THE "PARTY LINE " PILOT


Before Hot Streak debuted in 1986, three pilots for it were taped. But even before that, in 1983, a pilot episode that used the Hot Streak concept was recorded, called "Party Line". It had some changes to even the actual Hot Streak pilots, and here you will be able to do some reading about it.

There were three differences between Party Line, and to the show that would become Hot Streak. The host, the scoring system, and the bonus round, which was totally different. The host of the show was none other than Gene Rayburn, who hosted Match Game for many years before shooting the pilot. Gene really seemed to enjoy and fully understand the shows concept very well. That's an important trait for any game show host: To fully understand the show. If Bruce Forsyth wasn't given a chance to host the actual show, I think that Gene Rayburn would have been a successful host for the series.

The score system had two minor differences. Instead of playing for dollars in the maingame, you played for points. The points system that Party Line uses was very simular to what "Ruck Zuck" (German's version of Hot Streak) used. For each transition made, the team would get one point. The team with the most points at the end of three rounds wins the game. The tiebreaker that this pilot episode used was exactly the same as would eventually be aired.

However, the biggest difference in this pilot and the series was the bonus round. It's hard to explain. Nine players (Which may have been past contestants), got in a line. A very zigged-zagged line. Headphones in place. Gene gave the word to all five members of the winning team, and gave the captain a baton. They had forty seconds to pass the word to as many of the 9 members of the other team as they could. If at any time the player giving the clues gets stumped, s/he passes the baton to the next person in line. (Basically, this was an extended version of the main gameplay.)

In the bonus round, the money won was $100 for the first transaction. Then for each additional passing of the word, the value is doubled. ($100 to $200 to $400 and so on, until all nine players got the word, for a grand total of $25,600!) I didn't like this bonus round, because I think it was too hard to do in the time they allowed. At least give the players more time. Besides: What would end up as the aired bonus game was much better.

Along the side and bottom, you see various pictures of the game in action. (And for those that might be wondering, the very last picture is in fact a snap of game show personality Laura Chambers, making an appearance. :-)

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