Paranoia (game show)

Paranoia was a short-lived offering on the Fox Family channel that aired from April to May in 2000. The show would be the last game show hosted by Peter Tomarken, and the first game show since the 1950s to be recorded live with contestants playing in the studio, by satellite, over the phone (by calling 1-87-Paranoia), and on-line (going to paranoia.excite.com to do that).

Main Game

One studio contestant competed against three satellite players (picked from a majority of on-line users) from across the United States by answering a series of ten questions. The studio contestant was given $10,000 to start with, as well as an "Interactive Jackpot" that started at $5000. A question and four choices were presented to the contestant; a right answer did nothing to the contestant's money, but a wrong answer caused them to lose $1,000. After that, the contestant had to challenge at least one contestant to see if they didn't have a right answer. If their answer was right, the contestant lost another $1,000 to the challenger, but if they were wrong, they earned a "strike", and two strikes knocked them out of the game. For every question, five on-line players and five phone players were randomly selected to answer it; each of them who answered correctly earned $50 from the Interactive Jackpot. They kept answering questions until the studio contestant had no money left, or knocked out the satellite players. If they had no money left, the game was over and the satellite player with the highest score would return as the studio player on a future game, though the studio contestant earned $500 just for showing up (as would all satellite players who didn't win any money), but if all three satellite players were knocked out, the studio player won the game and got to keep the remainder of the $10,000, as well as the Interactive Jackpot.

Two elements were included which could each be used once-- a "Swap Out" where the studio contestant could swap a satellite contestant out for someone else, and a "Knock Out" where the studio contestant could knock a satellite contestant out of the game just like that. But the contestant had to lose some money to do either one of them ($1,000 for a "Swap Out" and $3,000 for a "Knock Out"). Later on in the run, if the studio contestant opted to use either of these options, the contestant they swapped/knocked out would receive the "fee".

Bonus Round

Ten categories were presented to the contestant, nine of which could multiply the total by ten, while one could multiply the total by 100. After picking the category, the contestant would have 15 seconds to answer the question. If right, the value was increased by either 10 or 100 times the total, but a wrong answer did nothing to the total. The contestant's heart rate would be shown during this round.

The potential grand prize could be $1.5 million.

Interactive Play-Along Between Other Contestants

The contestants over-the-phone and on-line played the same questions, earning $50 for a correct answer. In between the episode, going into the third commercial break and before the end credits, Peter would ask a question to one on-line contestant and then another to an over-the-phone contestant. If the contestant got his or her question correct, that player won an Intel Pentium III E-Machines computer, complete with a camera.

Trivia

The $10,000 the contestant was initially staked with, was held in a basket in front of them in 10 stacks of 200 $5 bills ($1,000 in each stack).

On the premiere episode, contestant Bart was to be playing the bonus game for either $72,500 or $725,000 (based on his choice) but a computer error revealed his prize to be $80,000. After the contestant gave the correct answer and a commercial, Peter explained the error by saying "It's called live TV," and advised that Bart was awarded the $80,000 in spite of the error.

Also, on the premiere episode a memorable blooper took place: as Peter sent the show to commercial, he mistakenly referenced Game Show Network by stating: "Take a look at these folks because they'll be playing Paranoia live here on Game Show...um...um..." As you can read in the article, Fox Family aired the show live.

Paranoia would wind up being Peter Tomarken's last full-time game show hosting gig although he did host a round of Whammy: The all-new Press Your Luck 3 years later.

At the end of each episode, the top five winners on the Internet would be revealed. Those five won an Intel Pentium III E-Machines computer and camera, just like if an Internet or phone player got a question correct going into the third commercial break and before the credits.