All-Star Blitz

All-Star Blitz was an American game show created by Merrill Heatter, who along with Bob Quigley brought the world The Hollywood Squares two decades prior. The show is very similar to Squares in terms of gameplay.

Main Game
A panel of four celebrities sat underneath a 3x2 grid of screens, with stars in all four corners of each screen. This led to four vertical rows of three stars within the grid, with each individual row of stars situated directly above one of the celebrities. The three stars above each celebrity were referred to respectively as the "top", "middle" and "bottom" stars.

Two players, a returning champion and a challenger, competed. The players picked a celebrity and whichever star in that celebrity's row they wanted to light up. The host then asked that celebrity a trivia question, to which the celebrity gave an answer, and similar to Hollywood Squares, the player had to correctly agree or disagree with the answer in order to light the star. If the contestant was right, the star was lit and the contestant chose another; if not, play passed to the opponent.

If the stars in all four corners of a particular screen were lit, a portion of a word puzzle was revealed on that screen. The ultimate goal was for the players to correctly guess the word puzzle, which the player in control could do once they felt enough screens had been uncovered. If they guessed correctly, they solved the puzzle; if not, the other player was given a chance to (if they didn't, they instead chose another star). In the event that all six screens were uncovered, the player in control automatically won the puzzle.

Before each puzzle, the host told the contestants how many words were in the puzzle and two randomly-chosen stars were lit up for the players.

The first contestant to win two puzzles won the game and a prize package, and got the chance to play the bonus round, the "Blitz Bonanza."

Blitz Bonanza
A bonus puzzle was concealed on the six screens. The contestant had to spin a special six-spaced wheel, with each space causing a light to jump around each screen, similar to Press Your Luck. Once the wheel stopped spinning, the screen the light stopped on was uncovered. The contestant took four spins in this manner. (If the wheel stopped on a screen that had already been uncovered, it was considered a "wasted spin".)

The object was to uncover four spaces on the six-space board. In the event that less than four spaces were uncovered, the host offered the player the chance to give up their prize package for a fifth and final spin, or to solve the puzzle.

After all spins had been taken, the contestant and the celebrities were given ten seconds to come up with what they thought was the puzzle solution. If the contestant guessed correctly, they won a cash prize that started out at $10,000; if not, they won $250 for each correct guess made by the celebrities. Each time the prize was not won, it increased in value by $5,000 until it reached the cap of $25,000 (after which it would stay at that amount until it was won).

Players stayed as champion for four games or until defeated.

General Info
Created by Merrill Heatter, and similar in format to his earlier series The Hollywood Squares and Battlestars, All-Star Blitz premiered on ABC on April 8, 1985, replacing the earlier Goodson-Todman series Trivia Trap. Peter Marshall, who had previously helmed Squares, returned to become the "master of the Blitz Board" here, with John Harlan serving as announcer (and Charlie O'Donnell subbing on occasion). In its time slot, 11:00, the series faced stiff competition from the first half of CBS' The Price Is Right and NBC's Wheel of Fortune, and when it was moved to 11:30 that June following the cancellation of Family Feud, Price and NBC's Scrabble continued to pummel it in the ratings, leading to the end of its brief life on December 20.

Rule Changes

 * Not long after the premiere week, the number of "free stars" given before the game increased from two to four.
 * Sometime during the show's run, the Blitz Bonanza jackpot changed from increasing by $5,000 to $2,500, and the cap was lowered to $20,000.

Intro
The original intro went as follows:


 * Over the darkened set, the neon stars around the Blitz Board lit up one at a time in a synchronized pattern.
 * John Harlan announced the names of each individual celebrity on the panel, left to right. As they were introduced, the camera zoomed in on them while their star lit up and a spotlight shone on them from above.
 * After all four celebrities were introduced the set was lit fully, and John Harlan intoned, "...all in the game that's just over their heads!" as the camera zoomed in to the Blitz Board above them.
 * The singers in the theme song sang "All-Star Blitz!" three times.
 * The first time, a curved "All-Star" appeared in both rows of the grid, taking up all three screens in each row, in a yellow font over a blue background. The designs "flashed" by changing to the inverse colors and back.
 * The second time, a curved "All" appeared in the top row while a curved "Star" appeared in the bottom. As before, it started as yellow over a blue background before flashing.
 * The third time, "Blitz" in a heavily-stylized font appeared in the entire grid. Again, the design flashed.
 * Harlan said, "And here's the master of the Blitz Board, Peter Marshall!", at which point Marshall's name appeared in the grid as a faux puzzle solution, like so:
 * The camera would then cut to Marshall at the podium/Blitz Bonanza wheel, using a "checkered" transition.

Sometime during the series' run, a winner's montage of successful contestants in the Blitz Bonanza was added to the intro.

Theme
A cheesy "game show" theme titled "Gabby's Theme", composed by Score Productions. The singers singing "All-Star Blitz!" mentioned above were part of the actual song, not in the studio.
 * For one week, a variant featuring a chant of "hobba heeba humba hum" was used; this theme has since taken on Internet infamy, currently being the only copy available online.

Availability
All episodes are intact. USA Network reran this series from March 31-December 26, 1986; though it hasn't seen the light of day since then, episodes can be found on YouTube.

Trivia

 * Elements from this show and Hollywood Squares were combined to form Heatter's unsold pilot Hollywood Teasers in 1993.