The Hollywood Connection

Aired

Syndicated, September 5, 1977 - Spring 1978

Run time

30 Minutes

Host

Jim Lange

Announcer

Jay Stewart, Johnny Gilbert

Origination

KTLA Television, Los Angeles, California

Hollywood Connection was a game show.

Game Format

Two contestants faced a panel of six celebrities in game of answering questions about the stars themselves, a concept similar in format to Match Game. As in Match Game, the contestants' goal is to match the stars' answers in order to score points; this is classified as "making a connection".

Main game

Round 1

The player who won the coin toss choose which row of celebrities (either the top or bottom) to play with. Lange then read a question to the celebrities with two possible answers, after which the stars wrote down their response. When finished, the player in control chose one of the answers that they think the star would say (unlike Match Game, the contestant gave an answer for each individual panelist rather than the entire panel). Each time the player made a connection they earned 1 point. After the first player is done, their opponent does the same thing with the other row of three celebrities.

Round 2

Played in the same manner as Round One, except the player who didn't start the last round went first in this round. That player chose to either play with the male stars or the female stars. Each question had three choices and each connection was worth 2 points.

Round 3

In Round Three, the player who was behind went first. Each question still had three choices and each connection was worth 3 points. The player with the most points at the end of the game won, receives some prizes, and played the bonus round. In case of a tie, one of the celebrities was asked a numerical question. The player closest to the true number wins the game.

Bonus round

Format #1 (first week only)

The celebrities & winning contestant were shown a picture of a famous person, place or thing, then the celebrities wrote down a word or phrase associated with the picture. The winning player wrote down three answers of their own and placed them next to the values of $300, $200 and $100, with the answer marked at $300 the one the contestant thought the panel will most-likely write down.

The contestant called on the stars one-by-one and tried to match what they've written. Each time the panelist's answer matches one of the contestant's, the contestant wins the money attached to that answer. After all the stars have shown their answers, if the winning player reaches $1,000 or more, they won $2,000 and a trip.

Format #2

The contestant still wrote down three key words as above, except each connection was worth $250 instead of the original scoring format. Three connections won the contestant $750 and a trip. After winning the trip, the contestant earned a chance to make two more connections; each one doubled the contestant's money, meaning that the first one doubled to $1,500, and one more doubled to the maximum amount of $3,000.

If at any time the contestant was unable to make a connection, the bonus round ended and the money was lost (although the trip was not in jeopardy). The contestant had the option before each double round to stop and take the money already won, as well as the trip.

Video