Blockbusters (game show)
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Blockbusters was a television game show in which contestants answered trivia questions to complete a path across or down a game board of hexagons.
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[edit] Broadcast history
[edit] United States
The original US version of Blockbusters was hosted by Bill Cullen, with Bob Hilton as the regular announcer for the entire run. The exception to this was when Rich Jefferies was announcing the one episode for the series finale, which ran from October 27, 1980, to April 23, 1982. A second version, hosted by Bill Rafferty with Rich Jefferies announcing, ran from January 5 to May 1, 1987. Both versions aired on NBC and were produced at the network's Burbank facility. Reruns of the Cullen version currently air on GSN, and GSN also has aired the Rafferty version (it aired most recently from April-November 2005).
[edit] United Kingdom
Blockbusters had a more successful run in the UK, where it was shown from August 29, 1983 to June 4, 1993 on the ITV network with Bob Holness hosting. The show, made by Central Independent Television, was played by sixth form students with prizes accrued for the students and their colleges. The theme music for this version was by Ed Welch. The team of two players were not related in this version. It ran in a 'rolling' format, allowing for games to last a different length of time, so matches usually crossed over into multiple episodes. The show was screened immediately after Children's ITV at 5.15pm Monday to Friday and a similar time on Saturdays. The show was shown regionally with ITV regions able to opt out for local material at times as Yorkshire Television did with local cricket. Due to commitments screening Emmerdale Farm in the mid 1980s in the Monday and Tuesday slots, Thames Television and Anglia Television only carried four episodes a week. All regions eventually caught up as the programme was made into specific series each year. On 13 February 1989 a new Australian soap opera Home and Away replaced Blockbusters and left the show off screens until 1990. In January 1990 the 6.30pm Wednesday and Thursday slots became vacant due to Emmerdale being relocated to 7pm. Most regions realised the potential of the available 6.30pm slots as well as Tuesdays to screen Blockbusters in a thrice weekly run as had been the way with Crossroads during the 1980s. From 1 January 1993 Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television arranged to show all regional material simultaneously and Blockbusters fell victim to being skipped in the Tyne Tees schedule. As they were around 100 episodes or so behind Yorkshire, these episodes were unaired by Tyne Tees. Tyne Tees however were extremely efficient at mailing out complimentary VHS copies of episodes to the young contestants in the Tyne Tees region who had not had their episoides transmitted.
As a career actor, Holness played up the role of being an 'old duffer' to the young contestants, which helped win him a cult following amongst students, with catchphrases that included "Can I have a 'P' please, Bob?".
In a famous clip in the UK version, a contestant was asked "what 'O' is the generic word for any living animal or plant, including bacteria and viruses?". The contestant realised that the answer is organism but in one of those momentary lapses he instead replied orgasm. After the ensuing laughter, Bob replied "there are reasons, which I won't go into, that I can't accept that particular answer".
The show's first 'pilot' series, in 1983, was recorded at the ATV Elstree Centre (which was still owned by Central until 1984 when it was sold to the BBC). Subsequent series were produced at Central's Nottingham "Television House" studios, however at least one season (1989-90) was filmed at Central's Birmingham studios.
After finishing on ITV, the show continued for a few years on the satellite channel Sky One, though some ITV regions continued to show the series. Reruns from 1992 have been shown on Challenge. Carlton Select also showed old shows, while that channel was still operational. Recently a DVD Interactive Game version has been released with Bob Holness reviving his position at the helm. The DVD is based on the same format as on the TV show (with virtual set design and game graphics matching the original Central version of the programme).
