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Double Digits was a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Played from April 20 to May 18, 1973, it was played for a car and used small prizes. Gameplay The contestant was shown four small prizes, one at a time, and was shown the second digits in their prices. For each prize, the contestant was shown two options for the first digit in its price, which were always consecutive digits. The first digits of the four prizes, when placed consecutively, also formed the price of the car. The contestant had to correctly guess all four digits to win the car, but won any small prizes they had correctly guessed the first digit of regardless of the outcome. History Reportedly, the game originally had slightly different gameplay, but there are disputes as to what the difference was. Originally, the contestant was either presented with four digits in the price of the car out of order, which they had to place with the correct prizes. In another version, the contestant had to guess the digits outright with no assistance. If the former was actually the format, it would make the game a predecessor of Switcheroo, which uses a given series of digits to correctly fill in the missing first digits of various prizes; however, the missing digits do not form the price of the car in Switcheroo, as the car is one of the prizes with a missing digit. Set Double Digits was the first pricing game to use a uniquely-shaped board (a four-sided board) unlike the other, similar games that had eight-sided boards (Any Number, Bonus Game, Bullseye, Clock Game, Double Bullseye, Give or Keep, and Money Game). However, despite this, the board appears to have been a "cover" attached to the front of the original Bullseye game prop, which had been retired for over seven months when Double Digits debuted. In the playing aired by Game Show Network, as the game comes around on the Turntable a studio light shines on the side, revealing an angle that is at odds with the shape of the board as seen from the front. Additionally, most of the board is manipulated by then-host Bob Barker aside from one electronic display, which is located in about the same spot as the one on Bullseye. Retirement Double Digits was active in the rotation until May 18, 1973's episode (aired on June 15 due to coverage of the Watergate hearings). The game was retired after just five playings because of its confusing nature; of these, only the first ended with a win. Game Show Network aired the fourth playing, from May 8, 1973. The concept of this game was reused in the later pricing game Temptation (which debuted during the show's next season on September 7, 1973) in which the price of a car is built from digits in the price of smaller prizes with a choice of 2 unique digits in each. In Temptation however, the prizes used progress to much higher values than what was used in Double Digits (but still only offering a choice between two digits each), but the prizes used can only be won if the car is won (by guessing all the digits correctly), or by not risking winning nothing by not going for the car.
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