Whew!

infobox television
show_name = Whew!


caption =
format = Game show
runtime = Approx. 25 minutes (with commercials)
creator = Jay Wolpert
starring = Tom Kennedy
country = USA
network = CBS, 1979-1980
first_aired = April 23, 1979
last_aired = May 30, 1980
num_episodes = Unknown
imdb_id = 0135115

"Whew!" was an American game show that aired on CBS from April 23, 1979, until May 30, 1980. It was hosted by Tom Kennedy and announced by Rod Roddy.

The game was created by Jay Wolpert. Production was initially credited to the Bud Austin Company, then later changed to Jay Wolpert Productions in association with Burt Sugarman Inc.

The show aired at 10:30am (EST) on CBS, with the previous occupant of that time slot, "The Price is Right", moving to 11am to make room, where it still airs to this day in many parts of the United States. Its actual runtime, with commercials, was 25 minutes; the remaining time (in between the show and "The Price is Right") was taken up by the five-minute CBS Mid-Morning News with Douglas Edwards.

Gameplay

Main game

Two players competed in the main game. They were told the categories for the first two rounds of play, and the newcomer (or the winner of a coin toss in cases where there are no champions) decided who would "charge" and who would "block" for the first round. Whoever was selected as the first Charger was sent offstage while the Blocker was shown the gameboard. The board consisted of 25 spaces arranged in a 5x5 matrix, with an additional row of three spaces above these (see representation below). Behind each space was a blooper, a factual statement with a portion of it mangled to make it humorously incorrect. The incorrect portion of the statement was underlined, and the Charger would have to correct only that portion of the statement to receive credit for a right answer. (For instance, "The B&O was the first American passenger smell" would be "railroad.")

Once the Charger was offstage, the Blocker placed six Blocks on the board, which became five-second penalty spaces if called by the Charger. Blocks could be placed anywhere on the board adherent to these two restrictions: No more than three could be placed on any of the bottom five levels (#1 was the bottom row), and only one could be placed on Level 6.

After the Blocker made his or her selections, the Charger returned, and was given 60 seconds to correct one Blooper from each level, starting at Level 1 and working their way up the board, one level at a time. If the Charger picked a square which had not been blocked, Tom Kennedy would read the pun out loud, and the contestant would then attempt to correct the blooper; the contestant was not allowed to answer until after Kennedy finished reading the pun. (In the Gauntlet of Villains (see later), all puns were displayed on "tele-bellies" (TV screens) so the contestant could see them in written form.) If the Charger picked a square that had been blocked, they were forced to wait for five seconds (the audience and host would count down the time) before choosing another Blooper on that level. Bloopers generally increased in difficulty only by dollar value, not level; for instance, a $30 Blooper on Level 4 is theoretically no more difficult than a $30 Blooper on Level 1.

If time was running out and it appeared unlikely the Charger could make it through the board, he or she had the opportunity to make one last-ditch effort to win the round. By yelling "Long Shot!" the clock would stop and the Charger would immediately jump to Level 6, bypassing all of the levels in between. The Blocker would then get the chance to add a secret Block to that level, in addition to the one Block (if he or she chose to put one there) previously placed on that level. Once the new Block was placed, the Charger had one chance to reveal one of the three positions on Level 6. If the Charger, after calling for a Long Shot, found a Blooper and correctly answered it, they then won the round. If, however, the Charger incorrectly answered a blooper, or uncovered a Block, the Blocker would take the round. The Charger was not allowed to call a Long Shot while he or she was stopped by a Block.

The Charger wins the round by either calling a Long Shot (then correctly answering a Blooper), or finishing all six levels within 60 seconds. The Blocker wins by either the Charger hitting a block after a Long Shot, or the Charger running out of time. If the Charger won, he or she won all the money attached to the Bloopers he or she corrected; if the Blocker won, he or she won all the money attached to whatever Blocks the Charger uncovered. This added an element of strategy, as the Blocker could theoretically place blocks on all the $50 spaces (and the $500 space on Level 6) in the hopes of winning the theoretical maximum amount per board ($750), but the Charger could see this coming and go for the lower values instead.

The two players traded Charging and Blocking roles for the second board. A third, tie-breaker board, if necessary, would have the champion (or the loser of the earlier coin toss, if there was no champion) deciding who would Charge and Block. The first player to win two rounds won the match and moved onto the bonus round.

In the unlikely event the Charger would go through all five positions on a given level without correctly answering one Blooper (aka "exhausting the level"), he or she was allowed a free pass to the next level. However, by this point so much time would have been taken off the clock that it would be almost impossible to save the round without resorting to a Long Shot.

The Gauntlet of Villains

The winning player faced a series of 10 villains, wooden caricatures of stereotypical bad guys, each of them trying to prevent the player from winning the money. The player's time limit for this round was 60 seconds, plus 1 second for each $100 won in the main game. (Thus, a player who won $1,100 had 11 additional seconds to go with the base time of 60, for a total of 71 seconds. The extra seconds were always rounded down; using the previous example, any score from $1,100 to $1,190 would generate 11 additional seconds.) Since the highest amount you can win in a game is $1,500, the maximum amount of time is 75 seconds. Unlike in the main game, the bloopers were read out loud by Kennedy from a set of index cards without the contestant seeing the blooper in written form. After Kennedy read a blooper, the contestant had two seconds to correct it. (For this round only, all bloopers featured only one incorrect word, and it was always the last word of the statement.) As with the main game, the contestant was not allowed to answer until after Kennedy finished reading the blooper out loud. If the contestant beat the Villain to the answer and answered correctly, a bell would sound and he or she moved on to the next Villain; if two seconds elapsed or the player gave an incorrect answer, a buzzer would quickly sound twice and the correct answer would appear on the screen in that Villain's "tellybelly", and the player was held at that Villain until he or she correctly solved a blooper. The Villains also had one arm which stuck out; this arm would fall down and a bell would sound when the contestant beat that Villain, allowing the player to advance to the next Villain.

