Blockbusters
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, with Jeffries announcing for the final two weeks. Bill Rafferty was host of the 1987 revival, with Jeffries returning as announcer.
1980 format
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 a player answered incorrectly, the opponent(s) got to try (if the solo player missed, only one member of the family pair could attempt to answer the question). 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.
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.