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"The Mad Dash"
Fan Page

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"The Mad Dash" had very simple rules of game play which made it fun. As you can see from the picture to the right, the game was played on a life size game board that consisted of 20 separate spaces plus a WIN space which the players had to land on by exact count to win. If a player did not land on the WIN space by exact count, the number of points they were over, they had to travel backward from the win position.

The teams would start at the question podium and one person from each team would make there way to the board to "start their dash". Teams consisted of a male-female pair and the dashers often joined hands on their way to the game board while the music played. In order to gain control of the board a player had to answer a multiple choice question by buzzing in. The player would roll the die, which contained 1-5 point values for spaces and a dollar sign. Rolling a dollar sign placed $10 into the teams bank and let them roll again. Rolling 3 $ signs in a row gave the team a $50 bonus. Once a point was rolled the team mate (dasher) advanced on the board. The board contained many different spaces, from games and penalties to dollar amounts and prizes. Anytime a player landed on a dollar amount, it was put into the bank, if they landed on a prize, it was also placed on their side of the game board. In order to win the prizes and money on the board, a team had to land on the WIN space by exact count.

Teams were allowed 1 "free" loss before being eliminated from the show, however, this loss could be rid of via some special spaces on the board which we will get to later. The other spaces on the board were special action spaces, these inclue ROLL FORWARD (roll again and moved forward), ROLL BACK (roll again and move back and some more which I will explain. Usually near the end of the board there was a GO BROKE space, if a player landed on this they lost all the money they had accumulated for the current game, however, the prizes earned remained, you can hear the sound for the GO BROKE space! Another interesting spot was the CHANGE PLACES spot, landing on this did exactly what is says, made the players change places! This could be an unfortunate space for a team with a commanding lead, listen to the sound played during the switch! I also mentioned that a team could lose the loss against them at times in the game on spaces that contained a "mini game". These pictures show a contestant that has landed on the SHOOTING STAR GAME space. The result is that she hit the Lose-Loss space and let her team have extra breathing room once again. Losing a loss was very important since any team winning 7 games won the Lucky 7 Jackpot that consisted of a wonderful array of prizes!

So let us get back to the WIN and one more special space. I did mention that players had to land EXACTLY on the WIN space, but this could be done by either landing on it by exact count of the die or by landing on the BREAKAWAY space. The breakaway space allowed the dasher a free run of the board from that space for 1, 2, 3, 4 or five seconds. When a team landed on the space, the person at the question podium rolled the die, the number that came up signified the number of seconds of the breakaway, with a dollar sign representing $10 as normal. During the breakaway, a bell would sound signifying the start of the run, a second bell would sound signifying the end of the run.

The pictures show a contestant during a 2 second breakaway run, click on a picture to listen! What terrible luck, she lands on change spaces, her opponent was still on start at the time!