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The Challengers
The Challengers opening logo.
Genre	Game show
Presented by	Dick Clark
Narrated by	Don Morrow Bob Hilton
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Production companies	Ron Greenberg Productions Dick Clark Productions
Original release
Network	Syndication
Release	September 3, 1990 – August 30, 1991

The Challengers was an American syndicated game show from Ron Greenberg Productions, Dick Clark Productions, and Buena Vista Television. The show was hosted by Dick Clark. The show premiered on September 3, 1990 and was canceled on August 30, 1991. Don Morrow was the announcer, although Bob Hilton substituted for him occasionally.

The game included elements of Greenberg's earlier show, The Who, What, or Where Game, seen during the early 1970s and hosted by Art James.

Many questions in this version were related to current events. Episodes were taped shortly before their air date; generally a week's worth of episodes were taped on the Friday of the previous week. This allowed "This week on TV" or "Today at the movies" to be used as categories. Most of the current event questions were taken from or verified by Newsweek, as Don Morrow announced at the midpoint of each episode. Unlike most syndicated game shows, the series continued airing new episodes well into the summer of 1991, a time when most syndicated programming was generally in reruns.

Rules of the Game

Three contestants, one of whom was always a returning champion, competed.

The Challengers Sprint Round

The Challengers Sprint was a 60 second speed round played to begin the game. Contestants were spotted $200 to start the round, and host Clark would read a series of rapid-fire questions. Correct answers added $100 to a player's score, while incorrect answers deducted $100 and took the question out of play for the other two players. At the end of 60 seconds, whoever was in the lead took control of the first round. If two players were tied, one final Sprint question was asked, with a correct answer or an incorrect answer by an opponent gaining control.

The Challengers Sprint Round was removed partway through its run in favor of a single toss-up question. The contestant who answered correctly scored $100 and control of the Round One board. The Challengers Sprint later returned "by popular demand."

Round One

On the board were 6 categories, each with three questions per category. The three questions in each category varied in dollar value, worth $150, $200, and $250 (later reduced to $100, $150 and $200). Question values were added to a contestant's score for a correct answer and subtracted for a wrong answer. As noted above, the leader after the Challengers Sprint received first choice of category, with control passing to the player who provided the last correct answer thereafter.

Contestants secretly chose a question value using buttons on their podium. If all three contestants chose a different question, they would all be asked the different questions in ascending value unopposed. Failure to answer a question within the time limit was penalized with a loss of the question's value from their score.

If two contestants chose the same question, the question was asked as a toss-up and the contestants were required to buzz-in in order to answer. Contestants could buzz in at any time, but if they were incorrect, their score would be reduced and their opponent could either play or pass. The third contestant then received their question unopposed.

If all three contestants chose the same question, all three question values doubled and the question was asked. The same toss-up rules applied, but the contestant answering correctly could now choose to play either or both of the remaining questions unopposed. Providing an incorrect answer to either of the other questions reduced the contestant's score by the value of the question and ended play for that category.

The round continued until all six categories were played or time ran out.

Round Two

Six new categories were introduced and play continued as described above. Question values doubled to $300, $400 and $500 (or later, $200, $300 and $400 after contestants were staked with the initial $200 at the beginning of the game).

As in Round One, play continued until all six categories were played or time ran out. If any player had $0 or less at the end of this round they were eliminated from further play.

The Final Challenge

In The Final Challenge, one final category was presented with three questions contained therein. The difficulty of the individual questions determined the payout odds for that question. The easiest question paid off at even odds, the harder question paid off at 2:1 (bet $500, win $1,000), and the hardest paid off at 3:1 (bet $1,000, win $3,000). Contestants had 15 seconds to place a wager in addition to selecting a question within the category.

A correct answer added the wager multiplied by the odds to the contestants score. If the contestant was incorrect, only the wager would be deducted from their total.

As before, if all three contestants chose different questions they would each individually play their questions. If two or more contestants picked the same category, only the contestant who made the highest wager received the question.

At the end of The Final Challenge, whoever was in the lead won the game and returned the next day. All contestants kept their winnings, which could be awarded in the form of a Citibank Visa card or (later) MasterCard with the total winnings as the balance, or in cash.

Champions on The Challengers played until they were defeated.

The Ultimate Challenge

Version One

A champion was required to win three consecutive games before being able to play Ultimate Challenge.

The contestant selected one of two categories and was asked three questions in that category. If all three questions were answered correctly, the contestant won an accumulating cash jackpot.

The original starting value of the pot was $50,000, with $5,000 added for every unsuccessful attempt. This changed during the show's third week, as the Ultimate Challenge had only been played once (on the first Challengers) as no one had won the necessary three games. Beginning on September 17, 1990, $1,000 was added for each day until the pot was claimed. The pot reached $60,000 before it was claimed by Larry Kaplan on the September 24, 1990 episode. After his win the starting value of the pot was reduced to $25,000, where it stayed until the Ultimate Challenge was revamped (see below).

During the first version of The Ultimate Challenge, the round was always played at the start of the episode following a champion's third win. On these episodes only, an abbreviated Round One was played, with only three of the six categories played.

Version Two

In the second version, the Ultimate Challenge was played every day following the Final Challenge. The day's winner was asked one question in a category (no longer having a choice of categories). A correct answer won the contestant $10,000.

In early 1991, the Ultimate Challenge was eliminated from the show and the game ended after the Final challenge.

Tournaments

The Challengers held three special tournaments over the year it was on the air.

The Challengers Tournament of Champions

During the week of November 12, 1990, The Challengers invited its nine biggest winners at the time to play a Tournament of Champions, one of whom was the show's defending champion Stanley Newman (who despite only having been on the show for two days had won enough money to qualify for the tournament). Three different contestants competed on the Monday - Wednesday shows of that week and the three highest winners were invited back for a two-day final game played on the Thursday and Friday of that week.

The player with the highest combined score from Thursday and Friday kept that amount and won an additional $25,000. Newman won the tournament, adding over $40,000 to his total winnings, and went on to become the show's all-time biggest winner by adding an additional $31,000 in an Ultimate Challenge played two shows following his tournament win.

Teachers Tournament

Nine teachers competed in the same format as in the Tournament of Champions, with $10,000 awarded to the winner.

The Challengers Invitational Tournament

Nine contestants were invited back to compete in the same format as the previous two tournaments, and an additional $10,000 was awarded to the eventual winner, Lorin Burt. Burt had won $34,600 during the two-day final, and with the $10,000 bonus and his previous $46,075 in winnings, won a total of $90,675.

External links

• Rules for The Challengers
• The Challengers at IMDb

• Articles lacking sources from May 2008
• Articles needing cleanup from May 2008
• Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from May 2008
• Misplaced Pages pages needing cleanup from May 2008
• 1990 television series debuts
• 1991 television series endings
• 1990s American television series
• American game shows
• First-run syndicated television programs in the United States
• Game shows
• Television series by Buena Vista Television
• Television series by Dick Clark Productions