The Challengers (game show)

The Challengers
The Challengers opening logo.
Genre	Game show
Created by	Ron Greenberg
Based on	The Who, What, or Where Game
Directed by	Morris Abraham, Chris Darley [1]
Presented by	Dick Clark
Judges	Gary Johnson [1]
Narrated by	Don Morrow Bob Hilton (substitute)
Composers	Joel Hirschhorn Al Kasha Michael Lloyd [1]
Country of origin	United States
Production
Production locations	The Prospect Studios Hollywood, California (1989 pilot) Hollywood Center Studios Hollywood, California (1990-1991)
Running time	approx. 22-24 minutes
Production companies	Ron Greenberg Productions Dick Clark Productions
Original release
Network	Syndicated
Release	September 3, 1990 (1990-09-03) – August 30, 1991 (1991-08-30)

The Challengers is an American game show that aired in syndication during the 1990-91 television season The series was created by Ron Greenberg and was based largely on his 1969 production, The Who, What, or Where Game . Dick Clark presided over the show with Don Morrow announcing. The Challengers was a joint production of Ron Greenberg Productions and Dick Clark Productions, with Buena Vista Television (now Disney–ABC Domestic Television) as distributor.

The Challengers premiered on September 3, 1990 and aired new episodes until August 2, 1991. A series of reruns filled out the remainder of its broadcast run, which ended on August 30, 1991. The program was one of five syndicated game shows to premiere in the fall of 1990 and had the longest run of the five due to its production schedule, but like the others it was not renewed for a second season.

Gameplay

Three contestants, one a returning champion, competed on each show.

Challengers Sprint Round

The Challengers Sprint was a sixty-second speed round that began each game. Clark would ask a series of rapid-fire questions worth $100, and the contestants tried to be the first to buzz in to answer as only one of them could attempt each question. Answering correctly added $100, while answering incorrectly deducted $100. For the first three weeks of episodes, each contestant started the game with nothing; beginning on September 24, 1990, they were each staked with $200 at the start of the game.

After the last question of the round was asked (Clark would finish any question he started before the clock hit zero), the contestant in the lead got control of the board for the first round. In the event of a tie, one more question was asked; the contestant that answered it correctly started the first round, but answering incorrectly gave that privilege to the other contestant.

This round was briefly removed partway through the run (concurrent with the change to the daily "Ultimate Challenge" format, as described below) in favor of a single toss-up question, with the contestant who answered correctly scoring $100 and control of the Round 1 board. If someone buzzed in and did not answer correctly, he/she lost $100 and a new toss-up was given to the other two contestants. These rules did not last long, and by February 1991, the Challengers Sprint had been reinstated.

Round 1

Six categories, each containing three questions, were displayed on a video wall. The contestant in the lead after the Challengers Sprint (or the one who answered the single toss-up correctly when the Sprint was not in use) chose one to begin the round. The contestants were then given clues to the subjects of the three questions, valued at $150, $200, and $250 in order of increasing difficulty (later reduced to $100, $150, and $200). Correct answers added the value of the question to the contestant's score, while incorrect answers subtracted the same value.

Each contestant secretly chose one of the three questions using buttons on their podiums, and their choices affected the gameplay as follows:

• Each contestant chose a different question. The three questions were asked in increasing order of value, with each contestant answering his/her own question.
• Two contestants chose one question; the third contestant chose a different one. The two questions were asked in increasing order of value. The solo contestant had to answer his/her own question, while the two who chose the same question used their buzzers. If the first contestant of the two who chose the same question answered incorrectly, the other could either pass or try to answer.
• All three contestants chose the same question. All three question values were immediately doubled, and the chosen question was asked as a toss-up open to all three contestants. The same toss-up rules as above applied. A contestant who answered correctly could either end the category or attempt either of the remaining two questions unopposed. Correctly answering this second question again gave the contestant the option to stop or try the third question. An incorrect answer on either the second or third question subtracted its doubled value from the contestant's score and ended the category.

