Password (TV series)
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| Password | |
|---|---|
 Password title logo, 1967 |
|
| Format | Game Show |
| Created by | Bob Stewart, Mark Goodson-Bill Todman |
| Starring | Allen Ludden |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 Minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS (1961-1967), ABC (1971-1975) |
| Original run | October 2, 1961 – June 27, 1975 |
Password is an American television game show. 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 daytime, along with two primetime runs from January 2, 1962 to September 9, 1965 and December 25, 1966 to May 22, 1967. An additional 1,099 daytime shows aired from April 5, 1971 to June 27, 1975 on ABC. The show's announcers were Jack Clark and Lee Vines on CBS, and John Harlan on ABC.
Two revivals later aired on NBC in the 1970s and 80s. A revival with a $1 million top prize and Regis Philbin as host began development for CBS in late 2007, and premiered on Sunday June 1, 2008 at 8 pm ET/PT, 7 pm CT/MT. [1]
Contents |
[edit] Rules
Two teams, each consisting of one celebrity player and one regular contestant, competed. The word to be conveyed (the "password") was given to one player on each team and was shown to the studio audience and home viewers. Game play alternated between the two teams. On each 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 within 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 players 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, e.g. 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. If the clue-giver said the password, the points were awarded to the opposing team. On the ABC version a limit of six clues was imposed to expedite game play, with the last clue worth five points. 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 pass/play option; when the score was tied, the team that failed to get the password was awarded the pass/play option.
The first team to reach 25 points won the game and a chance to win up to $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 to 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 Encyclopedia Dictionary editor Dr. Reason A. Goodwin. Robert Stockwell and Carolyn Duncan served as word authorities during the ABC version.
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. Clark, Vines, and Harlan did this on the first two versions of the show, but the practice was discontinued during the final months of the ABC run. However, probably to bring a nostalgic tone to the proceedings, Gene Wood (himself a one-time announcer on the original show's run) began whispering the words on Super Password starting in late 1986.
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 Judgment identical to Password.
[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 months of the CBS nighttime version, the same two players stayed for the entire show, playing as many matches as time allowed. However, after one contestant won $1,200 on an August 1962 episode (which made CBS nervous in those early post-quiz show scandal days), this practice was soon changed to having two new contestants play each game (generally, three pairs of contestants competed in the course of each show), with winning contestants receiving $250 and losers receiving $50. For only two shows in 1965, the nighttime version experimented with a "championship match" format, in which the winners of games 1 and 2 would return to compete against each other in the final game. Also 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 win 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.
Every three months, the four top winners during that period would return for a quarterly contest. The winner would earn $1,000 and the right to compete in the annual Tournament of Champions. The winner of the annual contest won $5,000 and faced the previous year's champion in a best-of-seven match for $10,000.
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. At the end of each week, the highest scorer would win $5,000 and advance to the Grandmasters' Championship, which would award the winner another $25,000. The first tournament's finalists were Dick Gautier, James Shigeta, Peter Bonerz, and Don Galloway, with Shigeta winning the championship; the second tournament's finalists were Richard Dawson, Bill Bixby, Hal Linden and Betty White, with Dawson winning the championship (ironically, Dawson had almost made it to the first tournament finals, but Gautier beat him out during their preliminary week by just one point!).
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 (two new players and the two players 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 $5,000).
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 (later converted to the Studio 54 discotheque) and CBS-TV Studio 50 (the Ed Sullivan Theater) until the end of the daytime run in 1967. Password moved permanently to Hollywood, California at ABC Studio TV-10 "The Vine Street Theater" in Hollywood and the ABC Television Center on Prospect Avenue when ABC brought it back in 1971. The CBS revival in 2008 moves the show back to New York at Kaufman Astoria Studios.
As part of the farewell on the ABC version, Mark Goodson mentioned that numerous elementary schoolteachers in the U.S. used the numerous editions of the Milton Bradley-packaged home game as a tool to teach their pupils English.
[edit] Revivals
[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 (Ludden had died in 1981) 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. In some markets in the Eastern time zone, the show was pre-empted by local news due to its Noon timeslot. NBC stations in the Central and Pacific time zones usually pre-empted Scrabble at 11:30 for local news and aired Super Password at 11:00.
