Scrabble Showdown

Last updated
Scrabble Showdown
Scrabble Showdown (title card).jpg
Presented by Justin Willman
Narrated byRandy Thomas [1]
Country of origin United States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes30
Production
Executive producersPat Finn
Bob Boden
Kevin Belinkoff
Stephen Davis
ProducersTerry Finn
Joel McGee
John Ricci, Jr.
Jana Morgan
Running time30 minutes (including commercials)
Production companiesRubicon Entertainment
Hasbro Studios
Original release
Network The Hub
ReleaseSeptember 3, 2011 (2011-09-03) [2]  
April 15, 2012 (2012-04-15)

Scrabble Showdown is an American game show created for the American cable network The Hub. The program was based on the board game Scrabble and was hosted by Justin Willman. [3] [4] It ran from September 3, 2011, to April 15, 2012.

Contents

Gameplay

Two teams consisting of a parent and a child compete for the grand prize of tickets for a trip to anywhere in the world. [5] The teams compete in a total of four rounds; winning any of the first three rounds earns a prize and two "Bonus Scrabble Tiles," which provide an advantage in the final round. If a round ends in a tie, both teams are awarded the prize and one tile. The team that wins the final round wins the game and the trip.

In most episodes, mini-games are played in the first two rounds and Scrabble Flash in the third; however, some episodes reverse this order.

Rounds 1 and 2

One of the mini-games listed below is played in each round, varying from one episode to the next. The winner of a pre-game coin toss decides which team will play first in Round 1, and the winner of that round receives the same option for Round 2.

Scrabble Knockout

The team that goes first picks one of two categories, leaving the other for the opponents. A screen displays a word in the chosen category, with three extra letters inserted; however, the first and last letters are always correct. (E.g. BCUSPINEGSS for BUSINESS.) The parent must tell the child one incorrect letter at a time, and the child touches each letter to remove it. After all three incorrect letters have been removed, the parent must say the word in order to move on to the next one. Touching a correct letter causes the board to freeze; the child must then press a plunger to reset it and continue playing the same word.

The team's turn ends after five words have been solved or 60 seconds have elapsed, whichever comes first. If the opponents achieve a higher score or a faster time, they win the round; if not, the first team wins.

Scrabble Babble

The parent is shown a three-letter word with one missing letter, represented by a blank tile that can stand for any letter of his/her choosing. (E.g. C-A-blank could become CAT, CAR, CAN, etc.) He/she must think of a word and then describe it for the child to guess; if the child does so, a new word with one more letter is displayed, up to a maximum of seven on the fifth word. If the parent says any part of the word in play, it is thrown out and another word of the same length is played. If the parent says the entire word, the team's turn ends immediately.

The team's turn ends after five words have been solved or 60 seconds have elapsed, whichever comes first. If the opponents achieve a higher score or a faster time, they win the round; if not, the first team wins.

Scrabble Scream

All words used in this round are divided into two parts; the first part is always three letters, while the second is three to five letters. The two parts are separately scrambled, and one team member is shown the first part and must recite the letters in the proper order. The other member must do the same with the second part and then say the entire word. The two team members trade roles after every word. (E.g. first player sees EAS and says S-E-A; second player sees CSKI and says S-I-C-K and SEASICK.)

The team's turn ends after five words have been solved or 60 seconds have elapsed, whichever comes first. If the opponents achieve a higher score or a faster time, they win the round; if not, the first team wins.

Scrabble Slam

All four players participate in this game, standing in line so that play alternates between members of opposing teams. The first player in line presses a button to stop a randomizer and set the time limit for the round (between 10 and 30 seconds); the clock is displayed on screen for the home audience, but is not shown to the teams. A four-letter word is shown on the screen, along with one extra letter that must be substituted into the word to make a new one. (E.g. HUNK and a T; "slam" the K with the T to form HUNT.) A correct answer passes control to the next player in line and brings up a new extra letter. When time runs out, the player in control is eliminated and the game is played again, with the next player in line setting the time limit. When both members of one team have been eliminated, their opponents win the round.

Scrabble Speedword

This game appears in only one episode and is not related to the "Speedword" hurry-up feature found on the 1980s game show. The child stands at a table with five tiles mounted on tracks, each displaying a different letter. These tracks are arranged into three connected rows with space for three letters each on the top/bottom rows and two in the middle. The parent calls out a three-letter word, and the child must move the letters to spell it out on the bottom row. Both teams use the same set of letters, and the team playing second waits in an offstage isolation booth until their turn comes.

