Obvious Rule Patch / Game Shows

• One of the more famous examples of this trope came in June 1984, when CBS' Press Your Luck invited Michael Larson as a contestant. Unbeknownst to the producers, Larson had spent several months in advance viewing tape recordings of Press Your Luck and recognized looping patterns on the "random" lighting indicator for the game's Big Board, realizing that he could maximize his winnings by memorizing the patterns, and predict when the light landed on the space with the largest jackpot as well as a free spin, effectively allowing him to extend his playing time for as long as he wished. During his appearance — to the amazement of the host, the studio audience, and especially the people in the control room — Larson used his technique to burn through two episodes' worth of gameplay and earn over $110,000 in prize money. CBS initially withheld the winnings, but relented when the producers realized that he technically played the game as established. The production subsequently put the Big Board through several alternating patterns. When the show was revived as Whammy on GSN, the new computer controlled board for the show was advertised as being "Larson-proof." It didn’t stop them from having an episode where Larson’s brother played along with Larson’s opponents, however (by this time, Larson himself had died of throat cancer, having blown his winnings on other get-rich quick schemes).
• For the "test" hour-long shows of September 8-12, 1975 and the first few weeks of November, The Price Is Right introduced the "Showcase Showdown". This is where the three contestants in each half-hour of the game spin the Big Wheel, a carnival wheel with cash amounts on it; whoever spins closest to $1.00 without going over gets to go on to the Showcases at the end of the show. Originally, there was no rule about how far the Big Wheel had to be spun. The current rule (at least one complete revolution so that the pointer clears at least twenty pegs, thus explaining why bonus spins^note awarded to contestants who spin $1.00 exactly start at the green .05 wedge) was instituted by the end of November 1975, added when one contestant just tapped the wheel and made it spin three spaces.
  • Card Game has had a lot of sudden rule changes throughout its long tenure, all thanks to inflation. At first, it had no starting range. Then during 1983, it had a $2,000 starting bid. Ten years later, the bid increased to $8,000 at which point four-digit cars were no longer offered. In 2001, the starting bid increased to $10,000, to quell the game being lost at a sudden rate. Four more years later, the starting bid was $12,000. Then a few months after Drew Carey started hosting the show, it got its current starting bid at $15,000.
• One of the more common obstacles on the obstacle course in Double Dare (1986) was "Icy Trike", in which contestants were required to ride a tricycle across a slippery surface to grab a flag at the far end. While the idea was for the contestants to either pedal or push themselves along with their feet, many teams from the first series in 1986 chose instead to put one foot on the back of the tricycle and propel themselves with the other foot as though riding a scooter, shooting across the "ice" in just over a second. Starting with the 1987 series, contestants were told that they had to sit on the tricycle or they would have to start the obstacle over (at least one team either forgot or ignored this rule and forfeited the grand prize).
• Several of these have abounded on Wheel of Fortune:
  • According to one recollection, there was initially no rule saying that the puzzle had to be solved exactly as it appeared on the board. This was supposedly added the day after a contestant was ruled correct despite transposing the names in the answer "Tweedledum and Tweedledee".
  • Free Spin was originally a wedge that automatically awarded a Free Spin token upon hitting it, which a contestant could turn in after any lost turn to keep control of the Wheel. After several instances where contestants managed to hit Free Spin repeatedly and bank up several Free Spin tokens—which would then, invariably, lead to the contestant hogging the Wheel by turning in Free Spins the second they lost their turn—they changed it to just a single token placed over a random dollar amount. Free Spin was ultimately Retired in 2009 in favor of "Free Play" once too many contestants began using their token immediately upon a wrong guess or hitting a penalty space. Used until 2021, this space served to award contestants $500 per consonant, a free vowel, or a (rarely taken) chance to solve a puzzle without fear of losing control of the wheel.
