Chain Reaction (partially found Bob Stewart game show; 1980)

The show's logo

Status: Partially Found

Chain Reaction is an American game show that was created by Bob Stewart and aired on NBC for only 5 months in early 1980. It's a word game similar to Password (another show created by Stewart) but where one word leads to another. While the show only lasted only 23 weeks from January to June 1980, it has been revived several times throughout the decades with the current one airing on Game Show Network since February 2021. While the other versions of the show are widely available online, the original NBC run is far less lucky with under half of the show being available online.

Format

Two teams of two celebrities and one contestant try and complete a chain of eight words (sometimes the chain includes phrases). A correct guess at the chosen word in the chain awards the team the number of points determined by how many letters the chosen word is (sometimes if the word has a + next to it, the score doubles), an incorrect guess passes the control of the chain to the other team. The first team to get to 50 points, wins the game and goes onto the bonus round.

The bonus round is somewhat similar to the front game but different, instead of a eight word chain, the two celebrities form a sentence (one word at a time), which acts as a question to the contestant to guess what word or phrase the celebrities are asking about. The question ends when either celebrity rings a bell and that would be the contestant's cue to answer. A correct answer adds a zero to the teams bank (one correct answers banks $1, two correct banks $10, three banks $100, four banks $1,000, next four correct banks an additional $1,000 and the ninth scores them $10,000). If they didn't say the correct word, the celebrities would have the option to pass or form a new question, they have 90 seconds to bank $10,000. This format for the bonus round would only last four weeks, the format for the first week of the series is the team starts at $1 and had a 60-second time limit. Each correct response added one half of a zero behind the $1, meaning that after two correct responses the player would win $10, after four the player would win $100, and so on up to the $10,000 maximum. For the final 18 weeks of the show's run, a correct answer awards the team $100 and nine correct answers awards them $10,000.

Episodes

#	Celebrities	Airdates	Status	Notes
1	Patty Duke-Astin, Joyce Bulifant, Fred Grandy, Nipsey Russell	January 14-18, 1980	Partially Lost	January 14 premiere exists in full January 15 episode exists in full January 18 episode exists in full
2	Joyce Bulifant, Didi Conn, Jay Johnson, Robert Mandan	January 21-25, 1980	Found	January 21 exists in full January 22 episode exists in full January 23 episode exists in full January 24 episode exists in full January 25 episode exists in full
3	Elaine Joyce, Vicki Lawrence, Nipsey Russell, Richard Paul	January 28-February 1, 1980	Found	January 28 episode exists in full January 29 episode exists in full January 30 episode exists in full January 31 episode exists in full February 1 episode exists in full
4	Joanna Gleason, Jo Anne Worley, Michael McKean, Richard Paul	February 4-8, 1980	Partially Lost	February 4 episode exists in full February 5 episode exists in full February 7 episode exists in full
5	Peggy Cass, Shelley Smith, Fred Grandy, Robert Mandan	February 11-15, 1980	Partially Lost	February 11 episode exists in full February 12 episode exists in full February 13 episode exists in full February 14 episode exists in full
6	Lois Nettleton, Debralee Scott, Jay Johnson, Soupy Sales	February 18-22, 1980	Found	February 18 episode exists in full February 19 episode exists in full February 20 episode exists in full February 21 episode exists in full February 22 episode exists in full
7	Anita Gillette, Lois Nettleton, Soupy Sales, Bart Braverman	February 25-29, 1980	Partially Found	February 25 episode exists in full February 26 episode exists in full
8	Joanna Gleason, Debralee Scott, Robert Mandan, Robert Walden	March 3-7, 1980	Found	March 3 episode exists in full March 4 episode exists in full March 5 episode exists in full March 6 episode exists in full March 7 episode exists in full
9	Betty White, Anita Gillette, Allen Ludden, Brian Patrick-Clarke	March 10-14, 1980	Found	March 10 episode exists in full March 14 episode exists in full
10	Anita Gillette, Gina Hecht, Fred Grandy, Nipsey Russell	March 17-21, 1980	Partially Lost	March 17 episode exists in full March 18 episode exists in full March 19 episode exists in full March 21 episode exists in full
11	Joanna Gleason, Patty Duke-Astin, Nipsey Russell, Brian Patrick-Clarke	March 24-28, 1980	Partially Lost	March 24 episode exists in full March 25 episode exists in full March 26 episode exists in full March 27 episodes exists in full
12	Joyce Bulifant, Judy Norton-Taylor, Robert Pine, Jay Johnson	March 31-April 4, 1980	Partially Lost	March 31 episode exists in full April 1 episode exists in full Undated episode exists in full
13	Gina Hecht, Vicki Lawrence, Jack Carter, Wesley Eure	April 7-11, 1980	Partially Lost	April 7 episode exists in full April 8 episode exists in full April 9 episode exists in full
14	Constance McCashin, Jo Anne Worley, Robert Walden, Richard Paul	April 14-18, 1980	Partially Found	April 14 episode exists in full April 16 episode exists in full
15	Didi Conn, Elaine Joyce, Robert Mandan, Ken Kercheval	April 21-25, 1980	Lost
16	Susan Richardson, Betty White, Daryl Anderson, Jay Johnson	April 28-May 2, 1980	Partially Found	May 2 episode exists in full
17	Sharon Spelman, Jo Anne Worley, Sal Viscuso, Steve Kanaly	May 5-9, 1980	Partially Found	May 6 episode exists in full May 7 episode exists in full
18	Judy Norton-Taylor, Anita Gillette, Richard Paul, Ken Kercheval	May 12-16, 1980	Partially Found	Undated episode exists in full
19	Anita Gillette, Vicki Lawrence, Wesley Eure, Ron Silver	May 19-23, 1980	Partially Found	May 23 episode exists in full
20	Sharon Spelman, Laurie Walters, Brian Patrick-Clarke, Nipsey Russell	May 26-30, 1980	Lost
21	Gina Hecht, Alison Arngrim, Daryl Anderson, Nipsey Russell	June 2-6, 1980	Lost
22	Vicki Lawrence, Judy Norton-Taylor, Richard Paul, Robert Mandan	June 9-13, 1980	Lost
23	Joyce Bulifant, Betty White, Jay Johnson, Ron Silver	June 16-20, 1980	Partially Found	June 20 finale exists in full

Cancellation

The show was cancelled in June 1980 after 115 episodes, but it was almost spared. The chairman of NBC daytime at the time was Fred Silverman and he wanted to do a 90-minute talk show with comedian David Letterman simply called "The David Letterman Show". Before the show went into production, three game shows from NBC's daytime lineup were gonna be cancelled to make way for The David Letterman Show, the shows being Hollywood Squares, High Rollers and Wheel Of Fortune. However it was announced on May 7th that Wheel Of Fortune was not cancelled and Chain Reaction was now gonna be the third show to be cancelled alongside Hollywood Squares and High Rollers and all three of those shows met their fate on June 20, 1980.

Availability

Despite the show's swift cancellation, it has been reran a lot on several cable networks like CBN, USA network and Game Show Network. Recordings from these reruns have appeared online over the years. Game Show Network skipped 13 episodes when they reran the show in the late 1990s and those episodes have become very rare to come by with recordings of CBN and USA airings of the skipped episodes being very hard to find. Since the series has been reran a lot of times in the years since it's cancellation, it has cause speculation that the show maybe one of the few shows to have aired on NBC with it's run still intact since NBC would discontinue their practice of wiping tapes around the time of Chain Reaction's run, but this remains to be seen.