Blockbusters

The original "Blockbusters" was a difficult, challenging and tasteful show pitting one single player against two relatives, the idea being to test "whether two heads are better than one", as the tag went. This retreaded (in order to avoid the term revitalized, since it was not) version removed the unique aspect of 2 against 1 and made it just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill game show with just two players going up against one another to a computer-generated screen and a plethora of questions culled from "Hints from Heloise" and other silly rather than truly trivia-oriented topics. In the gold rush bonus round, a ludicrous handle bar sprung up from the floor which looked like one of those things used to move a cart along railroad tracks. Replacing the rather erudite Bill Cullen as host was the fleshy, smarmy Rafferty who often seemed to misunderstand the basic strategy of the game and sometimes even got mixed up as which direction the players were headed on the game board. In the earlier version, players tended to extend the playing time (and the suspense) by building a connection in a more vague and studied way. Here, it was basically connect the dots with no regard for whether that meant the game would be over far more quickly. Without the class of the original components and the conceit of two players pitted against a lone one (who had to be very bright in order to hold his or her ground), this became just another generic game show and sank very quickly.