  • The category "Same Name"^note two phrases, names, etc. that end in the same word, such as "Christmas and Family Tree" always had the word "AND" spelled out. After 99% of contestants called N-D-A first, they patched this by making the category use an ampersand in its place. This has inconsistently reverted since the Turn of the Millennium, although this practice stopped in Season 35.
  • Similarly, the original Bonus Round rules called for picking five consonants and a vowel to see how many would be revealed in a blank puzzle, then alloting 15 seconds to attempt solving it. After about eight years in which nearly every contestant picked R, S, T, L, N, and E (usually in that order), they finally began providing those letters at the outset and asking the contestant for three more consonants and a vowel, but also making the puzzles more difficult^note When C-D-M-A became a de-facto selection for three-consonants-and-a-vowel, the writers countered by devising puzzles to avoid them. A complacent contestant who goes the traditional RSTLNE-CDMA route will most likely find themselves with a mostly-empty puzzle and shortening the time to 10 seconds.
  • In relation to the above, a cash prize of $25,000 was introduced in the bonus round in 1987. When nearly every contestant chose it over the cars, precious gems, annuities, or sometimes Undesirable Prizes such as a "shipboard party" or a do-it-yourself log cabin kit, the prizes were changed to a random draw from five envelopes at the onset of the seventh season. This, in turn, was changed to a 24-envelope wheel in 2001 with a prize pool reduced to cars and varying cash amounts (initially from $25,000 to $100,000, now $40,000 to a possible $1,000,000).
• On the original run of Card Sharks, the "Money Cards" required betting on whether the next card in a line of playing cards would be higher or lower, and progressing until all the cards were cleared or the contestant ran out of money, whichever came first. After several contestants got screwed over by the next card being of the same value (most notoriously with one contestant who found all four threes in a row), the latter part of that run and the 1986-89 revival changed this so that uncovering a card of the same value resulted in neither a gain nor loss of money (referred to in-show as a "push").
  • For some odd reason, the 2019 ABC revival didn't adopt the "push" rule for its Money Cards on its first season. It has, however, begun using it for the second season onward.
• Jeopardy!
  • On the original Art Fleming-hosted version (1964-74), contestants had to phrase their answers not only in the form of a question, but also a grammatically correct form. (So for instance, if someone said "What is Abraham Lincoln?" instead of "Who is Abraham Lincoln?", Art would ask them to rephrase.) After finding that this slowed gameplay down, the rules on phrasing were relaxed.
  • Under Art Fleming's tenure, all contestants win or lose received their winnings. However, some contestants who felt they had won enough money or had no chance to win simply stopped playing. To encourage more competitive play when the show was brought back with Alex Trebek in 1984, only the winner receives his or her full winnings while the two departing contestants receive Consolation Prizes. On May 16, 2002, this changed to cash prizes of $2,000 for second place and $1,000 for third. These were increased to $3,000 and $2,000, respectively starting in Season 40.
  • For almost all of the show's history, non-zero ties for first place outside tournaments meant that the tied contestants were declared co-champions, and both returned the next day (unless one of the contestants had met the five-day champion limit, which was abolished in Season 20). After a spate of ties in the start of season 31—most likely due to superchampion Arthur Chu offering so many ties during his run—the rules were changed so that ties for first are broken by a tiebreaker clue (which is also how ties are broken in tournaments). However, while newcomers to the show may see this as an exciting new gameplay element, long-time fans see this rule change as both unnecessary and unwelcome.
  • During the 2013 Teen Tournament, a semifinal match ended in a triple-zero finish after all three contestants wagered their entire earnings and failed to respond correctly to the Final Jeopardy! clue. The finals had to be composed of the two semifinal winners and the highest scoring non-winner of those two games per the rules at the time. As it happened, the "wild card" finalist, Leonard Cooper, won the tournament. The producers then changed this immediately afterward; in the event of a tournament tie for the lead regardless of the amount, a tiebreaker clue would decide who advances.
