Blockbusters

"This is the battlefield for our game of speed and strategy. These are the letters which lead to victory ooooooon Blockbusters!"

Game Show created by Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions which aired on NBC from 1980-82 with Bill Cullen as host. It was basically a game-show version of the board game Hex, featuring a 5-by-4 board of hexagons, each containing a letter that was also the first letter in an answer to a question (e.g., "What 'K' did Miss Piggy have a crush on?"; the answer was Kermit). The original version was also noted for the fact that it pitted one player against a "family pair" (i.e., two closely related people playing together); the family pair had to make a connection of white hexagons going across, while the solo player worked from top to bottom with red hexagons. The game was played best-of-three, and the winner went on to the Gold Run (or Gold Rush) Bonus Round.

A revival aired in 1987 with Bill Rafferty as host, and the family pair replaced by another solo player. On May 4, 1987 it was replaced by Classic Concentration.

The series has been more of a Long Runner in the United Kingdom, running in various forms from 1983 to 2001 and a revival series starting in May 2012.


 * Bonus Round: Gold Run, originally called (Super) Gold Rush during the original $2,500/$5,000 payouts.
 * Consolation Prize
 * Game Show Winnings Cap: Contestants could originally stay on for eight matches, then 10, then 20. When the cap was raised, many eight- and 10-time champs returned.
 * In the UK, it was five matches, then down to three (to allow more contestants to play, and give more people the chance at the big prize offered for the final Gold Run). The revivals put it back up to five.
 * Home Game: One was issued in late 1981. The vertical board was upside-down, and the red/white rub-and-stick overlays usually began falling off when more than six or seven were put on.
 * The British version of the Home Game featured a game board resembling that used on the show, with the letters being represented by five relocatable cardboard strips with four letters each on, and the blue/white pieces made of plastic with a peg for pulling them out once the game was finished with.
 * Losing Horns: Both American versions had their own renditions (Type A), each based on that version's Theme Tune. The British version used a Type B (three notes) as the Gold Run's time buzzer. The new British version on Challenge fuses a Type A (a muted downward whoosh sound) with a re-instrumentated version of their original Type B.
 * Personnel:
 * The Announcer: Bob Hilton during most of the Cullen run, Rich Jeffries during the Rafferty era.
 * Game Show Host: Bill Cullen from 1980-82, Bill Rafferty in 1987. Bob Holness is mostly remembered for helming the British version, with Michael Aspel, Liza Tarbuck and Simon Mayo succeeding him in the BBC, Sky One and Challenge revivals respectively.
 * Studio Audience
 * Progressive Jackpot: Partway through the Rafferty version, the flat $5,000 grand prize was changed to that amount plus another $5,000 for every day a returning champion didn't win it; however, if a challenger won the game, the jackpot was reset to $5,000.
 * Promotional Consideration
 * Unexpectedly Obscure Answer: All three of the answers in the "X" incident under the Funny Moments tab, but especially "Xochimilco".

"Cullen: We have a woman in our audience who watches this show in the Netherlands. We asked her what the title of the show is in Dutch. It's called Hide Your Windmills, Here Comes Don Quixote. You have to make a path from the canal to the wooden shoe. Do that and you win 5,000 tulips."
 * Catch Phrase: The immortal "Can I have a 'P', please, Bob?" from the British version.
 * Stateside: Cullen's frequent Rules Spiel of Blockbusters pitting a solo player against a family pair "to see if two heads really are better than one," and Rafferty's frequent mentioning of a losing player headed for "the land of parting gifts."
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: In the original US version, the solo player played as red, while the two player team was white. In the UK, the solo player is white, and the two-player team is blue. (Averted in the 1987 US version.)
 * Dancing Theme: The British version featured the hand jive in some of its ending credits.
 * Game Breaking Bug: Averted; it's completely impossible to achieve a tie. A space that will result in a win for either side was called a "Dual Implication" by Rafferty, a term used in retrospect for other matches.
 * A Cullen Gold Run playing became strange partway through, with the contestant unable to select three of the spaces — they had turned into shiny spots with a brown half-circle on the top and bottom. He still managed to win on his own, however.
 * Grand Finale: The last Cullen episode ended with a $5,000 win by returning contestant Gene Visich, followed by Cullen giving the stats on how all the solo players and family teams did over the show's 18-month run (about even, actually; solo players won a few more games, but family pairs won a bit more money).
 * Inflation Negation: The current UK version on Challenge (basically the UK's equivalent of the US's GSN) pays out the same £5 per hex in the main game as all the other UK versions did. (At least the two-player team didn't -- and doesn't -- have to split the money; each player on the team gets the team's total.) A Gold Run failure pays £10 per hex, same as most of the other UK versions (the earliest paid the same £5 per hex).
 * Laugh Track: Being an NBC show, it used the "Mother MacKenzie" applause machine constantly. Bill even lampshaded this on one occasion; after telling a joke so bad that the guy in the sound effects booth hit the Losing Horns, he asked, "Can't we do this show with just an applause machine?" to which someone (possibly announcer Bob Hilton) replied, "We are."
 * Mythology Gag: The 2012 British revival has this with the opening credits. The new credits features futuristic hexagonal skyscrapers and a globe, much like its 1987 counterpart (right down to the timing with the theme). It also shows a giant gold head, much like its 1997 counterpart.
 * The 1987 US revival combined both the solo player and family pair buzz-in sound effects from the 1980-82 version for use with both players.
 * Obvious Rule Patch: After the first few weeks, the rules were slightly changed to remove the $2,500/$5,000 (Super) Gold Rush and simply make them all the Gold Run worth $5,000.
 * Opening Narration: Quoted at the top of the page.
 * 1987: "Get ready for our game of skill and strategy... [hexagonal board forms and dances about, then as logo appears:] ...Blockbusterrrrs! Now, here's the star of Blockbusters... Biiiiiiiill RAFFERTYYY!"
 * Phrase Catcher: From the British version, "Can I have a P please, Bob?"
 * When the contestants ask Simon Mayo for the P space on the current version, it's usually met with laughter and cheering.
 * Recycled Soundtrack: The 1987 version used a stock piece of music called "Walk, Don't Run", which has been used in several commercials.
 * Shout-Out: At least twice, "Bill Cullen" was an answer in the Gold Run; one of these also name-dropped Cullen's earlier Eye Guess. There was also a shout out to I've Got a Secret with the clue "Garry Moore game show" (Bill was a regular panelist during the 1952-67 run).
 * Technology Marches On: When the UK version first started, all contestants received a dictionary (later an encyclopedia). Now, everyone who plays wins an E-book reader.
 * Trans-Atlantic Equivalent: The British version, of course. Also parodied in this quote:


 * There was an Australian version from 1990 to 1993. The game was played in a similar format to the 1987 US version with two teams of two (each side gets the shorter path once, and if the match goes to one-all, a tiebreaker is played on a 4x4 grid). Each team represented a school, and each school sent several teams to play over the course of a week, with the winning school (based on most correct answers, bar tie-breaking grids) winning a prize such as a set of encyclopedias. Also, in the Gold Run, there was no consolation prize for failure, nor did correct answers count towards your team's score, so if you blocked yourself off from that gold-to-gold connection, it was Game Over right there.
 * There was also a German version called Super Grips. It played like the UK and 1980 US version. There is at least one episode on Youtube, which seems to indicate that the time limit for the Gold Run starts at 20 seconds (so, you can't really screw around), and goes up with each failure, and back to 20 seconds on a win.