Password (TV series)

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Allen Ludden
Allen Ludden

Password was a long-running American television game show produced by Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. The show was hosted by Allen Ludden and was created by Bob Stewart for Goodson-Todman Productions.

Password originally aired for 1,555 telecasts from October 2, 1961 to September 15, 1967 on CBS and for 1099 additional shows from April 5, 1971 to June 27, 1975 on ABC Daytime. The show's regular announcers were Jack Clark and (later) Lee Vines on CBS, and John Harlan on ABC. The show later had two successful revivals on NBC in the 1970s and 80s.

Contents

[edit] How to Play

Two teams — each consisting of one celebrity player and one civilian contestant — competed. The password (the word to be conveyed) was given to one player on each team and was shown to the audience and to home viewers. Game play alternated between the two teams. On either team, the player who was given the password gave a one-word clue from which his/her partner attempted to guess the password. If the partner failed to guess the password in the allotted five-second time limit, or if an illegal clue was given (two or more words, a hyphenated word, or any part or form of the password), play passed to the opposing team.

The game continued until one of the teams guessed the password correctly or until ten clues had been given. Scoring was based on the number of clues given when the password was guessed, i.e. 10 points were awarded for guessing the password on the first clue, nine points on the second clue, eight points on the third clue, etc., down to one point on the tenth and final clue. On the ABC revival, the rules imposed a limit of six clues, with the last clue worth five points, in order to expedite the gameplay. In addition, teams were given the option of either playing or passing control of the first clue to the opposing team. Specifically, the team that was trailing in score, or who had lost the previous game was offered the option; when the score was tied, the team that failed to get the password was awarded the option.

The first team to reach 25 points won the game and a chance to win an additional $250 by playing the "Lightning Round", in which the civilian contestant on the prevailing team tried to guess five passwords within 60 seconds from clues given by his/her celebrity partner. $50 was awarded for each correctly-guessed password (increased to $100 from 1973 to 1974).

The Lightning Round was among the first bonus rounds on a television game (along with the phrase game on the original Beat the Clock). On the ABC version from 1971—1974, immediately after completing the Lightning Round, the player wagered any amount of his/her winnings on his/her celebrity partner's ability to guess a "Betting Word" within 15 seconds.

On each episode from 1961-1975, Ludden would caution the players about unacceptable clues by stating, "If you hear this sound (a buzzer would sound) it means your clue has not been accepted by our authority, (name of "word authority")." Word authorities on the CBS version included New York University professor David H. Greene and World Book Dictionary editor Dr. Reason A. Goodwin. Robert Stockwell and Carolyn Duncan served as word authorities during the ABC version.

[edit] Contestants

On the CBS daytime version, contestants played two matches, win or lose, with each game awarding $100 to the winner. During the first few weeks of the CBS nighttime version, the same two players stayed for the entire show, playing as many matches as time allowed. This practice was eventually changed to at least three pairs of contestants each playing one match with each losing contestant earning $50. Each nighttime game awarded its winner $250. In 1965, the show adopted an annual "Tournament of Champions" where contestants on the daytime version who won both their games were invited back to compete for more money.

On the ABC version, winning contestants could stay until either defeated or victory in a maximum of 10 games, thus retiring them as undefeated champions (ABC removed this limit later in the show's run). From 1973-1974, the first contestant to win a two-out-of-three match played the Lightning Round.

From November 18, 1974 to February 21, 1975, Password became Password All-Stars, where teams of celebrities played for charity in a tournament-style format. The tournament ended with the Grandmaster's Championship, which involved Richard Dawson, Bill Bixby, Hal Linden and Betty White. Dawson won the tournament and was awarded $25,000 for his favorite charity.

After the celebrity format modification proved unpopular with fans, Goodson-Todman made Password All-Stars simply Password again, but the show carried over elements of All-Stars, mainly in order to use the set that had been redesigned for the all-celebrity period. Among these were an elimination round in which four contestants (three new players and the winner from the previous game) competed with the help of the two celebrities in the first round. In the qualifying round, one of the two celebrities used a one-word clue to a password (with both celebrities alternating turns on giving clues), and the four contestants would ring in with the password. A correct response earned that contestant one point, with three points needed to qualify for the regular game. An incorrect response locks that player out of the word in play. The first two contestants to reach three points went on to play the regular Password game.

