Winning successive matches earned a chance at further Gold Runs with increasingly impressive prizes. A fourth Gold Run tended to be a holiday break somewhere in Europe, while winning the fifth and final Gold Run led to an excellent adventure holiday somewhere further afield.
This was usually something along the lines of a computer or science or sports equipment. Although plenty of contestants achieved this, very few - indeed, only one, to the best of our knowledge - actually won more than one school-prize.
In the later series of the ITV version of Blockbusters they made an effort to cut costs, err In fact, one UKGS correspondent reports that when he was a contestant in , he was told that the reason they changed the structure was because they wanted more people to win the big prizes. Even though it would cost more money, it was reckoned that this was a good move as it would lead to more "grand finals" and more instances of what viewers apparently wanted to see - kids winning the cool holidays.
All contestants, successful or otherwise, took away the apparently much-coveted 'Blockbusters' sweatshirt or rugby shirt, depending on the year , dictionary and personal organiser. The latter item varied over the Holness-years and possibly wasn't even part of the package in the early years , but there was certainly always an item of clothing and a dictionary for everyone to take away. This time, the money was for charity with the 'mystery letter' boosting the funds considerably when answered correctly , but the contestants still won the Gold Run prizes, all of which were relevant in some way to whatever they were now doing.
There are a couple of features of the set that are worth mentioning. The first is the game board, which was quite a feat of engineering. It took up the entire height of the studio, and was powered using 38 slide projectors, each with their own set of slides for the different letters, colours and Gold Run questions. The second is the giant figureheads that adorned the top of the studio.
There was a whole set of them, featuring famous people from the past. They were all made out of polystyrene that had been modelled using a hot metal wire. The chief Greek god Zeus took pride of place. The show was dropped by ITV after ten years, only to be snapped up by Sky with Holness still at the helm shortly afterwards, though these episodes were also shown in some ITV regions.
During this series, a new Bonus Question feature was introduced. This question didn't affect the board in any way and was simply a general knowledge question linked to the first one. BBC2 experimented with a cheaper afternoon version for adults, which did not have the charm of the original show.
Michael Aspel seemed very wooden and ill-at-ease as the new host - and bizarrely so, given that he was no stranger to hosting quizzes. Sky did another version they made for their channel in the new millennium with Liza Tarbuck, but let's just forget about that one.
In a touching twist, Bob Holness appeared as a guest and handled the Gold Run as if he'd never been away. Sadly, this was to be one of his last TV appearances. After airing a successful run of repeats of the series, in game show channel Challenge recorded 41 brand new episodes, with DJ Simon Mayo at the helm. He proved to be a good host, if rather more feisty than Holness in his approach. One or two changes occurred, such as Mayo always referring to 'hexagons' on the board, which Holness had rarely, if ever, done, and Mayo also referred to 'a flashing white or blue board', rather than Holness' 'flashing white or blue light', when either side was near to winning the game.
Instead of straddling competitions, each episode was self contained, and contained sixth formers. There was plenty of banter between Dara and the contestants, some of whom gave as good as they got! The game itself was largely unchanged but one board apiece led to a first to the buzzer single question tiebreak - given the terrible name of 'The Hexagon Stand Off' insert groan here!
Dara proved a very good host - he didn't try to emulate any of his predecessors and forged his own identity, which included disdain at any mention of that catchphrase….
When Bob once asked, "What 'L' is a sum of money you borrow from a bank? The famous out-take below where a contestant answered a biology question with the response "Orgasm" instead of "Organism". And the lesser-known one where another student offered the answer "Kama Sutra" instead of "Kowtow". On another occasion, a highly unusual answer to the question, "What 'P' are known as 'the lungs of London?
Another was when Bob asked, "What 'L' do you make in the dark when you're making a wild guess? A lesser-known out-take goes as follows: Bob: What W are made from plastic or card for carrying papers, and from leather for Contestant buzzes Bob: Yes, Wallet? Perhaps not an outtake as such, but two unusual answers were given when Bob asked the question, "What 'N' is meant by the phrase, 'Hit him on the Boko?
The question was duly passed to the single player, who said' "Nag". The answer was in fact "Nose", so it could be argued that 'Nob' not in the rude sense, obviously was actually on the right lines. On one edition, the contestants were asked, "What 'D' is a rag, usually yellow in colour, that's used for polishing furniture and ornaments? True, the former answer wasn't exactly a brilliant one although, let's face it, we've all come out with wrong and embarrassing responses in the heat of the moment, whether on TV or not , but Bob, if anything, laughed rather too much at it, to the extent that the whole thing seemed unnecessarily silly and embarrassing for the contestant.
