Blockbusters (US game show)

Infobox Television
show_name = Blockbusters


caption = 1987 NBC titles of Blockbusters
format = Game show
picture_format =
runtime = 30 minutes
creator = Steve Ryan, Mark Goodson
presenter = Bill Cullen (1980 - 1982) Bill Rafferty (1987)
channel = NBC
country = USA
first_aired = October 27, 1980
last_aired = May 1, 1987
num_episodes = 1980-1982 version: 372 1987 version: 85
producer =
related = Blockbusters (UK game show)
imdb_id = 0180342

Blockbusters was an American game show which had two separate runs in the 1980s. Created by Steve Ryan for Mark Goodson Productions, the first version debuted on NBC on October 27, 1980, and ran until April 23, 1982. Bill Cullen served as the original host on this version, which was noted for its format in which one contestant competed against a "family pair" (a team of two related contestants, but never a husband and wife) to see if "two heads are really better than one."

A revival debuted on January 5, 1987, hosted by Bill Rafferty; this version, unlike the previous incarnation, the revival featured one-on-one competition. The newer version lasted until May 1 of the same year.

Crew

Bill Cullen hosted the original version of "Blockbusters", with Bob Hilton serving as Cullen's announcer. Johnny Olson and Rich Jeffries subbed on occasion, and then Jeffries announced the last two weeks of the Cullen era. Bill Rafferty was host of the 1987 revival, with Jeffries as the regular announcer of the Rafferty edition.

1980 format

Three players competed on each show. Two of the players were related (a "family pair"), and formed a team to play against a solo player. The reasoning for this was "to see if two heads are better than one," as Bill Cullen mentioned often at the top of the show.

Front game

The game was played using a 5×4 grid of hexagons. On each hexagon was a letter representing the first letter in the correct answer to the question in play. For instance, if a player chose the letter "C", a question might be "What C is a shopper's first priority in choosing a food store?" (the answer would be "cleanliness"). When a player got an answer correct, the hexagon would light up in their team's color. If nobody got the question right, the host asked another question whose answer began with that same letter. Players were permitted to buzz in at anytime; indeed, as Cullen frequently noted, speed on the button was usually the key to success. The object of the game was to create a path from one end of the board to the other, with the family pair (white) needing a minimum of five spaces to make the connection and the solo player (red) four, giving them an advantage of sorts. Due to the pattern of the interlocking hexagons, it was impossible to not have a winner. Completing the path earned the contestant/pair $500, with two games needed to win the match and advance to the bonus round. Originally, each win was worth a trip to the bonus round, with no money awarded for the front game.

Gold Rush/Gold Run

The bonus round was originally known as the "Gold Rush", and was played for a total of $7,500 (the first time the winner made the trip to the round, it was worth $2,500, with the second time (called the "Super Gold Rush") worth an additional $5,000). After the show began awarding money in the front game, Gold Rush was always played for $5,000. In the show's 19th week on the air, for reasons that have never been explained, the round's name was changed to "Gold Run".

Like before, the object was to make a path across the 20 hexagon board (each side of the board was colored gold, hence the name). The difference here was that many of the hexagons had more than one letter on them (1 to 5 letters) and, naturally, they represented an answer of more than one word (eg: "GWTW", Civil War-era book featuring Scarlett O'Hara: "Gone with the Wind") The player had 60 seconds to connect the gold to the gold. A correct answer turned the hexagon gold, and earned the player $100 (only in the event of a Gold Rush failure). An incorrect answer or a pass turned the hex black; this was referred to as a "block", and the player had to work around it. (If the player blocked him/herself out, he/she could still continue and try to build up the consolation prize of $100 for every correct answer.) If the family pair advanced to the bonus round, only one member could play.

1987 revival

When NBC revived "Blockbusters" in 1987, the solo-vs.-family pair contest was changed to two solo players competing. The champion represented white while the challenger represented red.

Also, instead of the giant board set piece the original version used, the revival used a computer-generated board. Again, the game was best two-out-of-three, with the advantage alternating between players in the first two games. The third game was played on a 4x4 grid, with neither player having an advantage (white still went from left to right, red still went top to bottom). Each win was worth $100.

The Gold Run was played the exact same way as before, with one exception that was added toward the end of the run. If the player won, they received an accumulating jackpot that started at $5,000 and increased by that amount for each unsuccessful attempt, to a maximum of $50,000 (which was never reached). The jackpot reset to $5,000 each time a new champion was crowned. Theoretically, a contestant winning their last Gold Run in this version would retire with at least $52,000 (including main game winnings).

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.

Champions

1980

From the beginning until the change in the front game format, the longest a champion could stay on the original "Blockbusters" was eight matches. If they won all 16 bonus rounds they competed in, they would retire with $60,000.

After that, each champion was permitted to stay up to ten matches, with the top possible payout once again being $60,000. This was achieved twice, once by John Hatten and again by Sherry Lucas.

Later in the show's run, the match limit was doubled to twenty, which made the potential payout $120,000. Also, around this time, retired 10-time champions started to return to the show in an attempt to add to their winnings.

Only two champions reached the $120,000 plateau. The first, and the only one to do it in 20 consecutive matches, was the mother/daughter team of Pat and Liz McCarthy. The other was John Hatten, who returned to the show a few weeks before it went off the air, thus making him the biggest solo winner in the history of the show. Hatten also achieved some fame because he heard that his home was destroyed by a fire after winning his 6th match.

