TV Powww!

TV POWWW!

TV Powww! was an interactive video game. They would pick a kid to play over the phone. The kid would yell “pow” to activate a weapon that blew up space invaders, or to throw a football, etc.

There seemed to be three approaches to playing the game:

STRAIGHT – where the kid would actually watch and attempt to yell “pow!” when an invader approached the target (as was expected)

SUPER-FAST – where the kid would yell “pow-pow-pow-pow…” one after the other in a machine-gun, take-no-prisoners, wise-guy style

And SOUTHERN – where the kid would drawl “pa-yohw” so slowly that there was virtually no way they would hit anything in the time it took to finish the word.

Most of the people assumed there was some poor slob on the other end of the line that had to push a button on some Atari-like joystick whenever the kid yelled “pow”. We imagined the poor guy pushing that button for all it was worth during the super-fast kid’s calls. But our people inside the show tell us that, NO, it really WAS voice-activated. We are impressed!

Eventually, the TV Powww! game died a sad death, and it was written into the show in a dramatic sequence that surprisingly was never recognized by the Academy. In reality, the station didn’t want to pay for it anymore. The folks on the show were told to just drop TVP and come up with something to replace it.

Former WPTF-TV Art Director Dick Hill wrote, “I remember when Dale (Barney) blew up the TV Powww! game. It caused a big stink with the General Manager who told her not to blow up the game but just stop playing it on the show. Dale ignored him and risked getting fired and spent a lot of time creating that great sequence of the game blowing up and all the debris falling on Barney. The GM was pissed but Dale and Barney lived on.

After TV Powww!

After the TV Powww! game was taken away, the producers had to come up with something to fill the spot. The result was Quick Pix, a hidden photo of a celebrity which was slowly revealed. The kids would yell ‘Stop!’ to stop the clock when they knew the answer to the puzzle. The kid with the best time for the day won an extra prize, but everyone who played received a Barney’s Army t-shirt.