[edit] UK ITV Regional Scheduling
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ITV Region
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Programme Schedule Pattern
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Start Date
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Days Screened
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Ended
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| Central Television | Monday September 5 1983 17.15 | Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 1710 during Summer 1989 | First to complete?? |
| Yorkshire Television (YTV) | as Central | Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays used in 1993 at 1830. | |
| Granada Television | as Central | ||
| Television South (TVS) & Meridian Broadcasting | 1983 | ||
| Television South West (TSW) & Westcountry Television | 1983 | From January 1993 13.45 weekdays | |
| Channel Television | As TSW | Various episodes skipped/ reshown from January 1986 as Channel switched its feed for regionally acquired programmes over to TVS from TSW from this date. | As Meridian |
| Thames Television & Carlton Television | Monday September 5 1983 15.30 | Daily at 15.30 for first few weeks. Then series is moved to Wednesdays to Fridays at 17.15 then ?? When Carlton Television took over Thames in January 1993, they screened the series Monday to Friday at 1520 in Thames' old The Young Doctors slot which Carlton had axed in favour of the series but was forced to reinstate from June 1993 due to a lot of complaints from angry The Young Doctors fans and the fact that they had run out of Blockbusters episodes to show | |
| Anglia Television | Monday September 5 1983 15.30 | Daily at 15.30 for first few weeks. Then series is moved to Wednesdays to Fridays at 17.15 then ?? Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 1710 during Summer 1989 | |
| Tyne Tees Television | as Thames | Daily at 15.30 for first few weeks. Then series is moved to Mondays to Fridays at 17.15 ??, then increasing to Monday to Fridays at 1830 in late 1992 to catch up to Yorkshire TV as much as possible. In January 1993 Tyne Tees had to loose around 150 episodes of the series as due to a merger between YTV and TT both regions had to show exactly the same episodes and YTV were ahead of TT in the series. Tue, Wed and Thur at 1830 from 5 January 1993. | As Yorkshire |
| Scottish Television (STV) | 1983 | Was shown at 13.30 during 1990 | |
| Grampian Television | 1983 | ||
| HTV | 1983 | From January 1993 13.45 weekdays | |
| Border Television | as Central | Daily Monday to Friday 17.15 | |
| Ulster Television | 1983 | ||
In addition to these regional screenings, a series 'Champion Blockbusters' was networked on ITV in the late 80's in hour long episodes on Saturday afternoons at about 1730.
Subsequent series have been made for adult contestants, broadcast by BBC Two in 1997 (presented by Michael Aspel) and Sky One again in 2000 (presented by Liza Tarbuck). These versions failed to capture the same degree of popularity as the Holness incarnation.
Famous contestants include Jon Tickle[1] and Stephen Merchant.
[edit] Other countries
The Australian version of Blockbusters was broadcast on the Seven Network, where players from two schools competed over the course of a week (five episodes), in a rolling format - where games could be started in the middle of an episode, and stopped and continued on the next episode. The school team earning the most points (based on questions answered from the main game, except tie-breaks) won a major prize for their school, such as an encyclopedia. The show was hosted by Michael Pope.
SVT in Sweden had their own version very similar to the UK one. 2 mot 1 was a weekly Friday night programme forming part of SVT's youth output. The programme was produced in Malmö and hosted by Stellan Sundahl until his sudden death in Monday 22 February 1999.
Both Hebrew and Arabic language versions have been made for Israel.
There was also a German version called Super Grips. It aired from 1988-1995, first on the BR network, then on the Dritten Network for the rest of the run. Frank Laufenberg (and later replaced by Ingo Dubinski) hosted the show.
[edit] Main game
A solo player competed against a "family pair" that consisted of two related contestants (married couples were not allowed), thus setting out to prove if two heads really were better than one.
The game board consisted of 20 interlocking hexagons, arranged in five columns of four. Each hexagon contained a letter of the alphabet. A contestant would choose one of the letters, and would be asked a general-knowledge trivia question whose correct answer began with the chosen letter. (A typical question was something like, "What 'P' is a musical instrument with 88 keys?" The answer would be a piano.) In the UK, the phrasing that contestants would use to ask for a letter has entered the language, and is frequently heard to this day. It is also the source of a mildly amusing pun - "Can I have a 'P' please, Bob".
The game began with a toss-up question to play for control of the board (midway in 1981, the two-part question of suggestive hints that was later used for the 1987 revival), starting with a letter that was chosen at random. The teams or players could buzz-in during the middle of reading of a question. If a player or team got the correct answer, they gained control of that hexagon and were given the chance to choose another one. If the contestant answered incorrectly, the opposing team or player was given a chance to answer it after the host re-read the question. If nobody answered it correctly, the host asked another question whose answer began with that same letter.
