Twisters

By the fall of 1982, Jim had gone from simultaneously hosting three game shows (Card Sharks, Headline Hunters, and Definition) to only hosting Definition. While he also still hosted the annual Miss Canada Pageant, Jim was still too much in his prime at the age of 48 to sit back and host only one show. Bob Stewart, who produced a number of game shows for all three networks under his own company, had been working on a new game show called Twisters. Stewart originally hired someone else to host the pilot but after doing run-throughs of the game, it was quickly obvious that their choice of host would not work out. Jim had a reputation in the industry for being a very quick study with the ability to learn a new game or new rules to a game show in record time and make it work. Stewart called Jim and, in just one day, taught him the game for Twisters, and the pilot was taped in October 1982 for NBC.

Main Game: Ten contestants competed on Twisters. If the series had made it to the air, these same ten contestants would have played for the entire week much like Bob Stewart's 1974-1975 game show Jackpot! Nine of the contestants were seated behind a gallery of podiums on one end of the set while the tenth player stood in front of a long shuffleboard table. The table consisted of the numbers 1-9 marked by black and white stripes down the table. Whoever was positioned at the shuffleboard table was designated King or Queen of the Hill. The contestant pushed a puck down the table to determine which of the nine contestants would play each question. Whichever number 1-9 the puck stopped on, the gallery player with that number stood up. Jim gave the player a choice of two questions (called Twisters) of which only the first half of each Twister was shown on the screen. The player selected one of the Twisters and Jim read the rest of the question to the King/Queen of the Hill. If the King/Queen answered correctly, they kept control of the shuffleboard. An incorrect answer meant that the King/Queen had to relinquish control to the contestant in the gallery who had challenged them.

Behind the King/Queen of the Hill was a score counter. The counter started at 40 points at the beginning of each game and decreased by the number of the gallery contestant selected by the puck but only if the Twister was answered correctly. For example, if the puck landed on player number 6 and the King/Queen of the Hill correctly answered the Twister, the score dropped from 40 to 34 points. The score counter continued to decrease with each correct answer throughout the game. The game ended when the score counter dropped to zero. At this point, the last gallery player the puck landed on for the last Twister joined the King/Queen of the Hill to play the bonus game.

An added wrinkle to the game was a feature called "Instant Win." If at any time the puck landed on a number on the shuffleboard where the second digit of the score counter matched the number of the gallery player chosen, that gallery player joined the King/Queen of the Hill at the shuffleboard. For instance, if the score counter said 34 points and the puck landed on number 4 on the shuffleboard, the number 4 player in the gallery joined the King/Queen of the Hill at the shuffleboard. These two contestants could instantly win the game by each answering a Twister correctly. If successful, the players each won $500. If one of the players could not answer their Twister, the game continued.

Another element of the front game featured three large red stripes on the shuffleboard located at different sections of the table. If the puck happened to land on one of the red stripes at any point during the game, the King/Queen of the Hill could win a car by correctly answering a Twister. The King/Queen kept control of the board regardless of whether he/she answered the car Twister correctly or not.

Bonus Game: The two winners played a bonus game for a chance to win additional money. The two players faced each other while Jim stood in the center. Sixty seconds was placed on the clock and Jim began reading the first half of Twisters while the contestant on the left completed reading the question. The second player's role was to answer each question. If the player answered incorrectly or passed on a question, Jim simply read a new question. If the team successfully answered ten questions correctly within 60 seconds, they split $10,000.

While Twisters was not picked up by NBC as a regular series, the show helped Jim land his next game show gig.