| Blockbusters | |
|---|---|
Part of the opening (1987-1994). |
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| Format | Quiz show |
| Created by | Steve Ryan Mark Goodson |
| Presented by | Bob Holness (ITV & Sky One Version 1) Michael Aspel (BBC Two) Liza Tarbuck (Sky One Version 2) TBC (Challenge) |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 11 (ITV) 1 (Sky One Version 1) 1 (BBC2) 1 (Sky One Version 2) 1 (Challenge) |
| No. of episodes | 1204 (ITV) 120 (Sky One Version 1) 60 (BBC2) 100 (Sky One Version 2) TBC (Challenge) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Central |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ITV (29 August 1983-4 June 1993) Sky One (18 April-30 September 1994) BBC2 (31 March-28 August 1997) Sky One (30 October 2000-23 March 2001) Challenge (2012-present) |
| Picture format | 4:3 (1983-2001) 16:9 (2012-present) |
| Original run | 29 August 1983 – present |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Blockbusters (US version) |
Blockbusters is a British television game show based upon the American game show of the same name in which contestants answer trivia questions to complete a path across or down a game board of hexagons.
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Blockbusters was created by Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions and originated as an American series but had a more successful run in the UK, where it lasted over eleven years (between 1983 and 1994) with host Bob Holness. As a career actor, Holness played up the role of being an 'old duffer' to the young contestants, which helped win him a cult following amongst students, with catchphrases that included "Can I have a 'P' please, Bob?". The UK version was created after Central Independent Television producer Graham C. Williams spotted the show in 1981 and produced a pilot in which two teams of sixth form students competed.
The show's first series, in 1983, was recorded at the ATV Elstree Centre (which was still owned by Central until 1984 when it was sold to the BBC). Subsequent series were produced at Central's Nottingham "Television House" studios, however, at least one season (1989–90) was filmed at Central's Birmingham studios. The series was filmed in the summer months over a 6-8 week period, with five episodes being made each day. In the final episode of each day, the contestants were allowed to do the "hand jive" during the end credits. The hand jive first appeared in 1986 after one of the contestants was bored while sitting through filming several shows a day waiting for his turn. It eventually became increasingly more popular, and has since been regarded as one of the show's most beloved gimmicks.
The original game board was a feat of engineering. It was powered using 38 slide projectors, each with its own set of slides for the different letters, colours and Gold Run questions, and took up the entire height of the studio.
The theme music was written by Ed Welch, and soon became one of the most recognisable television themes of modern times. The original 1983–1986 title sequence featured flipping hexagons with various images on them running down an encyclopaedia page. The title sequence used from 1987–1994 is a city homage to the 1982 film Blade Runner. The title sequence used in the 1997 series was a complete different theme featuring a head with hexagons showing clips. The title sequence used in 2000-2001 featured people throwing and catching the letters that spell Blockbusters.
A solo player competed against a pair of contestants, thus setting out to prove or disprove the old adage that two heads really were better than one.
The game board consisted of 20 interlocking hexagons, arranged in five columns of four. Each hexagon contained a letter of the alphabet. A contestant would choose one of the letters, and would be asked a general-knowledge trivia question whose correct answer began with the chosen letter. (A typical question might be, "What 'P' is a musical instrument with 88 keys?" The answer would be a piano.) The phrasing that contestants would use to ask for a letter has entered the language, and is frequently heard to this day. It is also the source of a pun - "Can I have a 'P' please, Bob?"; a 'pee' being slang for going to the toilet.
The game board is designed in such a way that a tied game was not a possible finishing result. Even if all 20 hexagons were filled, there would always be a winner.
The game began with a toss-up question to play for control of the board, starting with a letter that was chosen at random. The teams or players could buzz-in during the middle of reading of a question. If a player or team got the correct answer, they gained control of that hexagon and were given the chance to choose another one. If the contestant answered incorrectly, the opposing team or player was given a chance to answer it after the host re-read the question. If nobody answered it correctly, the host asked another question whose answer began with that same letter. Each correct answer won £5. In the case of the two-player team, each player won whatever money the team accumulated.