The first team's turn ends after four words or 60 seconds, whichever comes first. The opposing team must outscore them or beat their time to win the round; otherwise, the first team wins.

Round 3: Scrabble Flash

The winners of Round 2 decide which team plays first. One team member at a time stands at a table with five giant tiles, each displaying a different letter, and must form a word of at least three letters. The members trade places after each word, scoring one point per letter used. At least one five-letter word can always be formed from the tiles. As in Scrabble Speedword, the team playing second waits in an isolation booth until their turn comes. The team that reaches the higher score after 30 seconds wins the round.

Final Round: Scrabble Lightning

Sixteen letter tiles are displayed on the screen, each marked with its point value as in a regulation Scrabble game. Each team is given one chance to press a button and stop a randomizer, leaving one tile lit for every Bonus Scrabble Tile they earned in the first three rounds. The total value of each team's lit tiles is awarded to them as a "head start."

A scrambled word is displayed on a regulation Scrabble board whose letter bonus squares have been removed, leaving only the word bonus squares, and the host reads a clue. The first player to buzz in and solve the word scores its regulation value (doubled or tripled if any letter falls on a corresponding bonus square). Players must wait to buzz in until the host has read the entire clue. The children play the first word, and play alternates between them and the parents for each subsequent one. The first word covers the starred center square and is always played for double value, and every subsequent word uses one letter from a previous one and is laid out perpendicular to it.

The first team to reach 100 points, or the team in the lead when time is called, wins the game and the grand prize trip.

Production

The show is produced by Rubicon Entertainment. Pat Finn serves as executive producer. Veteran game show producer Sande Stewart serves as creative consultant.

Related Research Articles

<i>Scrabble</i> Board game with words

Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns and are included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upwords</span> Board game

Upwords is a board game. It was originally manufactured and marketed by the Milton Bradley Company, then a division of Hasbro. It has been marketed under its own name and also as Scrabble Upwords in the United States and Canada, and Topwords, Crucimaster, Betutorony, Palabras Arriba and Stapelwoord in other countries. It is currently available as a board game and a digital gaming app.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anagrams (game)</span> Tile-based word game

Anagrams is a tile-based word game that involves rearranging letter tiles to form words.

<i>Boggle</i> Timed dice-based word game

Boggle is a word game in which players try to find as many words as they can from a grid of lettered dice, within a set time limit. It was invented by Allan Turoff and originally distributed by Parker Brothers.

<i>Scrabble</i> (game show) US television series

Scrabble is an American television game show based upon the board game Scrabble. Contestants competed in a series of rounds to fill in words within a crossword puzzle for cash. Muriel Green of Exposure Unlimited developed the idea for a television game show based upon the board game concept. During 1983, Green convinced Selchow and Righter, who at that time owned the Scrabble board game, to license Exposure Unlimited to produce the game show. Exposure Unlimited co-produced the show with Reg Grundy Productions, and licensed the show to NBC. Scrabble aired on NBC from July 2, 1984, to March 23, 1990, and again from January 18 to June 11, 1993. Chuck Woolery hosted the program. Jay Stewart was the announcer for the first year. Charlie Tuna replaced him in the mid-1985 and remained through the original run and the entirety of the 1993 revival.

<i>Lingo</i> (American game show) American television game show

Lingo is an American television game show with multiple international adaptations. In it, contestants compete to decode five-letter words given the first letter, similarly to Jotto, with each correctly guessed word earning number draws to attempt filling in a Bingo card.

<i>Des chiffres et des lettres</i> French television program

Des chiffres et des lettres is a French television programme. It was created by Armand Jammot and tests the numeracy skills and vocabulary of two contestants. It is one of the longest-running game shows in the world, and the inspiration for Countdown on Britain's Channel 4.

<i>Chain Reaction</i> (game show) American television game show

Chain Reaction is an American television game show created by Bob Stewart, in which players compete to form chains composed of two-word phrases.

<i>Quiddler</i>

Quiddler is a card game and word game created by Set Enterprises. Players compete by spelling English words from cards in hands of increasing size, each card worth various points. The game combines aspects of Scrabble and gin rummy. The word "Quiddler" is a trademark.

Double Talk is an American game show that aired on the ABC network from August 18 to December 19, 1986. The show was a Bob Stewart-produced word game which borrowed elements from Stewart's previous show Shoot for the Stars and his then-current editions of Pyramid.

<i>Think Fast</i> (1989 game show) American TV series or program

Think Fast is an American children's game show which aired on Nickelodeon from May 1, 1989, to March 30, 1990, with reruns airing weekly until June 29, 1991.

