"The Big Showdown," a game show that aired on ABC’s daytime schedule from December 23, 1974, to July 4, 1975, is famous mainly for a blooper: host Jim Peck, making his grand entrance at the beginning of a show, fell down the stairs, picked himself up, and since the audience was still clapping, scolded, "You people would applaud a lynching!"
Aside from that great moment in TV history, "Big Showdown" was an unsuccessful combination of a quiz show with a bonus round based on luck. Three contestants answered questions in six categories for two rounds, with the top two going on to the "Final Showdown" round, in which answers were worth one, two, or three points each, and the object was to be the first to score seven points.
The winning contestant was escorted to a table and given a pair of dice, one with the 6 replaced with the word "Show," the other with the 6 replaced with "Down." If the contestant could roll "Showdown" on their first roll, they won $10,000. If not, they had 30 seconds to keep rolling the dice; if "Showdown" came up within the time limit, the prize was $5,000.
Despite the 1-in-36 odds, during the 6-month run of the show, no one won the $10,000.