Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak

Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak was 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 two weeks of shows announced by Marc Summers, later of Double Dare fame.

Reg Grundy Productions produced Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak, which was the first daytime series the Grundy company produced for a network other than NBC. It was also only Grundy's fourth series he attempted in America, after Scrabble, Time Machine, and daytime and syndicated editions of Sale of the Century. To that point, the daytime Sale and Scrabble had been hits while Time Machine and the syndicated Sale were relatively short lived.

Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak was also the last American production for the Grundy Organisation to premiere until 1993.

Gameplay

Two gender-specific teams of five contestants, one of which was a returning champion, 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 winnings, 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.

Bonus round

The bonus round involved the members of the winning team trying to come up with words to describe certain people, places, or things.

For each subject, Forsyth would show the team captain the subject while his/her teammates were placed in isolation with headphones so they could not hear. The captain then came up with four words that he/she thought best described the subject. Once the captain came up with those four words, the rest of the team came out of isolation and were told the subject. Each of the other four players was given five seconds to guess them (twenty seconds in all). Each time the team came up with a word, it was worth $200. After the twenty seconds was up, a second subject was played for $300 per correct guess. Finally, a third subject was played and if the team came up with all four words their winnings were multiplied by five, for a potential $10,000. If the team could not come up with all four words for the third subject, they kept what they had won in the first two parts of the round.

Champions return for a maximum of five matches.

Broadcast history

Hot Streak was placed in ABC's 11:00 am Eastern/10:00 am Central time slot that was already home to two hit daytime game shows, CBS' The Price is Right and NBC's Wheel of Fortune. Consequently, Hot Streak was routinely beaten in the ratings and came in a distant third to both shows and ABC decided not to renew the show when its thirteen-week order ended.

International versions

These were some of the international versions of the (Bruce Forsyth's) Hot Streak format produced:

Country	Local Name	Host	Network	Year Aired
Australia	Hot Streak	James O'Neill	Seven Network	1998
Belgium	Rap Klap	Anne De Baetzelier	VTM	1990-1991
France	Passe à ton voisin	Alexandre Pesle	France 2	June 30-September 5, 1997
Germany	Ruck Zuck	Wener Schulze-Erdel (1988-1991) Jochen Bendel (1992-2000, 2004-2005) Mathias Euler-Rolle (2005)	Tele 5 (1988-1992, 2004-2005) RTL II (1993-1995) tm3 (1995-2000)	1988-2000 2004-2005
	Kinder Ruck Zuck	Désirée Nosbusch	Tele 5	1992
Greece	Pouk Zouk Rouk Zouk	Mary Miliaresi	Mega Channel	1994-1997
Indonesia	Komunikata	Isam Surentu(2000-2005) Indra Bekti(2005)	TPI (now MNCTV)	2000-2005
	Komunikata Kapten Bintang	Isam Surentu		2001
	Komunikata Junior	Isam Surentu		2002
	Katakan Katamu	Ben Kasyafani	antv	2010-2011
	Kata Bergaya	Sule and Rizky Febian	antv	2014-2015
Israel	Hamesh, Hamesh 5/5		Channel 2	1993-1994
Kazakhstan	Ποйми мeʜя		НТК	October 5, 2013 - present
Poland	Podaj Dalej	Wiesław Tupaczewski	RTL7	2000-2001
Russia	Ποйми мeʜя	Oleg Marusev(1995-2000) Matthew Ganapolsky(1995) Eugene Dvorzhetsky(1999) Eugene Stychkin(1999-2000)	OPT HTB	1995-1996 1996-2000
	Ποйми мeʜя (Kids edition)	Olga Shelest	Karusel	September 8, 2013 - present
Serbia	Zlatni Krug Golden Circle	Boris Milivojevic & Sofia Rajović	B92	2014-present
Spain	Dame una pista	Luján Argüelles	Cuatro	2010-2011

References

External links

• Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak at the Internet Movie Database (US)
• Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak at TV.com
• "Hot Streak" @ pearsontv
• Information about the "Passe à ton voisin" 1997 (France)
• Ruck Zuck 1988-2000 "original" version (Germany)
• Ruck Zuck 2004-2005 "revival" version (Germany)
• Ruck Zuck at the Internet Movie Database (Germany)
• Rouk Zouk at the Internet Movie Database (Greece)