Hollywood Squares was a landmark game back in the 70's, with the amazing hosting job of Peter Marshall, working with nine different celebrities.

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Well, after Hollywood Squares, ABC wanted to keep the theme going, but how to do that without being seen as a Hollywood Squares rip-off?

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Enter "All-Star Blitz", once again hosted by Peter Marshall.  

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Host:  Peter Marshall

Guest Stars:   4

Contestants:   2

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Primary Game:  Best 2 out of 3.

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Four celebrities appeared on each episode. They sat under a 3x2 grid of 12 stars that formed six squares. Two contestants, one a returning champion, played one at a time, trying to guess a phrase hidden on the board.

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To do this, the players earned lit up stars and correctly agreeing or disagreeing with celebrities' answers to questions.

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A right answer earned kept control, but a wrong answer forfeited control to their opponent.

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 If a star completed a square and the contestant answered correctly, the letters in the square would be shown, and the contestant in control would get the opportunity to guess the phrase that was broken up in various letter combinations.

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Correct guesses won the board, and play continued until one player won two of the three boards.

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BONUS ROUND:  Blitz Bonanza

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Again six boards would appear on the screen, each holding a set of letters, and the contestant would spin a wheel four times, each time would light up one of the six squares, and reveal the letters behind that square.

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However, a spin could already land on an uncovered square, which meant the spin was in effect, lost.

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After all four spins, if only 3 or less boxes were uncovered, the player could trade in their prize for a fifth spin, but the same rule applied about uncovered/covered squares.

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After which the player had one guess at the mystery phrase for an ever-increasing jackpot.

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REVIEW:

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Again, you didn't have to have the trivia knowledge to win (although it didn't hurt), so it was something for everyone, and it was fun to play along on TV. 

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It was nice to see all four stars get involved repeatedly, due to the format, whereas with Hollywood Squares there were some stars who were "there" and had only a minimal participation.

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But the stars didnt seem to have the banter with Peter Marshall that they did with Hollywood Squares.  

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I think it had to do with the fact that you didn't have anyone with the charm of a Paul Lynne or a Rose Marie that were regular members on Hollywood Squares.   Martha Washburn ("Night Court") had that special something and could have been a great part of the show as a repeating cast-member, but she wasn't there regularly enough.

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The better shows really depending on who the stars were for a given week, and there are some gems out there to be watched, and some that are just struggles to entertain.

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But at least Peter was still up for being a great host and straight man for the stars when this one was on.  (Unlike his later reel-to-reel game).

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But for our purposes, All-Star Blitz is a fantastic basic game show that works well in our format.

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OUR FORMAT:

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We have three varieties for this game.  It can be played as a closed format game or an open format game.

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CLOSED FORMAT (With Celebrities):

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This works very similar to how the TV version worked, in which the four celebrities answers the questions, while the players agree or disagree with the celebrities, and our favorite variation.

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First player to get 2 of the 3 puzzles in the round win the game, and move on to the bonus game.

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CLOSED FORMAT (Without Celebrities)

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It's a head to head matchup with 4 players in a mini-tournament.  Paired off in opposing matchups, the players alternate between choosing question numbers, and then attempt to answer the question.    If they're correct, they maintain control of the board.  If they're incorrect, their opponent gets control of the board.  If both players miss a question, it then becomes a timed toss-up to get control of the board.

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We've encountered issues when a real-trivia bloodhound gets control of the boad, and doesn't give it up until they solve the puzzle, so we try to avoid this format as much as we can.

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OPEN FORMAT

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Every question is open to all players on the channel, correct answers get a guess at the board, and failure to do so results in the player choosing the next question.   (too bad the strategy of most players is to eliminate groups of boxes, instead of one at a time... but sometimes that backfires badly).

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BONUS GAME:

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Similar to the TV game, a phrase is covered with 6 boxes, and each of 3 spins will reveal one part of the phrase.  A correct guess on the first spin gets 4 numbers off the vault, 2nd spin gets 3 vault numbers removed, 3rd spin 2 bonus numbers.    

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Failure to get it after the 3rd spin gives the base 1 vault number off the vault.