Follow TV Tropes

Following

Trivia / Break the Bank (1985)

Go To


  • Creator Backlash: Gene Rayburn was so unhappy with his hosting and the treatment he received on Bank that he declared an embargo on the episodes he hosted.
  • Creator Killer: Break the Bank and an accidental age reveal from Entertainment Tonight essentially killed Gene Rayburn's long game show career. He hosted only one more show, The Movie Masters on AMC, at the end of the 1980s before his retirement.
  • Executive Meddling: Gene was distinctly told not to goof around as he did on Match Game, despite a goofy host being totally acceptable in a stunt-based show where the Prize Vault was full of silly stuff. It seems he wasn't given much of a pre-show briefing, either, as he stumbles around aimlessly more than a few times in the Prize Vault (some people have suggested that he originally thought he was going to host a revival of Break the Bank (1976); that's plausible, considering Kline & Friends was composed of defectors from Barry-Enright). Given that the Prize Vault was timed (using the seconds the couple had earned in the front game), this was never a good thing when it happened.
    • The Prize Vault issue was partly fixed by stopping the clock when Gene needed to describe the chosen stunt. This change also helped the couples, as it allowed them to get set up for each stunt, increasing the odds of winning more cards and/or going to the Number Jumbler. (On the other hand, it could sometimes force an episode to be rather sloppily edited because of all that extra time in the Prize Vault; it happened at least once.)
    • According to the biography The Matchless Gene Rayburn, the reason he was picked to host was to have "star power" so stations would be more likely to pick Bank up. Kline apparently saw Rayburn as sort of a "means to an end", resulting in Gene not being treated very well, and the reason they originally kept the clock running during the stunt descriptions was so Gene couldn't make any jokes about the stunts.
  • Hey, It's That Sound!: Quite a few sound effects were recycled from Barry-Enright shows - the Tic-Tac-Dough "category reveal" cue was used for the home viewer puzzle hint, the cue heard when the Number Jumbler stopped was previously used on The Joker's Wild as a "spin start" cue in the bonus round (and in turn had previously been used on Double Dare (1976) {both taped at CBS} and The Price Is Right {originally for the game Penny Ante, later for the game Vend-O-Price}), and the "wrong code" cue was used as a "zero" cue in the bonus round of Play the Percentages.
    • For most of the run, the front-game buzz-in noise was a "warble" used on B&E shows as a "time's up" signal. For a brief period, somewhat bizarrely, the Family Feud buzz-in noise was used instead.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Except for a week of reruns in December 1985, no Rayburn episodes have been rerun, partly because he wanted it as such. About 48 of his 65 shows circulate among collectors, while some of Joe Farago's episodes were rerun by CBN Cable (what is currently Freeform) in late 1986. FremantleMedia currently holds the rights to Bank - the distributor, Blair Entertainment, was shut down in 1992 and was acquired by All American Communications (the producer of Baywatch and eventual owner of the Goodson-Todman catalog), All American was acquired by Fremantle's predecessor Pearson Television in 1997.
  • Missing Episode: Gene's tenure. The most common explanation is the fact he was extremely dissatisfied with how he was treated by Kline & Friends, as he mentioned during interviews near the end of his life. As a result, you likely won't be seeing Rayburn's tenure again outside YouTube (unless Gene's death rendered it void).
  • The Pete Best: Original co-host Kandace Kuehl only lasted for the first three shows before being replaced by Julie Hayek.
  • Prop Recycling: The Numbler Jumbler monitor was recycled from the 1982 21 pilot's bonus game. The orange walls used in the front game, meanwhile, came from the set of Hot Potato.
  • Stunt Casting: Richard S. Kline chose Rayburn to host the first three months because Rayburn had "star power".

Top