If the player reached the end of the Gauntlet, they won $25,000 (and retired from the show, $25,000 being the CBS winnings cap at the time for game shows featuring returning champions, of course, champions got to keep anything they win over $25,000). If the player failed, they received $100 for each Villain passed. Early in the show's run, a contestant could keep playing until they either were defeated or won the $25,000. This was later unexplainably shortened to a maximum of five tries at the bonus round after Howard Wilson ran the Gauntlet seven times and finally won the $25,000 on his seventh attempt for a grand total of $32,750.

Though rarely used on the air, each of the ten Villains in the Gauntlet had names. These were, in order:
*1. Alphonse the Gangster
*2. Bruno the Headsman (a European medieval executioner)
*3. Mr. Van Louse the Landlord
*4. Nero the Fiddler
*5. Count Nibbleneck the Vampire
*6. Frank and his little friend Stein
*7. Kid Rotten the Gunslinger
*8. Jeremy Swash the Pirate
*9. Dr. Deranged the Mad Scientist
*10. Lucretia the Witch

A slightly reworked format of the Gauntlet of Villains was later used as the bonus round for the short-lived Lifetime Television game show "Rodeo Drive", also created by Jay Wolpert. The PAX game show Balderdash hosted by Elayne Boosler also used the "fix the blooper" concept as a part of its end game, "Balderdash Barrage."

In the Bonus Round, a pun would be read by Tom Kennedy before and after the contestant went though the gauntlet of villains. Example: "Happiness is a warm villain", "Close, but, no cigar"; the latter would appear on a villain's tele-belly.

"Celebrity Whew!"

About halfway through the show's run, celebrities were assigned as partners to either contestant. The teams of two (one celebrity and one contestant) alternated Charging duties between levels, placed 3 of the 6 Blocks each on the board, and each took half of the Gauntlet of Villains bonus round. Aside from these adjustments, no other changes in format were made.

Final Week Note

During "Whew!'s" final weeks on the air, the format was slightly adjusted so the show no longer straddled; that is, could end with a game or match still in progress, to be resumed on the next episode. Under these new rules, each episode began a new match between two teams (the celebrity format still being in place here), and if one team won the best-of-three match in two straight rounds, that team would play a special third round (what would have been the tie-breaker round) solo, with a pattern of Blocks randomly selected from a database of many different legal Blocking patterns by a computer (ostensibly programmed by the Villains of the endgame). This bonus round was played for additional money for the contestant, as well as additional Gauntlet time. These adjustments were made to help ensure that the series would not end in the middle of a game that could not be completed.

After the final episode of "Whew!" aired, the series was replaced the following Monday by repeats of "Alice", which would air until September 17, 1982, when it was replaced by "Child's Play".

Episode Status

All episodes are presumed to exist in the possession of Burt Sugarman, the current copyright holder of the "Whew!" program and format. They have not aired since the original CBS run.

Theme and set

The theme song was composed by Alan Thicke.

"Whew!" was taped at CBS Television city Studio 33, now known as the Bob Barker Studio (where "The Price Is Right" currently tapes).

Quotes

*"Close calls... Naaaarrow escapes... Split-second decisions... And $25,000 in cash! A combination guaranteed to make you say... WHEW!" - Opening spiel, as provided by Rod Roddy (and a pre-recorded sound effect for the "Whew!" portion).
*"Today, two great stars and their contestant partners are going to have close calls... Naaaarrow escapes... Split-second decisions... And a chance at $25,000 in cash! A combination guaranteed to make you say...WHEW!" - Opening spiel, as provided by Rod Roddy, for "Celebrity Whew!" (again w/the sound effect for the show's title)
*"Giving me the level, and the money amount... CHARGE!" - Tom Kennedy sends another Charger off on a run up the board
*"I would now like to introduce you to ten of the most [villanous vagrants] that ever stood between a [real-estate person] and his money, and here... they... are!" - Kennedy would custom-tailor this introduction of the Gauntlet of Villains with a different alliterative phrase each time, and including the contestant's occupation
*"Charge on outta here!" - Kennedy would send the Charger for a given round offstage so as to not be able to see or hear anything while the Blocker is placing the six Blocks on the board for that round.
*"Time's Up!" - Would be spoken by all ten villains in two cases: if the Charger ran out of time in the main game, and if time ran out in the Gauntlet of Villains bonus round
*Typical bloopers in the bonus round; "In Australia you'll find the Great Sandy Koufax!" (Desert)." "In her comedy routines, Phyllis Diller scathingly refers to her husband as Fungus!" (Fang) "Frank Sinatra tries to rob a luxury liner in the movie "Assault on a Pepper!" "(Queen).' "Comiskey Park is the home of the Chicago Wheat Chex!" (White Sox)

External links

* [http://www.classicgameshows.com/whew/index.html Classic Game Shows: "Whew!"] , created by a former "Whew!" contestant. Randy Amasia, who died in late 2001, won $26,190 on the show in 1979 (site now hosted by Michael Klauss).
* [http://www.gameshowutopia.net/whew.htm Whew! on The Tom Kennedy Page @gameshowutopia.net]
* [http://www.geocities.com/televisioncity/5987/whewchamp.html Interview with "Whew!" champion Howard Wilson]