The object of the game was to negotiate a large maze built on the studio floor that housed several towers.
In fact, WKRC scheduled Money Maze on a delay at 10:30 a.m., immediately before Nick Clooney at 11:00, to provide a 90-minute block for the popular local personality.
To win the $10,000, the runner had to activate the push-buttons on the five lit towers, reach the exit, and push its button within 60 seconds.
ABC broadcast The Money Maze at 4:00 p.m. Eastern (3:00 Central), opposite Tattletales on CBS and Somerset on NBC; Money Maze did not perform well against either series in the ratings, and host Clooney claimed in a 1998 Cincinnati Post column that fewer than half of ABC's affiliates carried the show.
According to Mark Evanier, producer Don Segall described Money Maze as "the first game show where the stage crew took home more money than the contestants";[3] the rental fees for taping at a large studio for several days, plus overtime pay for setting up, striking, and storing the set, quickly eclipsed the show's prize budget.
ABC may have viewed the large expenses as a headache, even as Tattletales was pushed to 11:00 am on June 16 in favor of Musical Chairs.
While Money Maze was scheduled to end on July 4, the network discontinued the show before the final week was taped.
In 2009, producer Ron Greenberg worked with Don Lipp and Phil Gurin on a new pilot for a revival on French TV network TF1.
As with most other daytime game shows on the networks other than CBS from that era, the tapes were erased after broadcast for reuse due to their great expense at the time.
Another 1975 episode, recorded on an early home VCR by artist Andy Warhol, is held at the Paley Center for Media.