  • After an early contestant lost by failing to phrase Final Jeopardy! in the form of a question, the rules were changed so that the contestant writes down the "Who" or "What" part of the response, along with their wager, during the commercial break before Final Jeopardy!.
• In the 70s version of Match Game, the part of the show with the highest cash winnings was the head-to-head match, where the contestant chose a celebrity panelist to match a single clue. But for years, contestants were almost always picking Richard Dawson, as he did have a good track record. So by Match Game '78, a "Star Wheel" was added, in which the celebrity was determined by the spin of a wheel (it also gave the contestant a chance to double their winnings). Ironically, the first time the Star Wheel was used, it landed on Dawson, causing a mock-walkoff from the panel.
• In the 2014 season of Intervilles International (a.k.a. The Biggest Game Show in the World), the Russian team was abusing the format so much that the rules had to be changed mid-season. Normally, in each episode, teams compete in 5 games to score points, then they must climb the Wall of Champions from a starting position determined by their score (more points means better starting position). The winner of the episode is the team who can climb the Wall fastest. The Russians specifically trained athletes to climb as fast as possible, so they could win even from a bad starting position. The other teams were so upset that they convinced the producers to demote the Wall into a bonus round such that two winners were announced at the end, one who won the other games and one who won the Wall. But the participating countries could choose to broadcast the season according to the new or the old rules, so in the Russian and French broadcasts the Russian team won, while in the Hungarian and Egyptian broadcasts, the Hungarians won.
• Pyramid:
  • The '70s versions became stricter for clues in the Winner's Circle until they were set in stone around 1978. Hand gestures became illegal shortly after The $10,000 Pyramid premiered when they discovered many clue givers were doing these. As the show continued its run, the rules also changed to disallow direct synonyms and to curb overly descriptive clues such as prepositional phrases^note for "things made of bamboo", giving the clue "a hut in Vietnam" by itself is illegal. Giving the same clue only after saying "a Vietnamese hut", however, was permitted. "Red China" was allowed as a clue for "Communist Countries" on an early episode and Tony Randall got away with the verbose "Stuffing in the little bottles of pills" as a clue once. On a later episode, he could have said "Pill bottle stuffing" with no penalty.
  • When the "Mystery 7" bonus card was first used in the '80s versions, the category was in plain sight. After a year and a half of teams almost always choosing it first, the rules changed for it to be hidden behind one of the six categories.
  • The "7-11" card also in the '80s versions offered the contestant the option to play for $50 per word instead of going for the full $1,100. Almost nobody ever took the former, so after roughly a year and a half it defaulted to the $1,100.
• Password:
  • Shortly after Password Plus began airing, antonyms became illegal clues in an effort to encourage more thinking for otherwise easy passwords. The antonym rule was dropped on Super Password.
  • Alphabetics, the bonus round used for Plus, allowed the contestant to play for a reduction of the grand prize if a celebrity gave an illegal clue (each deducted $1,000 from the jackpot, but the password remained in play, no matter how many illegal clues were given). When brought back on Super Password, this changed to an illegal clue throwing the password out and the contestant losing the chance to play for the jackpot (a rule similar to Pyramid's Winner's Circle). This was likely done to prevent celebrities from intentionally giving illegal clues if stuck on a word, which wasn't uncommon on Plus.
• On the Chuck Woolery-hosted version of Lingo, the Bonus Round had teams guessing five-letter words, with each correct guess earning one draw from a hopper full of numbers, in hopes of completing a 5-in-a-row "Lingo" anywhere on a Bingo board which already had some numbers marked off. The original board layout required only two balls to win, and getting 5-in-a-row at any point won a prize package. However, one team managed to get only one word right (which was drawn anyway for the $100 per ball consolation), and another got no words right (meaning that the Bonus Lingo board didn't even appear, and the team won the same Consolation Prize as their opponents), so some changes were made in Season 2 onward. First off, the pre-marked board was rearranged so that a "Lingo" could be made in only one draw. Doing it on the first draw won a larger prize package (or in later seasons, a Progressive Jackpot), while doing it on the second or later draw won set $5,000. In addition, teams were awarded a "bonus letter" (i.e., the right to call for another letter in the word at their discretion) for each "Lingo" made in the main game, thus giving them a little more leeway if they got stuck on a word.
