Moving this thread up because... my Blankety Blanks DVDs arrived yesterday!
So far I've only perused the menus and played the first episode, but I have a few early observations nonetheless. The set's almost a dead ringer for the first MG7x set, save for the obvious change from a "Match Game 7x" sign to one for "Blankety Blanks" and a few other smaller details such as the chase lights. Game play is the same as in the CBS daytime run, with two rounds and each celebrity available to match only once in a game; I haven't yet seen what they do if a tiebreaker is needed. The Super Match amounts are considerably lower, at 25/50/100 instead of 100/250/500. At least in the first episode, there was no music to accompany the transition from the main game to the Super Match, and no sound effect to indicate a match in the main game. The music was definitely different from the U.S. run; I thought I heard hints of the MG7x music in the end theme but I'm no expert so I'll defer to those who are. :-)
The first episode in the set appears to be the first episode in the series, as Graham Kennedy makes reference to "the first show" (at first I thought he meant first of the year since he also refers to "a new year") and there's no returning champion. He starts by giving the rules to Celebrity Squares, the audience laughs, and then he goes right on talking to the celebs much as Gene did. The celebs in the first show are Jon English, Noeline Brown, Ugly Dave Gray, Carol Raye, Stuart Wagstaff, and Kate Fitzpatrick. At least this show was self-contained; I suppose I'll see if that was normal when I go through the remaining episodes.
EDIT: Just started playing the last episode in the set and it starts with a Super Match, so clearly at least some of the games straddled.
EDIT 2: Just watched an episode with a tie game. Just as in the U.S. version, a regular round was played as a tiebreaker... but when that round ended in a tie, they played another regular tiebreaker round rather than a sudden death tiebreaker. Also, just noticed that the "Blankety Blanks" sign isn't a sign at all -- it's handled like the credit crawl. Shows you what I get for watching halfway across the room, only partly paying attention to the screen while imaging a bunch of computers. :-)
