Break the Bank is a game show created by Richard S. Kline. It aired in syndication from September 16, 1985 to May 23, 1986, with repeats airing until September 12. It was not related to two previous shows by the same name.
The series debuted with Gene Rayburn as host, with Joe Farago taking over in December 1985. Kandace Kuehl was the co-host for the first three shows and was then replaced afterward with 1983 Miss USA winner Julie Hayek. Voice-over artist Michael Hanks was the announcer.
Break the Bank was the first game show produced by Kline's production company Kline & Friends. Kline and many of the show's production staff members had previously worked for Barry & Enright Productions, which had seen significant changes made after company founder Jack Barry died in 1984; Kline and his staff broke away from the company in protest of changes made by co-owner Dan Enright shortly thereafter.
Video Break the Bank (1985 game show)
Format #1
Two couples, one of whom was typically the returning champions, competed.
The object of the game was to solve a series of six-word puzzles. To do this, the couples were asked toss-up trivia questions and the answers to these questions would serve as clues to the puzzle's subject. Each question was played for time and answering correctly earned the couple a chance to guess the puzzle. They could opt not to do so, as an incorrect guess would lock them out of the next question.
The first question earned the couple that answered it correctly five seconds. For each subsequent question up through the fifth question, those values were doubled; this increased the time to ten, twenty, forty, and eighty seconds for a correct answer as the game progressed. The sixth question, if necessary, was played for one hundred seconds. If neither team had solved the puzzle after all six clues were revealed, a seventh question was asked with the answer being the puzzle's subject.
The first couple to solve two puzzles correctly won the game and advanced to the Prize Vault to use their accumulated seconds to try to break the bank. If both teams solved one puzzle, one last puzzle was played without questions; the clues were instead revealed one at a time and the first couple to solve the puzzle won an additional thirty seconds and played the Prize Vault.
Prize Vault
In the Prize Vault, the winning couple used their accumulated seconds to earn bank cards. To do this, they competed in a series of stunts referred to as "events".
Among the Prize Vault stunts/events featured were:
- Answering true or false questions from a celebrity look-alike
- Trying not to laugh for a certain amount of time with a comic routine given by a celebrity comedian
- Identifying smells or noises while blindfolded
- Identifying songs played on musical instruments
- Reciting a faux photo news roundup
- Reciting a long tongue-twister
- Identifying charades from a mime
- Finishing lines to popular songs, comic punchlines or TV and movie quotes
There were nine stunts in all, each one worth a prize and containing five bank cards. To win the prize and one of the bank cards, the couple first had to successfully complete the stunt. They then had to go over to a table on the right side of the stage and place the card in a slot, which read the card and added the value of the prize to their total. One of the stunts would allow the contestants to select additional cards if completed; for this stunt, an alarm would sound and the couple would move to a random number generator called the Number Jumbler. They would then press a button to stop the Number Jumbler and whatever number it landed on, from 0 through 5, was the amount of extra cards the couple could take. Play continued in this manner until the team used up all of their allotted time. Originally, the clock ran through the entire round, but during the seventh week, this was changed to have it stop before each new stunt to allow Rayburn or Farago to explain the objective to the couple, then start again when the stunt began.
Once the round was over, the couple took their bank cards over to the bank vault. A code reader was placed on the front of the vault, with a display above it to show each card's numeric code. Each card would be fed into the code reader one at a time. Once placed in the machine, the display would show the code and then, depending on the situation, would either display "WRONG CODE" or "BREAK BANK!!"
Along the way, the couple would be offered either cash or a prize to end the round. If they opted to do so, any cards that they had not fed into the code reader were put back into play if they managed to return to the Prize Vault on the next program.
Finding the card with the correct code broke the bank, which started with $20,000 in cash and prizes, including a brand-new car, in it and saw $500 and at least one prize (later multiple prizes) added to it each day until some couple did so. Couples continued to play until they were defeated.
Maps Break the Bank (1985 game show)
Format #2
The format was adjusted shortly after Farago took over as host.
The game was now played in three rounds, with the couples trying to earn cash instead of time. In the first round, each question was worth $100 and solving the puzzle won the couple a bonus prize. The second round saw question values increase to $200 and another prize was awarded to the couple who solved the puzzle.
In the third round, a series of toss-up puzzles worth $400 apiece were played. Each clue was revealed one at a time and the first couple to buzz in with the right answer won the money. The first team to reach or exceed $2,000 won the game, while the opponents left with consolation prizes and any bonus prizes won from solving earlier puzzles. Both teams kept their banks.
Prize Vault
The champions earned one bank card for winning the game and played a new Master Puzzle game to earn up to nine additional cards for a total of ten. The couple was given up to six clues to try to identify the puzzle, and each of the clues had a corresponding value of bank cards it would cost them to reveal it. Clues cost one, two or three bank cards, and were distributed by a shuffle that the couple stopped manually. They were then revealed in a clockwise fashion. The couple was given a guess at the Master Puzzle after each clue was revealed. A correct guess at any time earned the couple the amount of bank cards remaining.
Once the Master Puzzle was solved, the couple entered the Prize Vault, where the forty bank cards were displayed on a game board for them to select from. Thirty-eight of the cards had either a cash or merchandise prize attached to it them, and the code reader would display the names of the prizes associated with each card. One of the remaining two cards still broke the bank, while the other was referred to as the "Bankrupt card". This card was always in play every time a couple returned to the Prize Vault, and if they found it they lost any prizes they had won on that day and the round ended. The couple chose cards one at a time and could stop at any time, with any unread cards placed back on the board.
Couples now returned until they either lost in the main game or broke the bank, which now included a car along with any other accumulated cash and prizes (the car was originally one of the thirty-eight bank card prizes).
Winnings limit
During the first few months, couples stayed on the show until they won $75,000 or until they were defeated, with anything over $75,000 donated to a charity of the couple's choice.
Foreign versions
Despite its failure in America, the 1980s Break the Bank found success in France as La Porte Magique ("The Magic Door") from September 14, 1987 until November 12, 1988 on the now-defunct network La Cinq ("The Five"). The series was hosted by Michel Robbe, and used a set similar to that of the American series with the original bonus round format for at least part of the run. The number of seconds earned per correct answer also used the 5-10-20-40-80-100 layout. Beginning on November 14, 1988, the series was renamed Ali Baba until its end in 1989.
In addition, a short-lived kids version of the series titled En route pour l'aventure ("On the road to adventure"), also hosted by Michel Robbe, aired briefly in 1988.
Episode status
All episodes are known to exist. The Joe Farago episodes aired in reruns on CBN Cable (now Freeform) from September 1 to December 26, 1986.
See also
- Break the Bank (1948 game show)
- Break the Bank (1976 game show)
References
External links
- Break the Bank on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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