In the regular game, an addition to the rules was the "double" option, which the first clue giver could ask to increase the word value to 20 points by giving only one clue; if that word was missed, the other team could score the 20 points with a second clue. The first team to reach 50 points or more could win thousands of dollars in the Big Money Lightning Round, using a three-step structure in which the winning team attempted to guess three passwords within 30 seconds per structure. The contestant was paid as follows:

  • Part one: Each password paid $25. Guessing all three passwords in 30 seconds further netted $5 for each second left on the clock. Obviously, the round ended if the received proved unable to guess any of the three passwords, and the contestant returned to the elimination panel to compete for the right to play the main game again.
  • Part two: The money earned in part one would be multiplied by the number of passwords guessed in part two. Naming all three passwords this time added $10 for each second left. If the receiver failed to identify any of the passwords in part two, the round ended and the contestant still kept all part-one winnings.
  • Part three: Naming all three passwords in 30 seconds multiplied the contestant's part-two winnings tenfold (meaning if a player accumulated $500 after two parts, guessing all three passwords in this part would earn him/her $5000 in cash).

Password won the first-ever Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show in 1974.

The ABC Password was the first of the Goodson shows to be taped regularly on the West Coast. The original CBS version made annual trips to CBS Television City during the 1960s, including once when the CBS New York studios were fitted for color TV. Otherwise, it was most often taped in New York at CBS-TV Studio 52 (now Studio 54) and CBS-TV Studio 50 (the Ed Sullivan Theater). Password moved permanently to Hollywood, California at ABC Studio TV-10 "The Vine Street Theater" (on Vine Street in Hollywood) and the ABC Television Center on Prospect Avenue when ABC brought it back in 1971.

[edit] Scheduling History

[edit] CBS, 1961-67

Upon its premiere in 1961, Password had not only the prestige and reputation of Goodson-Todman and former GE College Bowl host Ludden, but also enjoyed fairly weak competition from ABC and NBC at its timeslot, 2 p.m. Eastern/1 Central, where it stayed for the entirety of its CBS run. For the first few years, the show was so successful that the other two networks ran mostly short-lived talk/variety shows and soap operas against it. Further, the program that followed it was another daytime television institution, Art Linkletter's House Party. These two shows, along with CBS' dominating soap line-up, made the network nearly an impregnable choice for daytime viewers.

However, CBS News' preemption of the show one day in July 1966 in order to cover a Pentagon press conference held by Robert McNamara, infuriated some viewers, many of whom changed channels to discover two relatively new shows: a meldromatic, emotionally-charged soap on NBC titled Days of Our Lives and a titillating, sometimes suggestive game on ABC from Chuck Barris titled The Newlywed Game. Both new shows especially attracted large numbers of young housewives, the favorite demographic group for daytime advertisers such as cleaning products, toys, and the like. This left Password with an increasingly older audience, and the predisposition of then-CBS daytime head Fred Silverman against the genre did not help things. Despite pleas by Mark Goodson to have the show's timeslot changed to 4 p.m., (where it would have faced his own Match Game on NBC and the eventual cult soap favorite Dark Shadows on ABC), Silverman decided to pull the plug at the end of the 1966-67 season. Succeeding Password at 2/1 was an in-house network soap, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, which ran until 1973.

Password did not entirely leave the public consciousness, however, as some color episodes (after circa 1965) went into syndicated reruns, a practice better known among cancelled situation comedies. Numerous local stations ran these until about 1970 or so, typically to fill a gap in their morning or late-afternoon schedules. Their success prompted Goodson-Todman to revive What's My Line in first-run five-day-per-week syndication, which, in turn, brought about several revivals of older formats during the 1970s.

[edit] ABC, 1971-75

The economic recession that greeted the turn of the new decade left the networks' daytime divisions saddled with a large number of costly serials, which had reached an all-time high number in 1970. With such saturation, ABC looked to unload one or more of their soaps, and they chose none other than Dark Shadows to begin the housecleaning, in spite of its devoted fan base. The problem was that the fans were overwhelmingly teenagers, who were not considered suitable targets for advertising at that time of day. ABC programmers took note of Password's surprising success in syndication and approached Goodson about reviving the show. Goodson, locked out of CBS due to continued unresponsiveness and crowded out of NBC due to strong games there, jumped at the offer and set up shop for the first time in southern California. The April 1971 premiere of Password at 4 p.m. Eastern/3 Central marked the first G-T game on the networks since NBC cancelled Match Game some eighteen months earlier, and the first G-T game to debut on ABC daytime schedule since the original Price Is Right crossed over from NBC in September 1963. Despite actual threats by some enraged Dark Shadows follwers to disrupt production of Password, the show went forward and instantly beat the NBC soap Somerset and reruns of Gomer Pyle, USMC on CBS.

