WINNING STREAK

"You can double your money with every word and you may win over $100,000, or you may go broke. The decision is yours...This is Winning Streak!"

"Winning Streak", a Bob Stewart Production hosted by Bill, replaced "Three on a Match", a Bob Stewart Production hosted by Bill, on NBC. After reading this rulesheet, you'll wonder why they didn't just extend "Three on a Match."

Okay, pay attention. Two contestants, one a returning champion, compete. The contestants are shown a board with 16 letters and a category. One contestant chooses a letter, and Bill asks a toss-up question, the correct answer of which begins with said letter (a la "Blockbusters"). Buzzing in with the correct answer wins the letter, but a wrong answer gives the letter to your opponent.

The contestants both had a seven-space row in front of them, and the contestant who won the letter chose the position to place it in and chose the next letter. (If a contestant won a letter they didn't need, they could reject it and still make the next selection.)

The first contestant to form a word that fit the presented category won the game and played the bonus game.

In the bonus game, the contestant faced 18 numbered tiles. S/he selected a number between 1 and 6, and the hidden dollar amount (between $100 and $200) would be the base figure. The contestant then picked a number between 7 and 18. Hidden behind each of the spaces was a letter. Give a word with the chosen letter, win the base amount. You can either quit there or keep picking hidden letters. Every time you had to give a new word that contained all the letters revealed, doubling the money for every acceptable word. A wrong guess or time running out meant you lost everything. Whatever the result, the contestant went to a pulpit onstage to watch the next game.

The next game was played with two new contestants who played the same front game, except with a different set of letters and a new category. The winner played the bonus game, and if they went bust, the winner of the previous game became the new champion. If the previous game's winner went bust and the second winner won money, the second winner became champ. Confused yet? Here come more rules!

If both contestants come out of the bonus games with money (or presumably, if both went bust), they played "sudden death." This round was identical to the bonus round, with the contestants alternating between each other picking letters and giving words. The first contestant to get stumped loses, while the opponent wins their combined winnings (i.e., if one contestant got $1,040 and the other got $1,800, the sudden death winner got $2,840) and met a new opponent.
Well, that opening spiel is almost a lie. Based on my calculations, you could only pull a $100K win if you found top dollar on the board and then gave a word containing eleven letters you had picked (or more letters if it were a lesser amount.)

Bill's worst show, since he's so busy explaining rules to joke and banter like we're accustomed to seeing. Also, he's slightly embarrassed by his appearance here. Lin Bolen, head of NBC's daytime department, was obsessed with making sure game show emcees were young or at least hip-looking. Since Bill was 54 at this point, he found himself having to settle for the latter. The result is Bill looking incredibly comical on this series, with butterfly collars and leisure suits, not to mention shoulder-length hair!