Blackout (game show)
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Blackout was an American game show that aired on CBS for 13 weeks, from January 4 to April 1, 1988. It was hosted by Bob Goen. Johnny Gilbert announced until the final two weeks, when Jay Stewart took over; this would prove to be Stewart's last announcing job.
Blackout debuted in the 10:00 AM slot previously held by The $25,000 Pyramid. After Blackout was cancelled, CBS put The $25,000 Pyramid back into the same slot.
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[edit] Game format
Two teams, consisting of one celebrity and one contestant each, competed.
Blackout was a word game with a twist. A sentence with four blanks was shown to the teams. The first team to play would have the celebrity record a twenty second description of the word, while the contestant was not allowed to listen. Once the twenty seconds were up, the player would listen to a playback of the recording. However, the opposing celebrity got a chance to use a "blackout button," which effectively acted as a "mute" button, silencing the playback as it was pressed. The celebrity was able to black out up to seven seconds of their opposing team's description (with an additional second given each time the first team's celebrity repeated a key word in their description). If the player was able to guess the word anyway, the team got $100 & the first shot at solving the puzzle. If not, the opponent, who had heard the entire description, would get a guess. The process would alternate back and forth until the puzzle was solved.
The first team to solve two puzzles won the game and advanced to the Clue Screen bonus round.
If the game ended in a tie, one last word would be played. A player on one team gave a description to that word while the other team "blacked out" three seconds of the description. If the partner of the describer got it right, his team won; if he was wrong, the opposing team won.
[edit] The Clue Screen
In the Clue Screen round, the contestant faced a video screen while the celebrity faced away from it. The team was given 70 seconds to try to solve five words based on clues that were displayed on the screen. The contestant would look at the screen, and when he had determined that there were enough clues to solve, he would yell out "Solve it!", at which point the list of clues was frozen and the celebrity would turn around and guess. A correct guess earned $200. If all five words were solved before time ran out, the contestant won $10,000.
In some instances, the contestant elected to have the celebrity watch the clue screen.
[edit] Episode Status
All episodes exist. GSN has not aired this series in its line-up.
[edit] Notes
The original 1987 pilot for Blackout was hosted by Robb Weller (who, coincidentally, was a former co-host of Entertainment Tonight, which series host Goen would later become).
