's dozen." A box that was clearly from Dunkin Donuts was concealed on one of the shelves, but the word "Dunkin" had been pasted over to just leave "Donuts" on the box.

* CelebrityEdition: The syndicated version, along with the syndicated ''[[Series/DoubleDare1986 Double Dare]]'' and ''Series/FunHouse'', set aside a couple of weeks to pair young TV stars with civilian contestants ([[Series/MarriedWithChildren David Faustino]] and [[Series/KnotsLanding Brian Austin Green]] for one week, [[Series/CharlesInCharge Josie Davis]] and [[Series/SmallWonder Emily Schulman]] for the other week).

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** In a couple of Toffler episodes, the announcer described one of the rooms as the "bitchin' kitchen". Toffler ''himself'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klK-xNoi4SM#t=7m10s dropped the word]] as part of a clue on at least one occasion.
** Some of the other room descriptions qualify as well, such as "we'll get trashed in the Tower 'til we feel no pain!"

* CatchPhrase: "FIND IT!" (or, occasionally in the early episodes, "Trash it!", USA), "Who's House? OUR HOUSE!!!!!" (UK).

** In one 1987 episode, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ovhqh8x02Q second hidden picture]] showed three birds in a nest, and all but one of the hidden items were concealed in the shapes of the branches and leaves. Eure described the picture as "one of the hardest ones I've ever seen on ''Finders Keepers''."[[note]] The contestants did eventually catch on to the picture's gimmick and found three out of five objects.[[/note]]

* SequelDifficultyDrop:
** The hidden pictures round, as the gateway to the room trashing for which audiences really tuned in, was gradually made easier over the series' run. In the first Eure season, there were four clues in the first hidden picture round and four or five in the second, so it was quite common for one, two, or even three of the eight rooms[[note]]sometimes including the Instant Prize room[[/note]] to go unclaimed, requiring Eure to pad the episode's run time by bantering with the contestants. In the second season, the pictures had six clues each, so it was far less common (but not unheard of) for rooms to go unclaimed. And in the Toffler era, the pictures were the size of a wall rather than displayed on a monitor and the hidden items were pre-identified via a set of Colorforms, and rooms almost never went unsearched.
** In the Eure era, the romp record was 66 seconds, and contestants sometimes had to find hidden objects in one or more rooms to find the next clue card. In the Toffler era, the clues were much more straightforward, with the cards often visible as soon as the contestants entered the room, and at least three teams finished the romp in under a minute (the record was 40 seconds).[[note]] Although the Toffler era also saw at least four teams find just ''one'' clue card in the romp.[[/note]]