Whew! was an American game show produced by Bud Austin Company that aired on television from April 1979 until May 1980. It was hosted by Tom Kennedy and announced by Rod Roddy.

Gameplay

Main game

Two players compete in the main game. The challenger is shown the categories for the first two rounds of play, and decides who will "Charge" and who will "Block" for each of those rounds. Whoever is selected as the first Charger is sent offstage while the Blocker observes the board. The Blocker then recieves the chance to place 6 Blocks on the board. No more than 3 can be placed on any one of the gold levels, and no more than one can be placed on the final level.

When the Blocker makes their selections, the Charger returns, and is given 60 seconds to correct one "Blooper" from each level. A "Blooper would consist of a famous phrase with a portion of it mangled, usually in a rhyming fashion (For instance, "Jeff Probst says on Survivor, 'THE VIBE HAS BROKEN'" would be answered with "The tribe has spoken"). If the Charger picked a square that had been blocked, they were forced to wait for 5 seconds before choosing another Blooper on that level.

The player had the opportunity to make one last-ditch effort to win the game if they found themselves behind. By yelling "LONGSHOT!" the player would bypass all of the other levels and stop the clock. The Blocker would then get the chance to add a Block to the final level, regardless of whether one was placed there before. If the Charger did a longshot and hit a block, the Blocker won the round. If the Charger found a Blooper and correctly answered it, they then won the round.

The Charger wins the round by either calling a Longshot then correctly answering a Blooper or finishing all levels within 60 seconds. The Blocker wins by either the Charger hitting a block after a Longshot or the Charger running out of time.

The first player to win 2 rounds moved onto the bonus round, winnning the total of all the Bloopers solved along with the value of any Blocks their opponent hit. This added an element of strategy, as the Blocker could theoretically place blocks on all the $50 spaces in the hopes of racking up money, but the Charger could see this coming and go for the lower values instead.

The Gauntlet of Villains

The winning player faced a series of 10 "Villains", each of them trying to prevent the player from winning the money. The player's time limit for this round was 60 seconds plus 1 second for each $100 won in the main game. Kennedy read a Blooper in front of each Villain, and the contestant then had 2 seconds to answer it and move on to the next Villain. If the player reached the end of the Gauntlet, they won $10,000. If the player failed, they received $100 for each Villain passed.

Celebrity edition

About halfway through the show's run, 2 celebrities were assigned as partners to either contestant. The teams of 2 alternated Charging duties between levels, placed 3 of the 6 Blocks each on the board, and each took half of the Gauntlet of Villains bonus round.

External link

Loog's Lair's summary of the rules, with pictures of the show