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Broadcast History: January 3, 1983-April 1, 1983, NBC daytime, 11:30 AM Eastern in most areas Host: Peter Tomarken Announcer: Rod Roddy Executive Producer: Jay Wolpert Packager: Jay Wolpert Enterprises and Metromedia Entertainment, Inc. |
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Round 1 |
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Game play begins with three contestants watching a 3 minute "movie" about a certain topic and each contestant's hit man at the bottom of a track. The contestants are given questions regarding the short. A correct answer moves that contestant's hit man up one space. The first 2 contestants to get to the finish line (correctly answer 5 questions) advance to round 2. An incorrect answer means that contestant must sit out the next question. The first person to reach the finish line wins $300. The second contestant to get to the finish wins $200. |
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Round 2 |
  The
2 winners from round 1 play against the champion in round 2. A second short
is shown. All questions from this round pertain to this movie only.
Each contestant is given a specific amount of hit men. The champion receives 7 hit men, the first person to pass the finish line in round 1 gets 4 hit men, while the second person to get to the finish line has 3 hit men.
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The Triple Crown |
  The Triple Crown may go down as one of the most innovative bonus rounds in game show history. The Triple Crown board consists of 8 columns, 1 column contains one square, 2 columns each of 2, 3, and 4 squares, while one other column has 5 squares. The location of each column in each Triple Crown is random. Each square represents a question the player must fill up with a "money man" (a correct answer). The champion is given 60 seconds to fill 3 columns with "money men". For the first column finished, the player wins $1,000. If a second column is completed, the winnings go up to $2,000. If a player fills three complete columns within the 60 seconds, that person wins $10,000. If the player incorrectly answers a question, fails to reply, or passes, the column that person was working on cannot be played any more and a new column must be started.
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* ...Hit Man is the first national game show Peter Tomarken hosted?
* ...Tomarken and Rod Roddy would be the host/announcer tandem on Press Your Luck, which premiered 5 months after
Hit Man was cancelled?
* ...game show host Marc Summers (Double Dare, WinTuition) was a writer on Hit Man?
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...Randy West, the final champion on Hit Man, went on to announce several game shows including
Supermarket Sweep and FAM's interactive titles from 1993-95? In addition
to Hit Man, West was also a contestant on 8 other shows including Press Your Luck,
All Star Blitz, To Tell the Truth, and Face the Music.
* ..."Hit Man" had one of the more memorable endings in game show history when Roddy announced the following after the final commercial break on the series finale: "If you would like to be a contestant on 'Hit Man', forget it."
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Each
question is played by one challenger and the returning champion. The first
finisher in round 1 has the option of going against the champion first or
letting the other challenger play head-to-head versus the champ. If a person
answers a question correctly, the opponent on that question loses a hit man. If
a person fails to reply or is incorrect, that person loses a hit man. The
challenger in control plays against the champion until losing one of his/her hit
men. Control of playing the champion then goes to the other challenger. The
person that removes the champ's last hit man becomes champ and goes on to the
Triple Crown. The champ wins if he/she knocks off all 7 of the challengers' hit
men.
Luck plays a big role in this bonus round due to the differing lengths of the columns and the randomness of the location of the shorter columns. Of course, memory
and recall are the keys to success in the Triple Crown, as well as the whole game of
Hit Man.