• Originally on The Joker's Wild, a contestant who spun three Jokers won automatically. On one occasion, a champion managed to do this on the first spin of the game, thus meaning that their opponent never even got a chance to play. This was patched on the next episode by requiring any contestant who spun three Jokers to answer a trivia question to win the game (and was further patched in 1974 by giving the challenger the first spin of the game).
• Originally on Chain Reaction, the Bonus Round had a payout structure requiring nine words to win. The first word lit up a 1, and the next eight words each lit up half of a 0, thus creating a $10,000 payout if all nine words were played. This payout structure was quickly dropped when nobody managed to get over $100.
• The UK Saturday morning kids' show Ghost Train featured a game show component called Skull which had two very obvious rules patches:
  • The section began with a trivia quiz in which each wrong answer would add one "Mafiette" (opponent) to the physical game which was played afterwards. To avoid the case of a contestant having no Mafiettes, the final question was asked by the villain Barry Mafia and would be an Impossible Task comprised of a question about Barry himself (like, "What did I have for breakfast this morning?"). In the rare case where the contestant got no questions right, Barry would usually declare whatever answer they gave correct.
  • In the physical section, the player - blindfolded - had first to sneak past the blindfolded, boffer-wielding mafiettes and then to engage in a blindfolded boffer battle themselves against Barry Mafia. Since Barry was an adult and would have an unfair advantage against a child, it was quite clear that he moved deliberately slowly and was only allowed to use overhead swings rather than sideways wide-area ones. Also, the filming method for the segment had to be changed after several children repeatedly hit the camera with their boffer.
• Win Ben Stein's Money's Best of Ten Test of Knowledge, in which a contestant and host-turned-player Ben Stein took turns answering the same ten questions for a potential $5,000 payday, saw a rules patch come during the show's first season. Originally, the contestant would win the full $5,000 prize if he/she and Ben finished with a tie score. In this scenario, if the contestant chose to go first and answered all ten questions correctly, it would make Ben's turn meaningless since he wouldn't have anything to defend. Only one contestant won the full $5,000 this way^note though among the first episodes taped, this specific occurrence aired in the middle of the show's first season, but after realizing ties could become common, the producers promptly amended the rules so that the contestant received a smaller $1,000 bonus instead (which was added to what the contestant had already won). Ben got to keep any money that the contestant hadn't already taken.
• Scrabble:
  • The Crossword portion maintained the "first to three" rule throughout its run. However, there was one brief period during which competitors had to "spell" words by correctly filling in empty space. After one round that had two contestants fumbling over the word MOSQUITOS, this spelling rule was scrapped.
  • The Scrabble Sprint round, however, saw the most change:
    • For the first nine months of the show's initial run, the two Sprint contestants each played with different sets of words during the same round. The challenger picked from an envelope (blue or pink) from which to play, giving the champion the one not chosen.
    • In March 1985, the show began having the challenger and the champion play to determine who could solve the same three words faster. Initially, both players' turns were taken within the same act. The champion headed offstage into a soundproof booth before the challenger played, which set the time to beat. The champion would be brought in immediately afterward to try to finish faster.
    • The "same three words" format saw later refinement to fit Scrabble's eventual, permanent self-contained format: An episode's first game's winner establishes a time before two new contestants begin playing the second game. The second game's winner plays to beat the first Sprint player's time. It was at this point in the run (September 1986) that the Sprint changed from "same three words" to "same four words".
• Greed: Originally, buzzing in early on a Terminator question instantly eliminated the contestant regardless of what their answer was. This was soon changed so that a contestant could buzz in early, but Chuck would immediately stop reading the question if they did.
