This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(January 2015) |
Blockbusters | |
---|---|
Created by | Steve Ryan |
Directed by | Ira Skutch (1980–82) Marc Breslow (1987) [1] |
Presented by | Bill Cullen Bill Rafferty [1] |
Announcer | Bob Hilton Rich Jeffries [1] |
Theme music composer | Bob Cobert (1980–82) Music Design Group (1987) [1] |
Country of origin | United States |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 372 (1980–82) 85 (1987) |
Production | |
Executive producers | Ira Skutch (1980–82) Robert Sherman (1987) [1] |
Producers | Robert Sherman (1980–1982) Diane H. Janaver (1987) |
Production locations | NBC Studios Burbank, California |
Running time | 22 minutes |
Production companies | Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions (1980–1982) Mark Goodson Television Productions (1987) |
Original release | |
Network | NBC |
Release | October 27, 1980 – April 23, 1982 |
Release | January 5 – May 1, 1987 |
Related | |
Blockbusters (United Kingdom) |
Blockbusters is an American game show, created by Steve Ryan for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions, which had two separate runs in the 1980s. On this program, contestants answered general-knowledge questions to complete a path across or down a game board composed of hexagons. The first series of the show debuted on NBC on October 27, 1980, and aired until April 23, 1982. In the first series, a team of two family members competed against a solo contestant. Blockbusters was revived on NBC from January 5 to May 1, 1987, but featured only two solo contestants competing. Bill Cullen hosted the 1980–82 version, with Bob Hilton as announcer; Bill Rafferty hosted the 1987 version with Rich Jeffries as announcer. The show is the basis of the British game show of the same name, which aired in various incarnations between 1983 and 2019.
Blockbusters and Las Vegas Gambit , which premiered on the same day, were added to the NBC schedule to replace The David Letterman Show . Letterman's show, for which NBC had cancelled three game shows in June 1980 to free up airtime, did not draw good ratings. It only managed a total of 18 weeks of episodes (and was cut in length from 90 minutes to 60 minutes midway into its run) before NBC decided to return to a more traditional morning lineup.
Three contestants played in each game, with a solo contestant playing against a team of two related contestants that was referred to as the "family pair". The solo contestant played behind a red desk while the family pair played from a white one. [1]
The game was played on a board that consisted of four interlocking rows of five hexagons each. Within each hexagon was a different letter of the alphabet, which represented the first letter of the correct answer to a question. For example, if the letter P was chosen, a sample question might be: "What 'P' is a herbivorous North American mammal whose body is covered with thousands of bristles called quills?", in which case the correct answer would be "Porcupine". Contestants attempted to complete a connection of hexagons to win each round: in red from top to bottom for the solo player, and in white from left to right for the family pair. The solo player had the advantage of being able to win with as few as four hexagons, while the family pair required at least five. Due to the game board's design, there was no way to end a game in a tie. In addition, the two members of the family pair were not allowed to discuss questions at any time. All questions had one-word answers.
Each game started with a letter chosen at random. The first contestant to buzz in was given a chance to answer; if a contestant did so before the host finished the question, he stopped reading and the contestant had to answer immediately. A correct answer awarded the hexagon to that team and allowed them to choose the next letter, while a miss gave the opposing team a chance to hear the entire question and respond. If the solo contestant missed, only one member of the family pair could attempt to answer. If both teams missed the same question, a new one was asked using the same letter.
Originally, winning the first round earned the team no money but allowed the winning team to play the bonus round for $2,500. A second win allowed a return trip to the bonus round for an additional $5,000. Later, each round earned the winning team $500, and teams advanced to the bonus round only after winning two rounds. If the family pair advanced to the bonus round, the captain decided which member would participate.
From the premiere until the change in the front game format, champions retired from the show after winning eight matches. This limit was raised to 10 matches after the change, and later to 20. Following the second increase, several previously undefeated 10-time champions were invited to compete again on the show.
The same board layout was used, with the left and right sides now colored gold, and the object was to complete a horizontal path from left to right within 60 seconds. Each hexagon now contained up to five letters, each representing the initial letters in the solution to a short trivia clue (e.g. for "RTRNR" and a clue of "He pulled Santa's sleigh," the solution would be "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"). A correct response turned the hexagon gold, while a miss or pass turned the hexagon black, forcing the champion to work around that space to complete the path.
The bonus round was originally known as the "Gold Rush" and was played after each game in the match. A contestant/family team's first attempt was worth $2,500 if successful, and an additional $5,000 for the second attempt (dubbed the "Super Gold Rush"). Contestants earned $100 per correct answer if they failed to make the proper connection in time. When the format changed to a best two-out-of-three match, the Gold Rush was played only after the match and was worth $5,000 each time out.