Impressed by the ratings numbers, ABC believed the show would help bolster a sagging midday lineup. Thus, in September, Password moved to 12:30/11:30, swapping places with edited half-hour reruns of Love American Style. There, it held its own against CBS' venerable soap Search for Tomorrow and NBC's The Who, What or Where Game.

But, in March 1972, the network bought a fast-paced quiz from Stefan Hatos and Monty Hall titled Split Second, and shoved Password up a half-hour, where it remained until its cancellation. Unfortunately, this may not have been a good move, as NBC's Jeopardy had long dominated the 12 Noon/11 timeslot. Further, when CBS replaced its controversial soap Where the Heart Is with a new entry, The Young and the Restless, in March 1973, things got even worse, as the soap became an unexpectedly immediate hit. Even though NBC moved Jeopardy in favor of, ironically enough, the Bob Stewart-packaged Jackpot in January 1974, Password did not benefit, and ABC and G-T decided to perform radical surgery on the show with the "All-Stars" format.

This proved to be the show's undoing on ABC, due to viewers' aversion to games with no civilian contestants participating and the multi-layered game structure, which many believed bogged down the show's formerly brisk pace. By spring 1975, G-T abandoned this mistake and made a last-ditch attempt to salvage the show with a blending of both "All-Stars" and the original game structure. But the effort was futile, as viewers kept defecting, and ABC cancelled Password along with all but two of its daytime games by Independence Day. Ludden, wife Betty White, Goodson, and the production staff gave a gracious farewell on the finale. Another Goodson-Todman game, Showoffs, took its place on the schedule.

[edit] Revivals

Main article: Password Plus and Super Password

[edit] Password Plus

NBC brought Password back as Password Plus on January 8, 1979 with Allen Ludden returning as host. It was originally announced in Variety magazine as Password '79, in the manner that Match Game named its 1973 version with the year, but the name was changed when, during a run-through, Carol Burnett commented "this is more than Password, it's Password Plus."[citation needed]

[edit] Super Password

On September 24, 1984 NBC brought the format back as Super Password with Bert Convy hosting and Gene Wood announcing. Rich Jeffries was the announcer for the first ten weeks and filled in for Wood sporadically thereafter. Bob Hilton also filled in for one week in 1985 or 1986.

Super Password ran until March 24, 1989 and was cancelled on the same day as another NBC game show, Sale of the Century.

[edit] Celebrities

Among the more famous Password celebrity players over the years include Lucille Ball, Elizabeth Montgomery, Joan Crawford, Bill Bixby, Richard Dawson, Carol Burnett, Vicki Lawrence, Betty White and Nipsey Russell. Burnett played every Password version except for Super Password and was one of the first celebrity players on the nighttime premiere in 1962; the other was her mentor, Garry Moore on whose primetime-TV show she was also a regular. Also appearing at one time or another, were Arthur Godfrey, Jim Backus, Dick Van Dyke, the comedy team of Marty Allen and Steve Rossi, Betsy Palmer, Sammy Davis, Jr., Jerry Lewis, and on one memorable nighttime episode, Mr. & Mrs. James Stewart delighted viewers with their gameplay. Many stars of the New York theater scene also made appearances (usually on the daytime version), and included Darren McGavin, Carol Channing, Barry Nelson, and Dorothy Loudon.

Game show hosts Monty Hall, Tom Kennedy (who would eventually host Password Plus), Bill Cullen (who would sub for Allen Ludden on Password Plus) and Bert Convy (later the host of Super Password) were also invited to play as celebrities. Tom Kennedy's brother, Jack Narz, Gene Rayburn, Wink Martindale and Jim Perry were also Password Plus panelists. Pat Sajak played on both Password Plus and Super Password, although he was still a weatherman until late 1981 when he began hosting Wheel of Fortune. The NBC crew played a prank on Sajak during the Super version; instead of the usual word-display sound effect during one main game, the viewers heard the four-note signal that is used to introduced Wheel of Fortune main-game puzzles.

Password fixtures White, Cullen, Lawrence, Markie Post (a former Goodson-Todman staffer) Shelly Smith and Russell were also frequent panelists on Pyramid. Peter Lawford also did both shows, although he was considered much better at Password. Lawford set a long-standing record for playing the Lightning Round in the shortest time — 12 seconds on the CBS version. It would take nearly a decade and a switch to ABC before Elizabeth Montgomery finally broke the record with a 10-second Lightning Round.