Contestant Leland Yung [http://www.classicgameshows.com/blockbusters/bb80.html] was the only other champion to win 20 games, finishing with $106,600 during his two separate runs on "Blockbusters". Previously, Yung was a contestant on Password Plus.

1987

The revival's champions could stay until they had won ten matches or were defeated. Only one contestant won 10 times, a woman named Jeanne (last name unknown), and pocketed a total of $53,000.

Other big winners

Other than the ones mentioned above, these other contestants were big winners on "Blockbusters".

olo players

LaRae Dillman - Had two separate runs as champion having won $65,000. She was the only one who retired as champion during the first format having won $47,000 at that time. She also appeared as a contestant on The New $25,000 Pyramid in 1982, and more recently Russian Roulette in 2002.

Kandi Doyle - During her two separate runs as champ won $62,800 (her first run won her $50,800). When the limit was upped to 20 times, she was the first player invited back to play again. Kandi also appeared on Password Plus, and later Trivia Trap in 1985.

Gene Vissich (female) - She was the last solo player on the show although she was actually a returning champion having won the ten matches. She didn't win many of her Gold Runs (won seven of the ten trips) but her final total was $51,700 ($46,700 in her ten matches). She only played one game in her return, due to the fact it was the final episode. She got $5,000 for winning it.

Family pairs

Joe & Tom Hendricks - These twins were the first championship family pair on the show having won $26,800. Tom also appeared on Match Game & later Trivia Trap in 1984.

Alan & Jeff Dennis - These twins won only the first five of the ten trips to the Gold Run and won $37,700. They returned when the limit was extended to 20 games, but failed to win either of the two Gold Runs they played and were defeated after winning $40,600.

Kathy Thomas & John Shannon - A brother & sister team who appeared in the ending days of 1980, and into 1981. In their first match, an incorrect answer for John was proven correct. Like the McCarthys, they alternated in their turns at the Gold Run board, and retired as 10-time champs with $51,200. They were invited back in the 20-game limit, and left with $59,300, not going the full 20 times.

The final episode

1982

On the final episode of the show's first run, host Bill Cullen said, "I guess for every cancellation, another great show comes along." In addition, the final match was played as a single game instead of 2-out-of-3 with the victor earning $5,000.

1987

Toward the end of the second run in 1987, host Bill Rafferty asked people at home to become contestants on "Classic Concentration", which would replace "Blockbusters" on May 4. In fact, "Blockbusters" promoted "Classic Concentration" in its last 2 weeks on the air.

On the final episode, the champion had only gone to the Gold Run twice. She had lost the first time, and because it was the final episode and she was playing for $10,000 on her second attempt, Bill Rafferty let her play for $15,000, but she was unsuccessful. At the end of the show, she had only $1,200 to her credit. Bill Rafferty made an "executive decision," and gave her an additional $1,000, thus giving her a total of $2,200.

Following announcer Rich Jeffries plug for contestants for "concentration" Bill jokingly advised the home viewers to call collect to "show them where your heart is."

Episode status

All versions of "Blockbusters" exist, and both versions have been seen on GSN. The network currently airs the Bill Cullen version weekends at 10:00 a.m. GSN last aired the Bill Rafferty version from April-November 2005.

Home games

The US Version of the game spawned only one home edition, produced by the Milton Bradley Company and based on the Bill Cullen version of the game. The front gameplay was the same as the show (with four possible board configurations to play with), but the Gold Run was played with one of these boards, thus only single letter definitions rather than the multi-letter combinations possible in the real game.

Trivia

This game show would earn Bill Cullen his very first Emmy nomination for hosting a daytime game show.

As with several other Bill Cullen-hosted game shows, the set was designed to limit the amount of walking for Cullen because of the damage he suffered to his legs from contracting polio as a child. During the opening of the show, the title graphic would be at stage level, just behind his podium at the beginning of the show. It raised as he was introduced, then he walked 3 steps forward to the chair behind the podium. For the Gold Run game, he pressed a button on his podium (often making jokes about it) which would extend leaves on the podium. One of the leaves would angle off, and the contestant would stand behind it while they played Gold Run.

Both the ring-in sound for the solo player and the ring-in sound for the family pair carried over to the 1987 revival. The solo player buzz-in sound had previously been used as a lock-in sound on another Goodson-Todman show, "Mindreaders", the family-pair buzz-in sound was originally a time's up sound (for the bonus round) on the 1976 game show "Stumpers!" and would later be used as the ring-in sound on the 1983 revival of "Dream House"; the latter two of the three were not Mark Goodson-Bill Todman games, but all three were in fact airing on NBC, like "Blockbusters".

Blockbusters was created by Steve Ryan, who also wrote puzzles for other various Goodson games, and created The Price is Right pricing game Now....or Then.

External links

*imdb title|id=0180342|title=Blockbusters (1980)
*imdb title|id=0194598|title=Blockbusters (1987)
* [http://www.gameshow-galaxy.net/block1.htm Blockbusters (1980) at the Game Show Galaxy]
* [http://www.gameshow-galaxy.net/block2.htm Blockbusters (1987) at the Game Show Galaxy]
* [http://www.gameshowutopia.net/blockbusters/blockbusters.htm Game Show Utopia: "Blockbusters"] (a page devoted to the Bill Cullen version of the show)
* [http://www.classicgameshows.com/blockbusters/ Classic Game Shows: "Blockbusters"] (has information on both the Bill Cullen and Bill Rafferty versions)
* [http://userdata.acd.net/ottinger/gshghp/Shows/Blockbusters.html "Game Show Home Games Home Page" Entry on "Blockbusters"]