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Blockbusters
1987 NBC titles of Blockbusters
Format	Game show
Created by	Steve Ryan, Mark Goodson
Presented by	Bill Cullen (1980-1982) Bill Rafferty (1987)
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	October 27, 1980 – May 1, 1987
External links
IMDb profile

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. A revival debuted on January 5, 1987, but was cancelled on May 1 of that year.

Contents 1 Crew 2 1980 format 2.1 Front game 2.2 Gold Rush/Gold Run 2.3 1987 revival 3 Champions 3.1 1980 3.2 1987 4 Other big winners 4.1 Solo players 4.2 Family pairs 5 The final episode 5.1 1982 5.2 1987 6 Episode status 7 Home games 8 See also 9 External links

Bill Cullen hosted the original version of Blockbusters, with Bob Hilton serving as Cullen's announcer. Johnny Olson and Rich Jeffries subbed on occasion, and then Jeffries announced the last two weeks of the Cullen era. Bill Rafferty was host of the 1987 revival, with Jeffries as the regular announcer of the Rafferty edition.

Three players competed on each show, with a twist. Two of the players were related (a "family pair"), and formed a team to play against a solo player. The reasoning for this was "to see if two heads are better than one," as Bill Cullen mentioned often at the top of the show.

The game was played using a 5x4 grid of hexagons, with white borders on either side lengthwise and red borders on its top and bottom. (One might surmise the game is partially based on the board game Hex.) 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 "S", the question would be "What S is the capital of Sweden?". The Answer to that Question would be "Stockholm". When a player got an answer correct, the hexagon would light up in their team's color. If nobody got the question right, the host asked another question whose answer began with that same letter. 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. 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.

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. 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 family pair advanced to the bonus round, only one member could play.

When NBC revived Blockbusters in 1987, the solo-vs.-family pair matchup was done away with. Instead, two players competed. The champion represented white while the challenger represented red.

Also, instead of the giant board set piece the original version used, the revival used a computer-generated board. Again, the game was best two-out-of-three, with the advantage alternating between players in the first two games. The third game was played on a 4x4 grid, with neither player having an advantage. Each win was worth $100. Instead of challenging questions, taken from the original version, this question frequently came in two-parts, one from a suggestive hint, a challenging question to the more easier clue.

The Gold Run was played the exact same way as before, with one exception that was added toward the end of the run. If the player won, they received an accumulating jackpot that started at $5,000 and kept going up by that amount as long as they didn't win it, but reset to $5,000 each time a new champion was crowned. Theoretically, a contestant winning their last Gold Run in this version could have a maximum of $52,000. This has only happened once.

From the beginning until the change in the front game format, the longest a champion could stay on the original Blockbusters was eight matches. If they won all 16 bonus rounds they competed in, they would retire with $60,000.

After that, each champion was permitted to stay up to ten matches, with the top possible payout once again being $60,000. This was achieved twice, once by John Hatten and again by Sherry Lucas.

Later in the show's run, the match limit was doubled to twenty, which made the potential payout $120,000. Also, around this time, retired 10-time champions started to return to the show in an attempt to add to their winnings.

Only two champions reached the $120,000 plateau. The first, and the only one to do it in 20 consecutive matches, was the mother/daughter team of Pat and Liz McCarthy. The other was John Hatten, who returned to the show a few weeks before it went off the air, thus making him the biggest winner (solo) in the history of the show. Contestant Leland Yung was the only other champion to win 20 games, finishing with $106,600 during his two separate runs on Blockbusters.

The revival's champions could stay until they had won ten matches or were defeated. Only one contestant won 10 times, a woman named Jeanne, and pocketed a total of $53,000.

Other than the ones mentioned above, these other contestants were big winners on Blockbusters.

LaRae Dillman - Had two separate runs as champion having won $65,000. She was the only one who 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). When the limit was upped to 20 times, she was the first player invited back to play again.

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 (won seven of the ten trips) 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.

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 McCarthys, 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.

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 $5000.

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 $1200 to her credit. Bill Rafferty made an "executive decision," and gave her an additional $1000, thus giving her a total of $2200.

Following announcer Rich Jefferies plug for contestants for "concentration" Bill jokingly advised the home viewers to call collect to "show them where you heart is."

All versions of Blockbusters exist, and both versions have been seen on GSN. The network currently airs the Bill Cullen version weekends at 10am. GSN last aired the Bill Rafferty version from April-November 2005.

The US Version of the game spawned only one home edition, produced by the Milton Bradley Company and based on the Bill Cullen version of the game. The front gameplay was the same as the show (with four possible board configurations to play with), but the Gold Run was played with one of these boards, thus only single letter definitions rather than the multi-letter combinations possible in the real game.

• Blockbusters (UK game show), the UK version

• Blockbusters (1980) at the Internet Movie Database
• Blockbusters (1987) at the Internet Movie Database
• Blockbusters (1980) at the Game Show Galaxy
• Blockbusters (1987) at the Game Show Galaxy
• 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
• Hexed Online (a flash remake of the game show)
• Funny Blockbusters answers: US
• Game Show Home Games Home Page Entry on Blockbusters