In each case, the category was eliminated from play and the last contestant to give a correct answer chose the next one. Play continued until all six categories were played or time ran out.

Round 2

Six new categories were introduced and play continued as described above, with all question values doubled ($300/$400/$500, later $200/$300/$400).

As in Round One, play continued until all six categories were played or time ran out. Any players who finished the round with a zero or negative score were eliminated from the game.

Final Challenge

One final category was presented, with three question choices, each of which offered different payout odds of 1:1, 2:1, or 3:1 ranked by increasing difficulty. The contestants had 15 seconds to secretly choose a question and decide how much of their score they wanted to wager on it. If multiple contestants chose the same question, only the one who placed the largest wager was allowed to answer it; the others were locked out of the round.

Answering a question correctly won the value of the wager multiplied by the odds, while a miss deducted only the value of the wager. The player in the lead after this round won the game and returned as champion the next day, although all contestants kept what they had earned. Each contestant had a Citibank Visa account (later, they could choose a MasterCard) opened in their name before the show started and any money they won was deposited into that account. Contestants could also choose to receive their winnings in cash rather than open the account. ^[2] Champions remained on the show until they were defeated.

If only one contestant finished the second round with a positive total, he/she had the option to skip the Final Challenge. If he/she decided to play it, the contestant was shown the category and the question choices. He/she then selected one and made a wager. Giving an incorrect answer deducted the wager and ended the game. Answering correctly, as before, won the value of the wager times the odds attached, and the contestant was given the choice to stop or continue playing. The round continued until all three questions had been attempted, or if the contestant either gave an incorrect answer or decided to stop.

Ultimate Challenge

The Challengers, like many game shows, employed a bonus round. The round was referred to as the Ultimate Challenge, and offered a prize of five figures to any champion who managed to beat it.

Format #1

The initial Ultimate Challenge format saw the round played for an accumulating cash jackpot. The difference between it and most other game show bonus rounds was that a champion had to qualify to play the Ultimate Challenge. In order to do this, a contestant was required to win three consecutive matches; if he/she did this, the contestant would play the Ultimate Challenge at the start of the next show. (The first round would proceed as normal once the round ended, but would be time-compressed as a result.)

Two categories would be presented to the champion at the beginning of the round, and each one had three different question subjects. The champion selected a category and was then shown the question subjects in the order in which they would be asked, and was given five seconds to think before answering each question. Answering all three questions correctly won the Ultimate Challenge and the jackpot, while an incorrect answer at any point ended the round with nothing extra being won.

Originally, the jackpot had a starting value of $50,000 and was to increase in value by $5,000 for each time the Ultimate Challenge was played and not won. The series began with the jackpot at $55,000, since the round had been played on a special preview episode prior to its actual premiere and was not won. The first two weeks of episodes, however, did not yield a champion that had won enough games to play the Ultimate Challenge. Therefore, two changes were made to the format beginning on the September 17, 1990 episode of The Challengers. The first, which was to take effect after the initial jackpot was claimed, was to reduce the starting value of the jackpot to $25,000. The second, which took effect immediately, added $1,000 to the jackpot for every day it went unclaimed.

The Ultimate Challenge was played five times over the course of its original format and won four of those times. The first came on September 24, 1990, a week after the rules were changed, when champion Larry Caplan played for and won the initial jackpot, which had grown to $60,000. The second came on October 18, 1990, when Russell Giles won a $42,000 jackpot. Two weeks later, on November 2, 1990, Scott Peterson won a $36,000 jackpot. The last contestant to win the Ultimate Challenge was Stan Newman, who won $31,000 on November 20, 1990.

Format #2

Beginning on November 21, 1990, the Ultimate Challenge was reconfigured as a daily bonus round with $10,000 cash at stake. Initially, as before, the champion was presented with a choice of categories before the round began. Later the choice was dropped and the champion was told the category at the outset of the round.