The solo player attempted to complete a vertical connection of white hexagons from the top of the board to the bottom; that required at least four correct answers. The pair attempted to connect a path from left to right with blue hexagons, requiring at least five spaces. The first side to connect their path won the game. The first player or team to win two games won the match. When either party was one correct answer away from completing their path, the hexagons forming their path would flash to indicate this. If both were one correct answer away, all lit hexagons on the board would flash, indicating that the situation was effectively "Blockbusters either way", and the next player to give a correct answer would win the game.
The winner of the match went on to play the Gold Run bonus round; if the pair won, only one player on the team could play, with the turns alternating at each Gold Run. The board consisted of a pattern of hexagons similar to that of the main game, but the hexagons had 2 to 5 letters inside them; those letters were the initials of the correct answer. (For instance, if a contestant chose "BS" and the host said "Where people kiss in Ireland", the correct answer would be "Blarney Stone.") When the contestant guessed correctly, the hexagon turned gold. However, if the contestant passed, it turned black, blocking the player's path; it was then up to the contestant to work around it. The object was to horizontally connect the left and right sides of the board within 60 seconds (or before blocking off all possible horizontal connections).
The winner of the match played the Gold Run, where they would have 5 chances to play. From 7th series, it was reduced to 3, in order that more contestants could take part over the course of a series. If players were successful they won a special prize. If the Gold Run wasn't won, each correct answer paid £5 (later £10). Defending champions could keep going for up to five matches undefeated, in order to win an even bigger prize. In the first Sky One series this was changed back up to five matches and reduced to three again on BBC2. In the final Sky One series, it increased to five again.
A famous short piece of music (three sharp notes on a horn in a slapstick style) was played if a contestant ran out of time on a Gold Run, often producing amused reactions in the studio.
4 series of Champion Blockbusters were made from 1987–1990, in which winners of the fifth gold-run returned to battle against other five gold-run winners.
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Champion Blockbusters
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Blockbusters was one of the first UK game shows to run in a 'straddling' format, which allowed for games to last a different length of time, meaning that episodes would often begin and end mid-game, and matches often crossed over into two episodes. The show was generally screened at 17:15 Monday to Friday, filling the half-hour timeslot between Children's ITV and the ITN News at 5:45, with a similar timeslot allocated on Saturdays for a while. The show was always transmitted on the ITV network, although the first series was repeated on Channel 4 during the summer of 1984, in the Countdown slot. Blockbusters was never networked across ITV's sixteen regions, this meant that it was occasionally possible to retune the television to a neighbouring region and watch a different episode. Blockbusters did share its time slot with other game shows such as Ask No Questions, Connections, and Winner Takes All.
In 1983, all regions started broadcasting the series, some stations moved Blockbusters to an earlier slot because there was no space available at 17:15, as these stations were broadcasting soap operas.
All regions broadcast the show from 2 September 1988 to 10 February 1989 at 17:15 Monday to Friday and 17:05 Saturday. However, some editions were shown on Sundays on Anglia and Scottish, instead of Saturdays.
The show was delayed by nearly all the ITV companies until January 1990, as no slots were available to broadcast the show. This was because Home and Away took over the 17:10 slot and Emmerdale was now being broadcast at 18:30, but was moved to 19:00 in January 1990.
Granada moved the times slot around, In 1991 it was moved to 17:10, in 1992 the series moved again to 18:00, Wednesdays-Fridays. UTV reduced it to one episode at week from January - October 1992 then from 26 October 1992 broadcast it at 15:20, Mondays-Fridays. TVS Reduced it to 2 episodes for most of 1990, During 1991/1992 went back to 3 plus addition episode around lunchtime Saturday mornings. TSW also dropped the series to 2 per week every so often, In a bid to catch back up the series was moved to 17:10 (Mondays to Fridays) in September 1992. For around 18 months around 1991/92 Tyne Tees Television, started broadcasting more local output during the 18:30 slot, which resulted in fewer episodes per week. When Tyne Tees and Yorkshire decided to merge their scheduling from January 1993, Tyne Tees increased its output to catch up (in November 1992 it was showing the series four times a week - Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays), but had to drop over 50 episodes.