The solo player attempted to complete a vertical connection from the top of the board to the bottom; that required at least four correct answers. The family pair attempted to connect a path from left to right, requiring at least five spaces. The first side to connect their path won the game and $500 ($100 in the 1987 revival for some reason). The first player or team to win two games won the match.
For the 1987 NBC revival, the "family pair" concept was dropped; instead, each game was played by one champion against one challenger. However, the gameboard was not structurally altered. While this would seem to give one player an unfair advantage, as he or she would have a shorter minimum path to win the game, the producers solved this problem by alternating which player had that advantage in each game. In this version, the challenger played the shorter top-to-bottom route in the first game, while in the second the champion took over that route. A third tie-breaker round, if necessary, was played on a smaller 4x4 gameboard that gave neither player an advantage.
In the Australian edition, two students from each school played in each match. Like the 1987 NBC edition, the shorter path alternated between the teams in the first two games, and a 4x4 tie-break gameboard was used in the event of the first two games in a match being split between the two teams. Five points were earned towards the school team's weekly total for each question correctly answered, with no points scored during tie-breaks (nor for Gold Runs).
In the UK edition, sixth-form or college students played in each match, and each correct answer won £5.
[edit] Gold Run/Gold Rush
The winner of the match went on to play the Gold Run bonus round; if the family pair won, only one player on the team could play. The board consisted of a pattern of hexagons similar to that of the main game, but the hexagons had 1 to 5 letters inside them; those letters were the initials of the correct answer. (For instance, if a contestant chose "BS" and the host said "Where people kiss in Ireland", the correct answer would be "Blarney Stone.") If a contestant guessed correctly, the hexagon turned gold. However, if the contestant guessed incorrectly or passed, it turned black, blocking the player's path; it was then up to the contestant to work around it. The object was to horizontally connect the left and right sides of the board within 60 seconds (or before blocking off all possible horizontal connections). If time ran out, each gold hexagon on the board was worth $100; a win resulted in a larger cash payoff as explained below.
When the original NBC version began, the Gold Run was called "Gold Rush," and was played after every game (instead of after a best-of-three match). Under these rules, the round was played for $2,500 after winning the first game of a match, and for $5,000 after a match win (the $5,000 attempt was called "Super Gold Rush"). Champions could return to the Gold Rush sixteen times (eight matches), for a potential $60,000 in total winnings. Starting exactly four weeks into the run, each win in the main game was worth $500 (originally the only reward for a game win was the right to go to the Gold Rush/Run) and only the "Super" version of the Gold Rush/Run, with its $5,000 payoff, was played. Contestants could stay on the show until they won ten matches; that was later changed to 20 matches. The maximum possible winnings was still $60,000, and $120,000 after the 20-win rule. Previous retired champions were invited back after the rule change to try and win more money.
The 1987 version's Gold Run was originally played for a flat $5,000, but towards the end of its run it became an accruing jackpot that started at $5,000 and increased by that amount after each unsuccessful attempt until won by that player. New champions would start with a fresh $5,000 jackpot. Contestants could stay on the show until they won ten matches in this version, which happened only once.
In the UK, the winner of the match played the Gold Run, and won a special prize, usually a holiday, for completing the run. For every unsuccessful attempt, money was awarded for each correct answer. Defending champions could keep going for up to five matches undefeated, in order to win an even bigger prize. In later series, presumably so they could get through more contestants over the course of a series, this was reduced to three consecutive successes. If the Gold Run wasn't won, each correct answer paid £5 (later £10). The UK version featured a famous short piece of music (three sharp notes played on a horn) if a player ran out of time on a gold run, often producing amused reactions in the studio.
In the Australian edition, Gold Run answers were always two words in length, rather than a variable number, and was played by one member of a match-winning team for both players, for an individual bonus prize.