[edit] Episode status

Many, but not all, of the CBS primetime episodes were preserved on videotape. The final year of the CBS daytime version was preserved on color videotape, as the producers chose to syndicate those reruns following the program's first cancellation. Most of the earlier daytime episodes are presumed lost; at least two daytime episodes are available on home video, each one as part of a general game show compilation package.

The ABC version is considered to be almost completely gone. Clips from an ABC episode featuring Brett Somers and Jack Klugman was featured on VH1's I Love the '70s: Volume 2 in 2006. GSN aired the complete Somers/Klugman episode on the morning of September 11, 2006, in the early morning hours as part of its weekly overnight classic game show programming. A second studio master, from 1972 and featuring Sheila MacRae and Martin Milner, is also known to have survived. Three more episodes survive on the videotape trading circuit, as recorded by home viewers: the Password All-Stars finale; a 1975 episode with Betty White and Vicki Lawrence; and the 1975 finale with Kate Jackson and Sam Melville. A few more episodes from the ABC version also exist at UCLA's film and television archive. It is believed that the videotapes that were used for the ABC version of Password were recycled and reused for the Dawson version of Family Feud a few years later.

Both NBC revivals of Password exist in their entirety.

[edit] Theme Songs

The theme song used on Password from 1961 to 1963 is called "Holiday Jaunt" by Kurt Rehfeld. That was followed the same year by a catchy swing theme composed by Bob Cobert, from 1963 to 1967, which was used until the CBS version's cancellation. (Viewers would often see emcee Ludden snapping his fingers to the Cobert swing tune as the closing credits flashed.) When Password returned on ABC in 1971, Score Productions provided a theme with a synth-heavy arrangement, similar to the cues heard on The Price Is Right. The theme used later in that version's run (beginning with Password All-Stars in 1974) was titled "Bicentennial Funk", and was used until the finale in 1975. A vamp version of "Bicentennial Funk" was once considered for use as a "think cue" on the game show Match Game, but it never made it. That theme, as well as the themes for Password Plus and Super Password, were also composed by Score Productions.

[edit] Versions outside the USA

[edit] Home versions

Although Password can be played without any equipment, commercial versions of the game have also been successful.
Although Password can be played without any equipment, commercial versions of the game have also been successful.

The Milton Bradley Company introduced the first home version of Password in 1962 and subsequently released 24 editions of the game until 1986. (Owing to common superstition, these releases were numbered 1-12 and 14-25, skipping 13.) It was tied with Concentration as the most prolific of Milton Bradley's home versions of popular game shows, and was produced well into the Super Password era of the television show. Milton Bradley also published three editions of a Password Plus home game between 1979 and 1981. More recently, Endless Games has released four versions of Password since 1997.

A computer version of Super Password was released by GameTek for MS-DOS systems, as well as the Apple II and Commodore 64, shortly before the show was canceled; a Nintendo Entertainment System version was also planned but never released. Tiger Electronics also released an electronic handheld "Super Password" game in the late 1990s--oddly, many years after the show had been cancelled.

[edit] Trivia

  • The practice of the announcer whispering the password to the home audience--as well as displaying it on screen--was devised by creator Bob Stewart for the benefit of his mother, who could speak but not read English. This was done on the first two versions of the show, but discontinued on Plus. However, probably to bring a nostalgic tone to the proceedings, Gene Wood began whispering again during the middle part of Super's run.
  • During the last few weeks before its cancellation in 1969, the set of the Goodson-Todman game Snap Judgment on NBC changed to resemble the look of the CBS Password. G-T did this to correspond to rule changes that in fact made Snap identical to Password.
  • Because neither original announcer Jack Clark nor Goodson-Todman chief announcer Johnny Olson had yet moved to California from New York (as they would do shortly after the 1971 Password premiere), another voiceover artist, John Harlan, best known at that point for his work on You Don't Say, won the job for the ABC version. Harlan is probably better known to the general public for the NBC Bob Hope specials and the several incarnations of Name That Tune between 1974 and 1985.
  • Until the introduction of All-Stars, the ABC version used the same mechanical clock for the main portion of the Lightning Round as on CBS, but switched to a digital (eggcrate) display for the "Betting Word". When All-Stars began, all clock numerical displays were converted to digital.

[edit] External links

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