Jay Wolpert's second Game Show, this time for NBC. It was also the debut hosting job for Peter Tomarken, who had previously helmed two unsold Wolpert pilots: Rodeo Drive (a 1980 game which was picked up by Lifetime in 1990, but with Louise DuArt hosting) and Duel in the Daytime (a 1981 Minigame Game that was even more of a Refuge in Audacity than Whew!). Whew! announcer Rod Roddy announced for this series, and he and Tomarken were later reunited for Press Your Luck. The show was co-produced by Metromedia, a media company which had formed from the ashes of DuMont and whose O&O stations would later form the nucleus of Fox.
In contrast to Whew!, Hit Man was a bit more straightforward: in the first round, three contestants watched a short documentary-style film narrated by Tomarken, and answered questions related to its topic. The first two to reach five correct answers advanced to the next round, and won $300 and $200 respectively.
In the second round, the two challengers were joined by a returning champion, and watched a second film. This time, the contestants were given lives known as "Hit Men" (7 for the champion, 4 for the first-place finisher in round 1, 3 for the runner-up), and the challengers alternated answering toss-up questions against the champion; the first-place finisher could choose to let the champion answer first, or answer themselves. Answering correctly caused the opponent to lose one of their Hit Men, while an incorrect answer caused the contestant to lose one of their own. The champion won by eliminating all of the challengers' Hit Men, while a challenger won by being the active player when the champion ran out of Hit Men; the winner of the game proceeded to play the Triple Crown bonus round for $10,000.
Hit Man was taken out in the ratings by The Price Is Right, making it a victim of Wolpert's own success.note It ran from January 3 to April 1, 1983, before being replaced by the Bob Eubanks revival of Dream House.
This series provides examples of:
- The Announcer: Rod Roddy.
- Bonus Round: The Triple Crown. Eight random columns were shown, with one to five spaces each (one column with one space, one column with five spaces, and two each of the others; the contestant was not shown how many spaces were in the columns). The contestant called out a column, then answered a question relating one to the two videos shown earlier (the returning champion also watched the first video backstage). A correct answer added a "Money Man" to that column, while an incorrect answer closed off that column. Filling a column with Money Men marked it with a crown, and filling three columns in 60 seconds awarded the $10,000; filling one column was worth $1,000, and filling two awarded $2,000.
- Color-Coded Multiplayer: Red for the champion, and Blue, Yellow, and Green for the three challengers.
- Game Show Host: Peter Tomarken, in his first major appearance.
- Grand Finale: Among other things,
soon-to-be game show announcer Randy West appeared as a contestant (and won $1,300), and Roddy famously amended his contestant plug..."If you would like to be a contestant on Hit Man, forget it! And now back to Peter Tomarken!" - Opening Narration: "One half-hour from now, you'll know enough about (SUBJECT 1), and (SUBJECT 2) to win $10,000 in cash, if you were a contestant on Hit Man!"
- Rearrange the Song: The main theme was a reworking of Pablo Cruises' Worlds Away, which was used on the Pilot.
- Show the Folks at Home: The contestant didn't know how many spaces were in each column in the Triple Crown round.
- Transatlantic Equivalent: A UK version (produced by TVS, the people behind Catchphrase (UK)) ran on ITV briefly in 1989- it actually ran for only four months, just like the original, but only aired on Tuesdays as opposed to a five-a-week daytime slot. The Triple Crown round was played for £1,000 for each column, meaning a maximum top prize of £3,000.