Anglia Television, Central Television and TSW were showing repeats episodes during August - December 1989.
A number of new ITV companies come in to being, which resulted in regional news being extending to a full hour from 18:00 in some areas, meaning a number of stations moved the series back before CITV.
After the eleventh series, Blockbusters was no longer networked on ITV. But it continued for one more series on the satellite channel Sky One.
In one clip a contestant was asked "What 'O' is the generic word for any living animal or plant, including bacteria and viruses?" The contestant realised that the answer was "Organism", but in a momentary lapse he instead replied "Orgasm". After the ensuing laughter, Bob replied, "There are reasons, which I won't go into, that I can't accept that particular answer". Another notorious and often-repeated clip features a contestant apparently mistakenly saying "Kama Sutra" instead of "kowtow", with Holness replying in an amused manner, "No — oh no, that's something quite different". In fact, contrary to popular belief, the contestant's actual response, 'Kuma Satra' is a spoonerism of "Kama Sutra" and therefore not quite so amusing. Another famous gaffe involved a contestant responding to the question "What 'L' do you make in the dark when you are not sure of the consequences of your actions?" with the answer "love" instead of "leap".
BBC Two used adult contestants, instead of sixth formers. This version was broadcast in 1997 and presented by Michael Aspel, with the show stayed with the same format. Famous contestants included Stephen Merchant. The BBC version was the only version to use adults as contestants.
Sky One brought the series back again in 2000 (presented by Liza Tarbuck). These versions failed to capture the same degree of popularity as the Holness incarnation.
On Saturday 14 April 2007 at 20:40, Vernon Kay hosted a networked edition of Gameshow Marathon on ITV1 in which celebrity contestants revived the classic 1980s Bob Holness version of the show. It also featured an edited version of the show's opening titles.
It was announced on 10 November 2011 that game show channel Challenge is to revive the show in 2012. Application forms are available to request by e-mail (details are on the official Challenge website).[1] The new series will have adult contestants playing the game.[2] A host for the revised series has yet to be announced.
Challenge TV aired Blockbusters from 1997-1998 showing reruns from 1991. In 2004, Saturday Night Takeaway showed clips from a 1992 episode with a contestant who was in the audience didn't get very far on the show and only won £10. After Saturday Night Takeaway showed clips of a 1992 episode of Blockbusters, there were a tons of requests on the (now "defunct") Challenge forums to air Blockbusters again. Challenge managed to acquire Blockbusters again from 2004-2006 but they only showed the first 25 episodes from 1992, which generated low ratings. People on the forums tried to get Challenge to show Blockbusters again but they kept rejecting it because of a tight budget.
Things went quiet with Blockbusters for a while until as of 11 June 2011, when Challenge re-acquired Blockbusters but this time, they acquired all of the 72 episodes from the 1992 series. Carlton Select also showed old shows while that channel was still operational.
Blockbusters spawned a number of items of merchandise. 12 quiz books were released from the show[3] which also led to a spin-off: "Blockbusters Gold Run Volumes 1-5" being produced.[4]
In 1986, Waddingtons created a board game version of the show, which was named Game of the Year in 1986 by The British Association of Toy Retailers.[5] This led to a successful spin off of Super Blockbusters, Junior Blockbusters board game and Gold Run[6] A computer game version of the show was also created for the Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro and Spectrum.
In 2006, a DVD Interactive Game version was released with Bob Holness reprising his position at the helm. The DVD is based on the same format as the TV show, with virtual set design and game graphics matching the original Central version of the programme.[7]
Since 2007, an on-line interactive version of Blockbusters has been available to play for free at Wedig TV.[8]
