Sometimes it was a luxury car, sometimes a boat, sometimes tickets to Hawaii, etc., etc. It was always valuable. And the "goat" of the puzzle could be any kind of disappointing or worthless item. (Sometimes it was a goat, or a cow, or a dented bowling ball or something like that.) The third door could hide almost anything from junk to something decent to something almost as good as the grand prize. It varied.

It's been a long, long time, but as I recall the location of the grand prize was always revealed.

Otherwise, of course, the show would just be a variation of three-card monte (get it? "Monty"? "monte"?) with a disappearing "prize."

And there was joking and bargaining and costumes and elaborate promotional descriptions of the worthwhile prizes and cash bribes to get people either to switch their choices or not to switch. Silly, but fun at the time.

But none of that has anything to do with the odds related to the stylized version of the game we've been discussing.

It does seem, though, that many people *don't* think it affects the odds if Monty knows where the grand prize is and doesn't want you to win it. That naivete' *is* a little troubling.