Minute to Win It (partially found NBC and Game Show Network game show; 2010-2011, 2013-2014)

The logo of the show.

Status: Partially Found

Minute to Win It was a short-lived game show that aired on NBC from 2010-2011 and had reruns on Game Show Network in 2012. After GSN made their own version of the show in 2013, the show once again quickly died out in 2014. The games played on the show involved anything from ping-pong balls, plastic cups, and other household items used to accomplish tasks in under a minute. These games became extremely popular during the time and were used for fun group gatherings. The show was hosted by Guy Fieri. The GSN version was hosted by Apolo Anton Ohno.^[1]

History of the Series

After the show debuted on NBC, it was an instant hit with young kids and families. It was also a quick way to make some cash to some. An aspect of the show is that many liked the fact that the games played on the show could be easily set up at home. Such challenges include pulling tissues out of a tissue box, knocking over plastic cups with a balloon, and stacking apples. The show's grand prize was $1,000,000 on the NBC version, and $250,000 for the GSN version. The show first aired in March 2010, and ended in September 2011, however, 68 episodes were aired in just a year and a half. The show also released three video game versions, which footage is very scarce of, but both games are easily available to buy online for the Nintendo DS, Wii and Xbox Kinect.^[2]

History of the Search

A few years back, on New Years' Eve of 2016/2017, a Minute to win It (NBC) episode aired as the new year came in on GSN as a rerun. The show's reruns had been gone for years at this point. The episode airing was S1E15, the one seen in the gallery section of this article. While this certainly did nothing for the search, it led to a clip being uploaded and got Youtuber Game Bouncer (formerly known as Byte & Barq) to start looking for the show. After no luck on a regular search, with only 2 episodes being found that were later deleted(but still alive today), he discovered a Russian site called Game Shows(Russian) where episodes seemed to have been found of the show. However, most of the episodes had been compromised or no longer available, and some people did not want to release episodes for the sole reason that no one was interested. Being a Russian site, it was hard to create an account due to the fact that the site had multiple hurdles to jump through. The episodes were not able to be downloaded. However, on March 21st 2018, UzumakiPlayroom, who regularly uploads game shows, uploaded an episode of Minute to Win It, S1E15. After this, the now lost Christmas episode clip gained a lot of traction, with different attempts to try and get the episodes from the Russian site. Although there seemed to be no luck with the Russian site, Game Bouncer discovered and uploaded three more episodes from the Russian site. S1E16, along with and S2E39 and S2E40. However, as he didn't want to upload them to Youtube, he downloaded them and sent them to his friend to upload. S1E1 was discovered on a random day by Bouncer and sent it to his friend to upload, but the episode ended up being blocked on Youtube, simply leading to it being saved. After this, Bouncer was able to get a laptop and while others uploaded the episodes. Those episodes would soon get blocked leading to a termination of his friend's account. However, another friend Bouncer had was able to record some NBC episodes(likely back when the show was airing), and thus some more episodes were found and saved to drive files, the shared folder of which can be seen here. Folder(Most Episodes) S2E3(Christmas) was found on the internet archive a few years later and Bouncer went on to upload the episode after his friend seemed to go inactive. The friend without the terminated account did not upload episodes, leaving Bouncer to upload the episodes on his own. After this, he went on to record a segment with subpar camera quality on his TV of the GSN version. A fan suggested he could record the episodes on a service. Bouncer took this advice, and uploaded the GSN episodes not on streaming services at the time. After uploading those and the remaining episodes which his friend had found for the NBC version, the search came to a halt. While clips and promos were found, there was no sign of episodes. On a different note, most of the show's music on NBC has been found on 5 Alarm Music or Videohelper, but not all. As for GSN, the level complete themes have been mostly found, some have been lost to time due to the fact that companies shut down, and some remains lost. As the search continues, a few possible leads remain. Mostly in the form of rare streaming services. -

Current Status

Out of the 68 episodes needed, 18/19 are found, 7 episodes have clips found, and the rest are lost, mostly in season 2. Two Christmas episodes remain lost, despite one having a clip that was taken down many years later. While episode recaps are available on Game Show Newsnet, no actual video evidence of the remaining episodes has ever appeared anywhere yet, only very small clips on sites. The GSN version is found as it airs on Game Show Central, allowing all episodes to be recorded. However, not all episodes have actually been recorded as there are also a few episodes that never seemed to air, even though they appear in promos, confirming that they were filmed. The Wayback Machine seems to provide no hope as well, as the site's videos don't seem to work, even with flash plug-ins. The episodes are not archived to Wayback Machine, but a Chinese site Biliili has the episodes in a playlist.

Update/January 2023: 2/3 of an episode has been found(S1E19).

Update/April 2023: 3 new episodes have been found. A collection has begun on internet archive.

Update/August 21 2023: More promos found, as well as the previously lost christmas clip has been recovered.

Update/August 29 2023: A clip has been recovered from Season 1 Episode 19, double trouble.

Episode count: 17.75/68 ~ 26.1% of series found.