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Essentially a Talent Show , ''Star Search'' established a format later utilized by other programs, notably '' American Idol ''. RULES OF ORIGINAL STAR SEARCH During the course of the show, several contestants competed in several genres of entertainment. While categories were added and removed from season to season, the six basic ones stuck with the show for the duration of the series. They were:
Similar to American Idol , potential contestants must try out to be on the show. If selected, they will compete. In each category, two people compete, a champion and a challenger. The challenger gets the advantage of performing their act first, the champion performs their act second. All acts are judged by a panel of five judges, each judge can award an act from one to four stars. Once both acts are complete, Ed reveals the scores, best average wins. If there is a tie, a studio audience vote breaks the tie in which the results are revealed at the end of the show. Any performer must win three matches in a row, to be retired and earn an entry into the next round of the show. In this case, two new performers compete in the category the following week. The rules for the Quarter and Semi Final shows are the same as above, only random draw determines who will perform first. The judges are removed for the Championship show, and the studio audience votes for the winners. Winners of Male Vocalist, Female Vocalist, Group, and Comedy are awarded $100,000 but unlike American Idol, no record contract was guaranteed. Only 3 Star Search winners from the early seasons secured recording contracts- Sawyer Brown, Sam Harris and Durell Coleman. The winner of the Fashion Model category is awarded $100,000 and a contract with a well known modeling agency. Winner of Young Performer wins $25,000. In early seasons, before the three match limit rule was adopted, the grand champions were determined by how long a champion held their title. While it is believed that Sam Harris holds the record for longest championship, at 14 weeks in Season 1, Harris was actually defeated by singer Beau Williams on Harris' 14th attempt. This record is actually held by Singer Durell Coleman (1985) who won the $100,000 on Season 2 with 15 wins and no defeats. REMAKE In the wake of ''American Idol'''s success, and 2004 on CBS, before ending up in reruns on cable channel GSN for one year from 2004 to 2005 . This new version was judged by several people, including Ben Stein and Naomi Judd . It introduced "star" Loni Love , who has appeared in TV shows for VH1 , and '' Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide '' as Rose The Lunch Lady for Nickelodeon . Dancer Nick Lazzarini (later the winner of Season 1 of So You Think You Can Dance ) also appeared on the show. The revival consisted of four series. For the first series, the categories were Adult and Junior Singer, Comedy, and Modeling. In series two and three, Modeling was replaced with Dance. In the final series, the Comedy category was scrapped altogether and only the singing and dancing categories remained. For the first three series, two new competitors faced off. The three house judges, along with the one celebrity judge, gave each contestant a score on a scale from 1 to 5 stars, making a maximum studio score 20 stars. During each commercial break, the home audience went to www.cbs.com/star to rate the competitors who just performed. Each performer could earn up to another 20 stars from the home audience. When the scores were tallied, the higher scoring performer won. If the score was tied, then Arsenio would read off each performer's score rounded to the nearest hundreth (the at home score was initially rounded down to the nearest star, unless there was a tie). That performer would then go on to the next round of competition. The only real exception to this format during the first three series was that three people competed in the semi-final rounds, not two. After the first two series, a special, "Battle of the Best" show took place, where the two Adult Singer, Junior Singer, and Comedian Grand Champions (Modeling was only the first season, and Dance had only been around for one season) were brought back to face off for an additional $100,000. For the fourth and final series, three contestants in Adult Singer, Junior Singer, and Dance were brought back to initially compete (Comedy was dropped, jokingly because Naomi gave many comics only one star). The three brought back in each category were not necessarily the Grand Champions of their series. The show scrapped the celebrity judge and had three house judges for the entire series: Naomi Judd, MC Lyte, and Matti Leshem (who tried to berate contestants as if he were Simon Cowell). As in past series, two new contestants competed. With only three judges, 15 stars was possible, and ties were broken by a majority vote between the three. This is where the former contstants came in. Initially, in each category, these three performers made up the "Winner's Circle". The winning challenger then had the chance to challenge one of the three performers in his or her respective winner's circle. The winner's circle performer then had to beat or tie the bar set by the challenger- ties were automatically given to the Winner's Circle performer. If they couldn't beat the score, they were out of the competition, and the challenger took his or her place in the Winner's Circle. Halfway through the series, the three performers in each Winner's Circle competed against each other in a special show. The winner in each category not only received a trip home, but a free pass to the final show. From then on, there were only two people who could be challenged in each Winner's Circle. In the final show, the three people in each Winner's Circle competed against each other for $100,000. This, along with the Free Pass show, were the only two shows which re-adopted the at-home voting concept.
This remake lasted two years for the reason its counterpart "American Idol" becomes more popular than "Star Search" leading to its cancellation in April 2004. SELECTED ''STAR SEARCH'' WINNERS
NOTABLE COMPETITORS ON ''STAR SEARCH''
POP CULTURE REFERENCES
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