The Magnificent Marble Machine was an American television game show that was based on pinball, and starred Art James. The show ran on NBC from July 7, 1975 to June 11, 1976, but was interrupted for about two weeks in January, due to scheduling changes on the network. It aired in both half-hour slots between Noon and 1 p.m. Eastern/11 a.m. and Noon Central. Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley packaged this program. Robert Noah was the executive producer. MMM and the short-lived 1967 ABC game show Temptation (coincidentally hosted by James also) were the only two game shows packaged by Heatter-Quigley to not use Kenny Williams as announcer. Because Williams was so busy at the time on the other H-Q shows, Johnny Gilbert, best known today as the long-standing voice of Jeopardy, worked MMM instead.
Game play
Two contestants (one a returning champion) competed, each paired with a celebrity partner, in this two-stage game.
In the first half of the game, the teams answered general knowledge questions, frequently involving puns or other wordplay, which were displayed on a huge electronic marquee. First, the players were shown blanks on the bottom line, denoting the number of words and letters in the answer; then a clue would crawl across the upper line. If no team buzzed in once the clue was revealed, letters of the answer then filled in at random as time progressed.
(Sample questions: "He's center and he's square./#### #####" Answer: Paul Lynde. "An athlete's supporter/###" Answer: Fan)
Often, the host would preface the clue with an additional clue: (e.g., the blanked-out answer "### ### #####" would appear, and the host might ask, "What does this man pull out?", then the clue, "A showy organist," would appear. Answer: all the stops.)
For any given question, only the contestant or the celebrity would be eligible to buzz in; this alternated with each question, and was indicated by lighted panels in front of the eligible player.
Correct answers were worth one point, and five points allowed the winning team to advance to the game's second stage – playing a giant pinball machine (20 feet high and 12 feet long, located in the middle of the set) that served as The Magnificent Marble Machine's centerpiece.
Each team member manipulated one flipper button (each controlling two flippers), and it was the team's goal to keep the ball in play for as long as possible within a 60-second time limit while accumulating points by hitting bumpers, noisemakers and lights. Hitting one of seven of the large numbered bumpers won the contestant prizes; hitting bumpers numbered 2 and 3 in combination won a larger announced prize (such as a car or trip). Play ended if it fell into one of the two "out holes"; the flippers were disabled when the allocated 60 seconds expired, with the ball (still in play) usually entering an out hole within a few seconds. At some point, a bonus prize was added for hitting all seven numbered bumpers at least once. In the original format, each bumper scored 500 points while any noisemaker scored 200 points. Producers audited the score by watching the tape, to insure that each scoring feature had registered. Apparently, as the machine aged (week by week), the scoring errors increased, so the producers changed the rules to have any of the seven "thumper bumpers" counting 500 points, with nothing else scoring.
If a team reached a target score after playing two balls (15,000 for each new champion, minus 1,000 for each return visit), the team played a bonus "gold money ball," where the player earned money ($200 for each noisemaker and bumper, later $500 for each numbered bumper). As the target was lowered from game to game, the money ball round became easier to reach. At some point in the series run, the "gold money ball" was redesigned to be a multi-player "money ball marathon" rather than a bonus round any player might be able to achieve in any one play of the machine. The contestant achieving the top point score over a two week period would be awarded a money ball round. This format lasted for maybe five marathons and the money ball was dropped from the game altogether. Even the electronic point counters on the pinball machine were covered over. Contestants then only played for prized obtained by hitting the seven bumpers.
Scheduling/Ratings
Debuting on the Monday following the cancellation of host James' Blank Check (swapping places with Jackpot! on the lineup), The Magnificent Marble Machine was one of the most hyped game shows on NBC's daytime schedule in the 1970s, as programmers were hoping to cash in on the pinball craze. However, critics and viewers roundly panned the show; modifying the rules and changing the format to all celebrities (with guests playing for home audience members, and a studio audience member playing the bonus round) in January 1976 failed. Soap operas on CBS and the game Showoffs and the soap All My Children on ABC easily defeated The Magnificent Marble Machine in the ratings. In fact, the show left the air for several weeks around Christmas 1975 in order to retool and to give an experimental talk show hosted by KNBC-TV Los Angeles' Kelly Lange, Take My Advice, air time without a standard full-fledged 13-week commitment.
Although the last original episode aired in March 1976, NBC aired reruns until June, because of a technical strike affecting the network; this marked one of the first instances of a network employing repeats of a first-run game show to fill a time slot. The network canceled the program when its replacement series, The Fun Factory, was ready.
Episode status
Only one episode of this show is known to exist (see above), due to a standard process used by NBC's daytime programming department in the 70's known as wiping. NBC would re-use its tapes to tape other programming. Only one episode of this show is known to exist on the trading circuit, in varied quality.