Starcade is an American game show where contestants competed against one another by playing arcade video games. The series originally aired on WTBS from 1982 to 1983, followed by a run in syndication for the following season.
The series was first hosted by Mark Richards. Geoff Edwards replaced Richards after the first 23 shows, and continued until the show's cancellation.
Broadcast history
Starcade was produced by the JM Production Company to air on WTBS and later syndication by Turner Program Services (TPS). Starcade was the first video arcade game show, and set the blueprint for similar game shows like Video Power, Nick Arcade, and Arena. The show was used to sponsor and showcase brand new coin-operated machines of the golden age of arcade video games.
Shortly after the series' cancellation, a second JM-produced video arcade game show, The Video Game, was aired for a brief period from 1984 to 1985.
Starcade aired in repeats on the G4 network from its inception in 2002 to 2004, shortly before its merger with TechTV. It returned to the G4 lineup during the network's 2021 relaunch.
Format
Two players (or teams; age-regardless) competed. Three rounds were played.
Each round began with a video arcade-game related toss-up question. The player who buzzed in and answered correctly chose one of five free-standing arcade games in the studio and was given 40 seconds (later 60, then 50) to amass as high a score as possible. The opponent then played the same game, and whatever points the players earned were added to their overall scores. If a player's game ended before time ran out, the turn ended immediately and the player was credited with whatever points they had earned.
The second and third rounds were played identically, with 40 seconds (later 50) game playing time for the second round, and 30 seconds (later 40) for the third. Once a game was chosen for play in any round, it could not be chosen again. At the end of the second round (and third when the series began), the player in the lead played "Name the Game," attempting to identify four arcade games by viewing short video clips. The player won a prize for correctly identifying at least three of the games, with a second prize awarded for correctly naming all four.
When teams played, both players had to play one game each in round one.
One of the five games was the "mystery game," which awarded a prize (originally 500 extra points, in very early episodes) to the player who chose it in any of the three rounds.
The player in the lead at the end of the third and final round won the game and a bonus prize, and moved on to the bonus round.
Bonus round
The player selected one of the two games that had not yet been played, and was given 30 seconds to beat the average score of 20 other players on that game. If the player did so, he/she won the day's grand prize, which consisted of either an arcade game, a home entertainment robot, a jukebox, or even a vacation (in certain "invitational" episodes).
Production
The original pilot for Starcade was hosted by Olympic gold-medalist hockey player Mike Eruzione, taped at the studios of KRON-TV in San Francisco and featured an almost entirely different format. There were three rows of eight players (24 in total) and their own separate arcade game systems. All three rows featured a different video game; in this case, the first one featured eight Defender systems, the second one featured eight Centipede systems, and the third one featured eight Pac-Man systems. Each player had 30 seconds to accumulate a relatively high total. Whoever had the highest out of all eight on their team was selected to play against the two other highest-scoring players on an arcade game (Berzerk in this case) for the grand prize – their very own arcade game (Asteroids Deluxe, in this case) and an Apple II Home Computer System.
The overall winner would then play a brand-new arcade game against a celebrity "just for fun". The winner, David Dyche, played the then-new game Donkey Kong against Larry Wilcox, best known to viewers as police officer Jon Baker on the NBC crime-drama CHiPs.