Instead of needing to answer three questions correctly to win the Ultimate Challenge, the champion only had to answer one. However, the question could and often did contain multiple answers and all parts had to be answered correctly in order for the champion to win the $10,000.

The Ultimate Challenge was eventually done away with; while an exact date has yet to be determined, the round was retired sometime after the February 15, 1991, episode. ^[3]

Tournaments

Tournament of Champions

For the first two months that The Challengers was on the air, contestants were not only competing to win money but were also trying to earn spots in the show's Tournament of Champions. The tournament was conducted the week of November 12, 1990, and its structure was similar to the one employed by Jeopardy! during its own tournaments.

The nine highest winning contestants through November 9, 1990 qualified for the tournament. They then competed, three at a time, over the first three days of the tournament. The winners advanced to the finals, which began on November 15 and were a two-day, cumulative score match. The contestant with the highest total score after those two days would be rewarded with a $25,000 bonus. All of the participants were able to keep any money they won during the course of the tournament, regardless of whether they won their matches.

The field featured a statistical oddity. Stan Newman's record-setting reign as champion began on November 8, the day before the field setting. After winning his second match, Clark informed him that his total winnings that point had put him in the top nine highest money winners and that he would be eligible to compete in the Tournament of Champions. This ran in contrast to shows like Jeopardy!, which do not allow for contestants to participate in their tournaments of champions while still reigning as champion in regular play.

The final concluded on November 16, 1990, with Newman emerging victorious over Russell Giles and Gene Murray in the two-match final. He won $16,265 over the two days, and when combined with $1,300 he won in his first match and the $25,000 bonus he received for winning, Newman's total winnings were $42,565 for the tournament. He would become the only contestant to surpass $100,000 in winnings over the course of the show's run; Newman won $112,480 over his entire run as champion, with over $70,000 of that total coming from his Tournament of Champions victory and his Ultimate Challenge.

Teachers Tournament

Nine teachers competed, using the same format as the Tournament of Champions; $10,000 was awarded to the winner; it was won by Michelle Weiss, who during the week won a total of over $19,000.

Invitational Tournament

The Challengers invited nine more champions back for a second tournament of champions, which was held the week of March 18, 1991. The Challengers Invitational Tournament was conducted the same way that the Tournament of Champions was, with a two-day cumulative score final determining the champion and a cash bonus of $10,000 awarded to the winner on top of what they had earned in the two-day final. Lorin Burte won the Tournament by recording a total of $24,600 in the final, and with the $10,000 bonus added to that, the $11,915 he won in his semifinal game and the $44,250 won during his reign as champion, he finished with a grand total of $90,765.

Questions

Many questions were related to current events, an aspect that the producers saw as a selling point. ^[4] Episodes were taped shortly before their airdate, which was prominently displayed in the opening and on a screen behind Clark; generally, a week of episodes were taped on the Friday of the previous week, which allowed such categories as "This Week On TV" and "Today At The Movies" to be used frequently.

Most of the current event questions and answers were taken from, or verified by, Newsweek ; this was announced on-air at the midpoint of each episode.

The series was also unique in its payout structure: contestants received their winnings on a Citibank Mastercard or Visa credit card, although Dick referenced in some episodes that contestants had the option of converting the balance to cash.

References

1. Schwartz, David; Ryan, Steve; Wostbrock, Fred (1999). The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows (3 ed.). Facts on File, Inc. p.  40. ISBN   0-8160-3846-5.
2. "The Challengers" episode aired September 17, 1990
3. Two episodes from around that time. One, from February 15, 1991, has the champion playing the round. An episode from April 1, 1991, does not.
4. Schwarzbaum, Lisa (1990-10-23). "New Game Shows Trying to Play It Smart". Sun Sentinel. p. 4.E.

External links

• The Challengers at IMDb