Even sillier was the fact that when the latter's younger brother appeared in a later series and fared considerably better , Bob insisted on showing the clip again - surely it would have been better not to have bothered? Ironically, the same incorrect answer was given to the same question by another contestant some years later, but thankfully, although some laughter was generated on that occasion, Bob did not blow it up quite as much out of proportion as he had previously, so it seemed that lessons had been learned.
One occasion when Bob couldn't help chuckling a little more out of surprise than anything, one would suspect was when he had to ask the question, "What 'H' is the name of the man who hosts 'Blockbusters? On another show, in which the double team were Welsh, Bob asked the question, "What 'C' is the Welsh word for 'Wales'? Naturally, there were quite a few laughs - mainly from Bob, of course - at the fact that the double team had failed to answer the question, but they both took it very much in the right spirit.
Probably the most unusual question, which the contestants understandably failed to answer on the night, was, "What 'C' has four stiff-standers, four dilly-danders, two lookers, two crookers and a wig-wag? Many questions were of the 'trick' variety, ie there was a twist in the second half, leading to the downfall of contestants who interrupted them too early a self-confessed speciality of the show's original question-setter, Ann Meo - see also under 'Trivia' below.
Three such examples were, "What 'M' was the mouse created by Disney as a girlfriend for Mickey? Bob then offered the full question to the single player: "What 'J' sits in a box and decides on the outcome of a court case? The oh-aren't-we-wacky-students and Bob as well, of course! This is because five programmes were recorded during one day, and the producers let them do it as the final thing before they went home. However, I do know the show very well. Every time I've watched it, I've had a lot of fun playing along and watching.
Despite the fact that it's finished its run, this makes me long to be a contestant. The thing I like most about it are the questions. Even though I don't know that many answers, I still have fun playing along. I hope the Game Show Network keeps it on so I can keep playing along and watching. If that happens, I will be really happy. Before I wrap this up, I'd like to say that I'll always remember this show in my memory forever. Now, in conclusion, I hope that you catch it one day before it goes off the air for good.
Details Edit. Release date October 27, United States. United States. Technical specs Edit. Runtime 30 minutes. Contribute to this page Suggest an edit or add missing content.
Edit page. See the full list. Most Anticipated Movies Coming in Watch the video. If the contestant connected gold to gold , the payout as the amount hidden behind the bar adjacent to the last correct answer. If the family pair advanced to the bonus round, only one of them could play. The show was revived in with two solo players. The champion represented white while the challenger represented red.
On questions in which somebody would win the game on the hexagon that would cause either side to make the connection, Bill Rafferty referred to this situation as a "dual implication". Again, the game was best two-out-of-three, with the advantage alternating between players in the first two games. The Gold Run was played exactly the same as before, with one exception that was added for the show's final nine weeks.
For the show's first four weeks, the longest that champions could stay on the original Blockbusters was eight matches. Also, retired time champions started to return to the show in an attempt to add more to their winnings.
The revival revived the second format. So again, champions could stay until they won ten matches or were defeated. As Bill said, "If everything else worked as well as the handicap, I would've said at a time like this, 'Goodbye, we'll see you tomorrow. It was a nearly foot-high piece of machinery, made up of 20 hexagonal rear-projection screens, which concealed 20 separate Vismo projectors.
The entire board was flanked by two white fins that would swing in to provide the team of two with the proper connecting color for each side of the board. The fins would also swing out to reveal the gold sidebars that needed to be connected in the Gold Run; as shown in one episode, the white hexagons turned gold when the transition occurred. During the show, stagehands were stationed inside the board with the task of shuffling the letters for each main game, as well as replacing the used Gold Run slides and attending to any technical malfunctions.
As you see, the board is completely computer-generated. If you look closely, you can see the monitor that the contestants see the board in.
The bigger image is obviously what we viewers see. In the short-lived four-month run, the board was completely computer-generated, provided by Entec Systems. The green hexagons which housed the letters were bevel-typed, and in the back, the hexagons were blue with diamonds inside, similar to the ones on the set. While the home viewers saw the board on their TV sets, the contestants saw the board on a small Sony TV monitor housed inside a giant neon blue hexagon which during the closing credits did a light show; it spun around and later wiped in both two triangles at a time.
On certain shows after the credits, while it was still wiping in light-wise, the neon hexagon zoomed out to re-reveal the set which by that point went dark save for a few spotlights and the set logo which continuously lit up a letter at a time just like the series logo during the closing. In one episode, when the game quickly went from a Gold Run to a new match with no commercial interruption, viewers could see the small monitor reveal itself as the Game 1 board flew in see right.
A home game by Milton Bradley was made during the later years of the version. It was commonly given out as a parting gift for defeated contestants. GSN had their very own interactive version where you were allowed to play along with the show on their website.
0コメント