Scrabble variants are games created by changing the normal Scrabble rules or equipment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francophone Scrabble</span>

Francophone Scrabble, or French-language Scrabble, is played by many thousands of amateurs throughout the world and the Fédération internationale de Scrabble francophone has more than 20,000 members. Just as in English, points are scored by playing valid words from the lettered tiles. In French there are 102 tiles - 100 lettered tiles and two blanks known as jokers. The official word list for Francophone Scrabble is L'Officiel du jeu Scrabble.

The Last Word is a game show seen in syndication in the United States and on the Global Television Network in Canada that was produced by Merrill Heatter Productions and ran for 65 episodes from September 18 to December 15, 1989, with reruns continuing until January 5, 1990. The host was Wink Martindale, and the co-host/announcer was Jennifer Lyall. It was taped in Vancouver, British Columbia. In the Los Angeles-produced pilot, Burton Richardson was the announcer, and Jana White operated the computer and acted as co-host. The show was distributed by Turner Program Services.

Bingo is a term used in North American Scrabble for a play in which a player puts seven tiles on the board in a single turn. Mattel, the game's manufacturer outside North America, uses the term bonus to describe such a word. In French, it is called a scrabble. A player who does this receives a 50-point bonus, which is applied after the rest of the play is scored.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tile tracking</span> Gaming strategy

Tile tracking is a technique most commonly associated with the game of Scrabble and similar word games. It refers to the practice of keeping track of letters played on the game board, typically by crossing letters off a score sheet or tracking grid as the tiles are played. Tracking tiles can be an important aid to strategy, especially during the endgame when there are no tiles left to draw, where careful tracking allows each player to deduce the remaining unseen letters on the opponent's final rack. The marking off of each letter from a pre-printed tracking grid as the tiles are played is a standard feature of tournament play.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bananagrams</span> 2006 tabletop word game

Bananagrams is a word game invented by Abraham Nathanson and Rena Nathanson of Cranston, Rhode Island, wherein lettered tiles are used to spell words.

Family Game Night was an American television game show based on Hasbro's family of board games and EA's video game franchise of the same name. The show was hosted by Todd Newton. Burton Richardson was the announcer for the first two seasons; he was replaced by Stacey J. Aswad in the third season, and Andrew Kishino was hired for the fourth season. The 60-minute program debuted on October 10, 2010, on The Hub ; it was previewed on October 9, 2010, on its sister channel, TLC. Seasons 1 and 2 contained 26 and 30 episodes respectively. Seasons 3, 4 and 5 each contained 15 episodes. Season 2 premiered on Friday, September 2, 2011, with additional games being added. The games added to the second season included Cranium Brain Breaks, Green Scream, Ratuki Go-Round, Simon Flash, Operation Sam Dunk, Trouble Pop Quiz, and Spelling Bee. However games from the previous season were still kept.

<i>Snap Attack</i> 2014 video game

Snap Attack was the second word puzzle game developed by You vs. the Internet and published by Microsoft Studios, the first of which was Wordament. The game was initially released for the Windows Phone and Windows 8.1 operating systems on May 6, 2014 as a free download from the respective app stores. The game was also available for iOS and Android devices. The name Snap Attack was trademarked on April 3, 2014. In March 2018, it was announced that Snap Attack would be shut down as of May 18 of that year.

<i>Tug of Words</i> American game show

Tug of Words is an American television game show that aired on Game Show Network from November 8, 2021 to February 15, 2023.

References

  1. "Scrabble Showdown with announcer Randy Thomas.mp4".
  2. Grosvenor, Carrie (2 September 2011). "The Hub: Family Game Night Premiere, Two Sneak-Previews". about.com. Archived from the original on 12 May 2013. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
  3. "Series Premieres of Scrabble Showdown and The Game of Life". Hub TV Network. Archived from the original on 4 September 2012. Retrieved 2 October 2011.
  4. Burch, Cathalena E. (12 January 2012). "Abracadabra! Justin Kredible appears". Arizona Daily Star . Retrieved 17 April 2012. Wilman's TV career has blossomed, going from regular spots on "The Rachael Ray Show" over the past six years into full-time hosting roles on Hub Network's "Scrabble Showdown"...
  5. Neal, Justin (17 September 2011). "Critic's Picks". Star Tribune . Archived from the original on 8 March 2016. Retrieved 17 April 2012. "Scrabble Showdown" (5:30 p.m. Saturday, Hub) is a fresh take on the classic board game as kids and their parents team up for clever word games and puzzles. Winners get a free trip anywhere in the world. Losers endure a long car ride home.