Blockbusters (American game show)

Blockbusters is an American game show, created by Steve Ryan for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions, which had two separate runs in the 1980s. Contestants answer general-knowledge questions to complete a path across or down a game board composed of hexagons. The first series of the show debuted on NBC on October 27, 1980, and aired until April 23, 1982. In the first series, a team of two family members competed against a solo contestant. Blockbusters was revived on NBC from January 5 to May 1, 1987, but featured only two solo contestants competing. Bill Cullen hosted the 1980–82 version, with Bob Hilton as announcer; Bill Rafferty hosted the 1987 version with Rich Jeffries as announcer. The show is the basis of the British game show of the same name, which aired in various incarnations between 1983 and 2019.

Three contestants play in each game, with a solo contestant at a red desk playing against a team of two contestants who are related to each other (referred to as a "family pair") and seated at a white one.^[1]

The main game is played on a board composed of four interlocking rows of five hexagons each, with the top/bottom and left/right edges colored red and white, respectively. Each hexagon contains a different letter of the alphabet, which represents the first letter of the one-word answer to a trivia question asked by the host. For example, a question on the letter P might be "What 'P' is a herbivorous North American mammal whose body is covered with thousands of bristles called quills?", with "porcupine" as the correct answer. All contestants may buzz in at any time, but doing so while a question is in progress forces the contestant to answer based only on whatever information has been read to that point. In addition, the family pair contestants may not confer on questions at any time.

One letter is randomly selected to start each round. A correct answer turns the hexagon to the corresponding color of whowever answers correctly, while a miss gives the opposition a chance to hear the entire question again before responding. If neither side answers a question correctly, another one is asked with the same letter. The first side to make a path connecting their two edges of the board wins the round and $500. The solo player can win with as few as four correct answers, while the family pair must give at least five.

The first side to win two rounds takes or retains the championship and advances to the Gold Run bonus round; if the family pair wins, only one member may play this round. The board is set up as in the main game, with each hexagon now showing up to five letters. The contestant chooses a hexagon, and the host reads a clue to an answer with the displayed starting letters. (E.g. for "RTRNR" and the clue "He pulled Santa's sleigh," the answer would be "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.") A correct answer turns the hexagon gold, while a pass or miss blacks it out and removes it from play. Completing any left-to-right connection in 60 seconds awards $5,000, while failing to do so awards $100 per correct answer.

For the first four weeks of the 1980-82 run, each individual round victory awarded no money but allowed a chance to immediately play the Gold Run (then called the Gold Rush). The prize was $2,500 during a contestant's first attempt in any given game, and $5,000 during their second.

Contestants were originally retired as undefeated champions after winning eight games and playing the last Gold Run; this limit was raised to 10 after the first four weeks, and later to 20. When the 20-win rule went into effect, several undefeated champions were invited to return to the show.

The 1987 version used the same board configuration, but pitted two solo contestants against each other. The champion played white and the challenger red, and each round was worth $100 rather than $500. The edge colors were swapped for the second round of each game, with red playing left-to-right and white top-to-bottom. If a third round was needed, it was played on a four-by-four board so that neither contestant would have an advantage.^[1]

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.

The Milton Bradley Company published a single home game edition in 1982. The front game play was the same as the show (with six possible board configurations to play with, although the arrangement of the hexagons was upside-down from what was used on the show). The Gold Run was also played with one of these boards, using only single-letter definitions rather than the multi-letter combinations frequently used on the television show.

Both versions of the series are intact, and have aired on Game Show Network at various times. Reruns were first aired on CBN (now Freeform) from October 8, 1984, to August 30, 1985, and was the first Goodson-Todman game show (along with Card Sharks) to be rerun on cable TV, pre-dating the launch of GSN 10 years later. GSN resumed airing the Cullen version on December 2, 2013, but it has since been dropped. The Bill Cullen version began airing on the second day of Buzzr programming on June 2, 2015.

An episode was featured in the 1998 movie Great Expectations.^[1]

Cullen received an Emmy Award nomination for Best Game Show Host, his first ever, for hosting the show.^[1]

• Hex (board game)
• Blockbusters (British game show), the longer-running British version based on the U.S. show

• Blockbusters @ pearsontv.com
• Blockbusters (1980–82) at IMDb
• Blockbusters (1987) at IMDb