Trivia / Treasure Hunt US

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• Channel Hop: The original series moved from ABC to NBC in 1957.
• Corpsing: Happened to Geoff on occasion given the nature of his hosting gig.
  • Happened at least once to Johnny Jacobs as well; upon a Klunk being revealed consisting of stuffed hamsters in a cage, Jacobs can't tell what they are and chuckles "Are those hamsters?!" Then another cage is revealed, this one with a stuffed bird hanging upside down on its perch, at which point he loses it completely.
  • Averted completely with Emile despite Geoff's best efforts to break him.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • For the original series, only the March 20, 1958 and April 24, 1959 episodes are known to exist.
  • The 1970's Series exists, but only four episodes were rerun on GSN. Presumably, the main reason is due to licensing issues with the closing theme.
  • For the 1980's Series, only one half was rerun on GSN. It's unclear what exactly happened to the other half; it is missing.
• No Budget: While the 1970s version prided itself on its incredibly lavish prize packages (early episodes contained two Porsches as a prize), the 1980s run often went to the opposite extreme, sometimes awarding only one or two appliances as a "good prize". The cars were cheap and rarely won, and the producers froze the jackpot at its minimum value of $20,000 four days into taping after someone found the check early on. Further, props and sometimes entire skits were recycled from the 1970s version on occasion.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: In Barris' novel The Big Question, he (now old and long forgotten) relates to a young producer the story of a contestant on Treasure Hunt who both Barris and director John Dorsey thought had died upon learning what she had won, and that the two argued on whether the cameras should pan away (Dorsey) or stay put (Barris). Although the contestant had merely fainted, the incident led to Barris' last great idea (and the focus of the book) — The Death Game. It should be noted that one of the book's characters, an older lady who gets killed on live television at the very end, is named Vera.
• Real Song Theme Tune: Somewhat; Barris composed all the music for the show, but the closing theme bore resemblance to the Elmer Bernstein-penned track "Someday Little Girl" from John Wayne's True Grit; as such, Bernstein is credited with the theme.
• Screwed by the Network: As Geoff recalled years later, the 1973-77 version had actually gotten a fifth season. While the fourth season was in production, Barris told him about a skit idea for the next one: the contestant would be shown an expensive car, but would be told (after she calmed down) that she had won only a small part of it such as the steering wheel. Geoff thought that was far too sadistic and refused to do it...and was promptly fired. However, Barris reversed the decision and Geoff ended up not missing any episodes. He left on his own at the end of the season, and Barris chose to cancel the show instead of replacing him. Geoff probably wouldn't have returned anyway, as he had a deal pending with Bob Stewart for what became Shoot for the Stars on NBC.
• Throw It In!: According to Edwards, Chuck Barris recruited Emile when he was a guard at ABC's parking lot - Barris just went up to him and asked him if he wanted to be on TV.
• What Could Have Been: According to this article and some newsgroup posts, Columbia TriStar Television (which acquired the Barris library in the early 90s) produced a revival pilot around 1996; Quincy Jones-David Salzman Entertainment was the driving force. They initially attempted to pair it up with a remake of Name That Tune after their normal producing partner, Warner Bros., passed on the Tune re-do. According to other newsgroup posts, either Chuck Woolery or Pat Finn would've hosted (apparently both had pilots taped). It didn't get off the ground, though.

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