| Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Game show |
| Directed by | James Marcione |
| Presented by | Bruce Forsyth |
| Judges | Burt Wheeler |
| Narrated by | Gene Wood Marc Summers |
| Composer(s) | Ray Ellis Marc Ellis |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 65 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Robert Noah |
| Producer(s) | Pam Meerson Roger Speakman (Development Producer) Caryn Lucas (Development Producer) |
| Location(s) | The Prospect Studios Hollywood, California |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 25 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Reg Grundy Productions |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Original run | January 6, 1986 – April 4, 1986 |
Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak is an American television game show that aired on ABC from January 6 to April 4, 1986. British television personality Bruce Forsyth hosted the series, the only time he hosted a series outside of his native United Kingdom. Gene Wood was the original announcer, with the last several weeks of shows announced by Marc Summers.
Reg Grundy Productions produced Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak, which was the first network series the Grundy company produced for ABC; its first three daytime series (Sale of the Century, Scrabble, and Time Machine) had all aired on NBC.
Contents |
Two gender-specific teams of five contestants each competed in a game of word association. The challengers, or winners of a coin toss in the case of two new teams, played first. In round one, the captain of the team in control chose one of two words presented by the host. The other four team members wore headphones to ensure they could not hear the word. Once a word was chosen, the team was given 40 seconds to communicate the word down the line. The team captain described the word to the second team member, who, after guessing the word, then did the same for the third team member. The process continued down the line until the team completed the transition down the line, time ran out, the team gave an illegal clue, repeated a key word, gestured or said the word (or a form of the word). The opposing team played the other word in the round.
In the second round, the next players in line became the captains and the team trailing after round one chose the first word. In rounds one and two, each successful transition was worth $100, for a maximum of $400 per round. The third and final round started with the trailing team, and each correct transition was worth $200, for a possible $800. The maximum grand total for a game was $1,600.
The team with the most money won the game, kept their earnings, and advanced to the bonus round. The losing team received parting gifts, plus their previous winnings if they were returning champions. If the game ended in a tie, the captain of the champion team was given one final word and opted to play or pass. The team that played the tie-breaker had to communicate the word down the line without faltering to win. If they were unable to do so, the other team won.
A subject word was given to the team captain to start, with his or her teammates once again wearing headphones. The captain gave four words associated with the subject. After that, the teammates had 20 seconds (five seconds per team member) to guess the four words provided by their captain. Each word guessed was worth $200. This process was repeated with a second subject word worth $300 per correct guess.
For the third and final word, if the team was able to guess all four words provided by the captain within 20 seconds, their bonus round winnings were multiplied by five, for a maximum payoff of $10,000. If the team was unable to do so, they added whatever they won in the first parts of the bonus round to their winnings from the main game.
Champions return for a maximum of five matches.
Hot Streak premiered at 11:00 A.M. on ABC and almost immediately, got burned by two of daytime television's highest rated game shows: The Price is Right on CBS and NBC's Wheel of Fortune which led to the show's cancellation after 13 weeks.
There were several international versions of the Hot Streak format produced.
Russian version was called Пойми меня (Understand me), and it was broadcast from 1995 to 1996 on Channel One and from 1996 to 2000 on NTV. It was hosted by Oleg Marusev. In this version rules of the first round was very similar to American and team received руб100 for each correct response. In the second round answering player couldn't say anything and he or she had to write the answer on paper. Each correct answer was worth руб200. In the third round captain gave 4 associations to word in the card, and the other team members had to guess this associations - each player had 5 seconds to name as many words as the time limit allows. Each correct guess was worth руб300. There was a rule of returning champions - to receive a grand prize team must win 5 games in a row.
The German version, entitled Ruck Zuck, was one of the longer-lasting shows based on the format, running from 1988 until 2000.
An Australian version of Hot Streak was produced as an afternoon game show for the Seven Network in 1998, hosted by James O'Neill.[1]
The game was played as per the U.S. version, with each correct response in the main game being worth $5. Originally this amount was doubled in the third and final round, for a potential maximum winning score of $80. Towards the end of its run, the game was extended to four rounds with the final round being worth triple instead (for a maximum of $120).
The score of the winning team determined the value of correct answers in the bonus round: each answer for the first word was worth this amount (for example, if a team won with a score of $60, each answer was worth $60). The second word was worth twice the winning score, and the third word was then played to multiply the cash won so far by five. The maximum possible winnings on one show was therefore originally $4,800, and later $7,200. Winning teams could return for five shows; a team's fifth bonus round was played with only one word, with four correct answers winning a team a total of $50,000.
The Belgian version, known as Rap Klap, followed the same format, running on the RTL network, starting in 1991.
The Indonesian version named Katakan Katamu, aired on antv since 4 October 2010, previously renamed Komunikata, aired on TPI (now MNCTV) since 2000-2005.