Break the Bank (1976 game show)
Break the Bank is an American game show created by Jack Barry and Dan Enright and produced by their production company Barry & Enright Productions. It was the first game show produced by Barry and Enright as a tandem since their fall from grace following the 1950s quiz show scandals.
The show aired in the spring and summer of 1976 as an ABC daytime series hosted by Tom Kennedy, and in weekly syndication during the 1976–1977 season, hosted by creator-producer Barry.
Game play
Break the Bank featured nine celebrities, and pitted one male and one female contestant against one another. The contestants took turns calling out numbers on a large board with 20 numbered trilons, laid out in four rows of five. The celebrities sat in positions along the top and left edges of the board, so that every number was in one celebrity's row and another's column.Board
- Money Box: There were three sets of three money boxes; each box in a set was horizontally and/or vertically connected to its neighbor. The daytime show used values of $100–$200–$300, while the syndicated run used $100–$300–$500.
- Wild Card: Only one was on the board, identified by a large "W" on a rainbow background. Once claimed, it could be used to count as any dollar amount or a Money Bag.
- Money Bag: Five were scattered across the board, not necessarily connected to each other. If a money bag was uncovered, the contestant could keep it or reject it and select another box. Collecting three money bags, or two bags and the Wild Card, broke the bank for an automatic win.
- Blank: Five of these were hidden on the board, not touching each other. A contestant's turn ended if he/she uncovered a blank.
Winning
There were two ways to win a game:- Claiming three money boxes of the same value, or two matching boxes and the Wild Card, awarded triple the amount and a bonus prize.
- Claiming three money bags broke the bank, winning the contestant a jackpot of cash and/or prizes. On the ABC version the bank was a progressive cash jackpot starting at $5,000 and increasing by $500 per game until won. On the syndicated version, the bank was a prize package worth at least $10,000, always including a new car, and did not increase from one game to the next. The bank could be broken more than once on any given episode, depending on how quickly games progressed. Highest bank ever reached during the short run of the series was $12,000.
On the syndicated version, whoever broke the bank first won the match and advanced to the bonus round. If no one broke the bank before time ran out, the player who had won more games was declared the winner. Both players kept their winnings from individual games.
Bonus round
The bonus round was only played on the syndicated version. Each celebrity held a card, eight with various amounts of money and one that read "BUST." The contestant selected one celebrity at a time, and had the option to stop at any time and keep the total of all the revealed amounts. The round ended if the contestant either found the "BUST" card, which forfeited the accumulated money, or reached a total of $2,000 or more, in which case his/her winnings were increased to $5,000.Broadcast history
Break the Bank had two separate runs on American television. The first was as a daily series that aired from April 12 to July 23, 1976, on ABC, airing at 2:30 p.m. Eastern/1:30 Central. Although the series was popular, the network canceled it in order to expand the soap operas One Life to Live and General Hospital, both of which followed it on the daytime schedule, from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. The show quickly returned as a weekly syndicated game from September 18, 1976, to September 11, 1977.On the daytime show, games straddled episodes, meaning that game play would stop when time ran out and would be completed on the next episode. On the syndicated version, each episode was self-contained due to syndication practices of the era; two contestants competed for the entire episode, with multiple games per show, and the contestant who broke the bank first or won the most games became champion and played the bonus round. If time ran short in the middle of a game, the contestants alternated choosing squares without questions, and the first contestant to get three of anything won.
International versions
| Country | Title | Broadcaster | Presenter | Premiere | Finale |
| :fr:La Porte magique|La Porte magique | La Cinq | Michel Robbe | 14 September 1987 | 12 November 1988 | |
| Εσεіς זi λέזε Eseís zi léze Τηλεμπλόφες Tilemplofes | ERT Mega Channel | Kostas Rigopoulous Claus Tsivilikas | 1987 | 1989 |