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?:
  • The removal of Phone-a-Friend in the US version. By the time the clock format started, it had become obvious that these friends were using search engines to try to find the answer in the 30 seconds allowed. They often didn't even try to hide it. Neither did the show when they invoked said Obvious Rule Patch and replaced it with giving the Ask the Expert lifeline throughout the game. The UK version at least fixed this problem by changing how this lifeline worked. Instead of the contestant having all three people on the telephone line, the contestant chose helpers ahead of time, who were brought backstage and isolated in Soundproof Booths until they were called. Since the audience can see them when this lifeline is used, it pretty much eliminated any chance to Google the answer. The U.S. version followed suit, except under the name "Plus One" (in which the friend appears with the contestant onstage).
  • On Super Millionaire, the Double Dip lifeline was given to contestants for answering the tenth question correctly. This brought up the possibility of a contestant using 50:50 and then that to guarantee moving one step upward on the prize ladder. To correct that, the syndicated version simply replaced 50:50 with Double Dip when the clock format was introduced.
• In American Gladiators, players initially were allowed to stick their feet out when swinging in the Cannonball event. However, when a player ended up wounding Gladiator Malibu that way, the next episode enforced tucking their legs in.
  • An obvious one on AG was from Season 3 onward in the Eliminator. Before, both contenders started at the same time, and their score was determined by how fast they completed it. This meant that a contender who was behind could have won the Eliminator, but they would have to be ahead by a certain amount of seconds (or the other player had to screw up somewhere to take more time during one of the obstacles) to amount enough points to come from behind. This had a bit of confusion as to how the scoring of that event actually worked, and sometimes made the event rather useless and inconsequential if there was a big lead to overcome. So from season three on, whoever was in the lead going into the Eliminator was given a head start: a half a second for every point they were in the lead, meaning that whoever was behind on points would have to make up that gap to win. Whoever won the Eliminator moved on regardless of who was in the lead point wise going into the event.
  • The British version had a round called The Wall, wherein the Gladiator had to pull the Contender off a climbing wall whilst both were climbing it. During the first series, one Contender greased her legs up and, as a result, the Gladiator had caught her but slipped off. The Gladiator made a complaint to the referee who, whilst agreeing with the Gladiator, was unable to deduct the points as there was no rule preventing it. However, he also said the Contender's actions were not in keeping with the spirit of the show and rules would be introduced immediately to prevent a repeat.
• In Legends of the Hidden Temple, teams were initially allowed to enter and exit the Temple through the Cave of Sighs as opposed to using the stairs leading to the top right room. Starting in Season 2, the Cave of Sighs was revamped to the Ledges and its entrance was blocked off. From that point on, contestants had to enter the Temple through the stairs and then choose whether to start in the upper floor or slide down into the Ledges.
• Fort Boyard: After singer Vianney managed to easily win the Ketchup Factory challenge by throwing as many tomatoes he could above the ketchup pool instead of carrying them over the slippery ledge, the challenge was modified with a drawer delivering only eight tomatoes at a time to the contestant.
• Taskmaster has to deal with this on occasion, either when complaining contests raise a valid point or to deal with unexpected Rules Lawyering.
  • "Take it in turns to say a 5-letter word whenever the music stops" has Hugh Dennis say "Sweden's" as an 8-letter word, arguing that it is possessive, "belonging to Sweden", and that the apostrophe counts as a letter. Greg lets it slide, but declares "no more apostrophes from now on.
  • "Clap as many times as you can", which required contestants to "Put on a pair of food handling gloves, eat a whole banana, correctly put on a tie, and clap as many times as possible." Katherin Ryan protested this, pointing out it was unfairly biased against women because she had never had to wear a tie before. Greg at the suggestion of Richard Osman, accepted the fix of moving a comma to change two rules so the contestants had to "eat a whole banana correctly" and simply "put on a tie", allowing all contestants to wear the tie in whatever manner they wished and removing the unfair advantage for the male contestants.

---