The NBC game show Blockbusters ran for a year and a half in its original format (hosted by Bill Cullen) – with a solo player competing against a family pair – then returned five years later with a straight one-on-one competition, hosted by Bill Rafferty.
In both versions, one team was represented by white hexagons (the two family members in the first incarnation) and the other by red hexagons.
The object for each side was to connect their colours from one edge to the other on a board of 20 hexagons, with the whites working horizontally and the reds vertically. Each hexagon contained a letter which started the answer to the question read by the host.
A correct guess won the letter for a competitor.
The first team to have adjacent hexagons from one edge to the other won a game, and two-game winners played the “Gold Rush” bonus game for a possible $5,000. Here one player had to join the polygons horizontally within 60 seconds by answering questions using the initials contained in each hexagon as a clue to the answer.
An incorrect or failed response removed the polygon from the board and made it into a block. A contestant failing to achieve the goal still won $100 for every correct answer.
