Hollywood Connection


The Hollywood Connection is an American game show that ran in syndication from September 5, 1977 to March 3, 1978. Jim Lange hosted the series, while Jay Stewart announced. The series was produced by Barry & Enright Productions in association with Golden West Broadcasters.

Premise

Two contestants faced a panel of six celebrities in a 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 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. Each time the player made a connection, they earned 1 point. After the first player was done, their opponent then had a chance to play 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, either the player who was behind or, in case of a tie, whoever didn't go first last round, went first. Each question still had three choices and each connection was worth 3 points. Whoever scored more points at the end of the game won, receives some prizes, and played the bonus round. In the event of a tie, sudden death was played to determine the champion.

Bonus round

Format #1 (first week only)

The celebrities and the champion 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 champion wrote down three answers of his/her 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 would be most likely to write down.
The champion called on the stars one-by-one and tried to match what they had written. Each time the panelist's answer matched one of the champion's, the champion won the money attached to that answer. After all the stars have shown their answers, if the champion reached at least $1,000, he/she won $2,000 and a trip.

Format #2

The champion still wrote down three key words as above, except each connection was worth $250 instead of the original scoring format. Three connections won the champion $750 and a trip. After winning the trip, the champion 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 champion was unable to make a connection, the bonus round ended and the money was lost. The champion had the option before each double round to stop and take the money already won, as well as the trip.

Music

The series has been rerun on GSN.