In the show's 19th week on the air, the bonus round's name was changed to "Gold Run".
When NBC revived Blockbusters in 1987, the game was now played with two solo contestants instead of a solo player and family pair; [1] the champion represented white and the challenger red. Also, this version used a computer-generated board that contestants viewed on a television monitor offscreen.
As with the original series, the game was played as a best two-out-of-three match, with the advantage alternating between the contestants in the first two games; the challenger had the advantage in round one and the champion in round two. In the case of a tiebreaker round, the board was reduced to an even 4×4 grid of sixteen hexagons, with neither contestant having an advantage; both contestants could each win the game with four correct answers. Each round was now worth $100 instead of $500. Contestants stayed on until they won ten games (which happened only once) or until they were defeated, whichever happened first.
The Gold Run was played exactly as before, with the champion having to complete a left-to-right path within 60 seconds. The grand prize was originally $5,000, but halfway through the series it changed to a progressive jackpot that began at $5,000 and increased by that much each time the Gold Run was not won. The jackpot reset to $5,000 whenever a returning champion won the Gold Run or was defeated by a new opponent; in the latter case, the new champion would play the Gold Run for $5,000. As with the original series, contestants still earned $100 for each correct answer if he/she did not win the Gold Run.
The 1987 theme music was a stock music piece called "Run, Don't Walk" from the KPM music library, composed by British composer Richard Myhill but credited to the Music Design Group.
The Milton Bradley Company published a single home game edition in 1982. The front game play was the same as the show (with six possible board configurations to play with, although the arrangement of the hexagons was upside-down from what was used on the show). The Gold Run was also played with one of these boards, using only single-letter definitions rather than the multi-letter combinations frequently used on the television show.
Both versions of the series are intact, and have aired on Game Show Network at various times. Reruns were first aired on CBN (now Freeform) in 1984, and was the first Goodson-Todman game show (along with Card Sharks ) to be rerun on cable TV, pre-dating the launch of GSN 10 years later. GSN resumed airing the Cullen version on December 2, 2013, but it has since been dropped. The Bill Cullen version began airing on the second day of Buzzr programming on June 2, 2015.
An episode was featured in the 1998 movie Great Expectations . [1]
Cullen received an Emmy Award nomination for Best Game Show Host, his first ever, for hosting the show. [1]
Country | Local name | Host(s) | Channel | Aired |
---|---|---|---|---|
Australia | Blockbusters | Michael Pope | Seven Network | 1991–1994 |
France | Parcours d'enfer | Pierre Bellemare | TF1 | 1987 |
Germany | Supergrips (originally called Grips ) | Frank Laufenberg (1988–1990) Ingo Dubinski (1991–1995) | Bavarian TV | 1988–1995 |
Indonesia | Aksara Bermakna | Kepra Anton Gemilar | TVRI Antv | 1989–1996 1997–1999 |
Israel | (פיצוחים (שעשועון (Pitzuhim) | Shosh Atari Avri Gilad Ito Aviram Anat Dolev Mennachem Perry Nahum Ido | Israeli Educational Television | 1985–1995 |
مسارات (Masarat) | 1996 | |||
Italy | Doppio Slalom | Corrado Tedeschi (1985–1990) Paolo Bonolis (1990) | Canale 5 | 1985–1990 |
Jordan | Lo3bet El-Hourouf لعبة الحروف' | Zaid Al-Ali | Amman TV | 2019–present |
Netherlands | Blokletters [2] [3] | Fred Oster | AVRO | 1983–1986 |
Paraguay | Blockbuster | Clari Arias | Telefuturo | 1999 |
Saudi Arabia | حروف Huruf | Ibrahim al-Qasim Majid Cub Ghanem Al Saleh Ghalib Full Salman Al-Otaibi (2017) | Saudi 1 Dubai TV | 1987–1994 1997–1998 2017 [4] |
Sweden | 2 mot 1 | Stellan Sundahl | SVT1 | 1998–1999 |
Switzerland | Blockbusters | Sven Epiney | SF2 | 1997–1999 |
Turkey | Haydi Bastir | Mim Kemal Öke | Show TV | 1992–1993 |
United Kingdom | Blockbusters | Bob Holness | ITV | 1983–1993 |
Sky One | 1994–1995 | |||
Michael Aspel | BBC Two | 1997 | ||
Liza Tarbuck | Sky One | 2000–2001 | ||
Simon Mayo | Challenge | 2012 | ||
Dara Ó Briain | Comedy Central [5] | 2019 |
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