[edit] Additional info
- Blockbusters was created by Steve Ryan, who also created the rebuses for Classic Concentration, who wrote all the questions and answers for Trivia Trap, and wrote all the puzzles for Password Plus and Body Language. He also co-authored the Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows with David Schwartz and Fred Wostbrock. In 2005, Ryan released the best-selling paperback book, The Ultimate TV Game Show Book.
- The game appears to be influenced by the game Hex.
- The Cullen version of Blockbusters used two different correct answer/win bells: the NBC "G" bell rang when the solo player answered a question correctly or won a game, while the "C" bell was used in the Gold Run round, and when the family pair answered correctly or won. The Rafferty version exclusively used the "G" bell.
- The two distinctive ring-in buzzer tones used on Cullen's Blockbusters were used as one combined sound effect for the Rafferty episodes. Sometimes, on Cullen's show, when both the solo player and family pair rang-in at the same time, the combined buzz-in sounds could be heard.
- The two NBC incarnations of this show used two separate losing horn fanfares (when a contestant lost the Gold Rush/Gold Run bonus round), neither of which were ever reused on any other Goodson-Todman game show.
[edit] The Final Episode
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 so she could leave with $2,200.
[edit] American Winners
[edit] 1980
John Hatten - A former champion on Split Second, Hatten won ten consecutive games with all the Gold Runs, despite his house having burned down during his reign, and took home $60,000. When Blockbusters raised the ten-game win limit to 20, previous 10-game winners were brought back. Hatten returned and won an additional $60,000, taking home the theoretical game limit of $120,000. During his second 10-game run, Hatten "lost" a bonus round when an answer was called incorrect but was later proved to be otherwise. Hatten was awarded the $5,000 prize for that round keeping his perfect run intact. Hatten remains the only solo player to win 20 games in a row and win the theoretical game limit of $120,000, thus making him the biggest solo winner in the history of the show.
Leland Yung - This student at UCLA played to the maximum 20 wins and took home a total of $106,600 ($51,000 in the first ten, $55,600 when he was invited back). Yung also appeared on Password Plus in 1979, where he won another $16,000 in his time as champion to take his total game show winnings over $122,000.
LaRae Dillman - Like the first two she had two separate runs as champion having won $65,000. She was the only one whom 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.)
Sherry Lucas - During the 10 game limit, she was tied with John Hatten as the biggest winner at that time with a perfect score of $60,000. She was later invited back in the 20-game limit, and left with $66,500, not going the full 20 times.
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 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.
No single contestant hit the maximum in a straight run after the win limit was raised. But one family pair did.
Pat & Liz McCarthy - This mother & daughter team did win 20 consecutive games after the win limit was raised, and won 20 consecutive Gold Runs, taking home the theoretical game limit of $120,000. The pair alternated which player would represent them in the Gold Run following each win. Prior to the final Gold Run, Bill Cullen named Pat McCarthy the best Blockbusters player he had witnessed during the show's run.
Other big winning family pairs include:
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 five of the ten trips to the Gold Run and won $37,700. They did return in the 20-game limit, won none of the Gold Runs, and were defeated with $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 McCarthy's, 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.
[edit] 1987
Jeanne (pronounced like Jeannie or Genie) - She was the only 10-game winner in the Bill Rafferty version, where she won a total of $53,000.
[edit] Trivia
- Radio producer Karl Pilkington parodied the blockbusters game format on the The Ricky Gervais Show, with his game "Rockbusters".
[edit] External links
- Blockbusters Broadband at wedigtv.com
- Game Show Galaxy: Blockbusters (additional info on the US version)
- UK Game Show Page: Blockbusters (additional info on the British version)
- Game Show Utopia: Blockbusters (a page devoted to the Bill Cullen version of the show)
- Classic Game Shows: Blockbusters (has information on both the Bill Cullen and Bill Rafferty versions)
- Caleb Nelson's Blockbusters page about the Bill Rafferty Version
- Jon Tickle on Blockbusters
- Hexed Online (a flash remake of the game show)
- Funny Blockbusters answers: US and UK