[edit] Million Dollar Password
CBS picked up a new version of the show entitled Million Dollar Password, hosted by Regis Philbin which premiered Sunday June 1, 2008 at 8 pm ET/PT, 7 pm CT/MT.[2] The series is taped in in New York, and the initial order consists of six, hour-long episodes. This is the second million-dollar game show that Philbin has hosted (the first was the American prime time version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire)
[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 a regular. White has played on all versions of the game with all five hosts. 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, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Anthony Perkins, E.G. Marshall, Sammy Davis, Jr., Jerry Lewis, and on one memorable nighttime episode, Mr. & Mrs. James Stewart delighted viewers with their gameplay. Many stars of the Broadway stage also made appearances (usually on the daytime version) including Darren McGavin, Carol Channing, Barry Nelson, and Dorothy Loudon. On the premiere of Million Dollar Password Neil Patrick Harris and Rachel Ray were the celebrities. Set to appear in the first season are Rosie O'Donnell, Tony Hawk, Monique Coleman, Betty White and Susie Essman.
Game show hosts Monty Hall, Tom Kennedy (who would eventually host Password Plus), Bill Cullen (who would substitute for Ludden on Password Plus), Bert Convy (later the host of Super Password), and Regis Philbin (later the host of Million Dollar Password) were also invited to play as celebrities. Tom Kennedy's brother, Jack Narz, Gene Rayburn, Wink Martindale, Jim Perry and Peter Marshall were also Password Plus panelists. Pat Sajak played on both Password Plus and Super Password. Peter Lawford set a long-standing record on the CBS version for winning the Lightning Round in the shortest time — 12 seconds. It would take nearly a decade before Elizabeth Montgomery finally broke the record on ABC with a 10-second Lightning Round.
[edit] Episode status
All of the CBS primetime episodes were preserved on videotape. The final year of the CBS daytime version and the second primetime version were 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. That episode was rebroadcast following the death of Brett Somers, as a tribute. Klugman also appeared on the ABC version of Password with Tony Randall in an episode of The Odd Couple. A second studio master, from 1972 and featuring Sheila MacRae and Martin Milner, is also known to have survived; an excerpt of that show can be seen on YouTube. 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 exist in their entirety and continue to air on GSN.
[edit] Theme Music
The theme song used on Password from 1961 to 1963 is called "Holiday Jaunt" by Kurt Rehfeld. That was followed by a catchy swing theme composed by Bob Cobert which was used from 1963 until the CBS version's cancellation in 1967. Viewers would often see emcee Ludden snapping his fingers to the swing tune as the closing credits were shown, and at one point celebrity guest Bob Crane suggested recording a vocal version of that theme!
When Password returned on ABC in 1971, Score Productions provided a theme with a synth arrangement (similar to the cues later 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. That theme, as well as the themes for Password Plus and Super Password, were also composed by Score Productions.
[edit] Scheduling/Ratings
[edit] CBS, 1961-67
With Goodson-Todman established as a reliable packager of favorites for CBS like What's My Line?, To Tell the Truth, and I've Got a Secret, the network confidently gave the new word-association game the 2 p.m./1 Central timeslot, replacing a courtroom-themed game, Face the Facts. As television's first successful celebrity-civilian team game, Password attracted a large and loyal audience that made it the solid Nielsen favorite at that slot for nearly five years, as shows came and went with great frequency on the other networks. The concurrent prime-time versions were also successful, albeit more moderately so than in the daytime.
On July 11, 1966, though, CBS preempted Password in favor of live coverage of a press conference held by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on the progress of the Vietnam War. Because the other two networks did not grant their news divisions anywhere near the power that CBS did in making programming decisions, they went ahead with their regular schedules, instead of the press conference. A new show began that very day on ABC, The Newlywed Game, and some frustrated Password fans began defecting immediately. NBC, meanwhile, experienced success with a recently-launched soap opera, Days of Our Lives. Over the next year, Newlywed and Days wore down Password, and by summer 1967, CBS daytime head Fred Silverman, not a personal fan of the genre, had seen enough and decided to cancel Password in favor of a CBS-produced soap, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, which had a five-and-a-half-year run.
[edit] ABC, 1971-75
In the meantime, though, Goodson-Todman sold reruns of the CBS version to local stations via syndication in the late 1960s, and in some markets, they performed quite well in late-afternoon slots. This prompted ABC to contact Mark Goodson about reviving the game. Password would become G-T's first show to record in Hollywood rather than New York City; eventually the company moved almost all production to southern California during the 1970s.
The network and packager faced an unusual and potentially disturbing obstacle, however. The network slated Password to replace the cult soap Dark Shadows at 4 p.m./3 Central on April 5, 1971. Some of the more devoted fans of DS threatened ABC with physical disruption of the first tapings of Password at the Hollywood studios. However, these plans apparently never materialized, and ABC went ahead, managing strong results against NBC's Somerset and reruns of Gomer Pyle, USMC on CBS. Pleased with its performance, ABC promoted the show to 12:30 p.m./11:30 a.m. on September 6, where it faced stronger challenges in the form of CBS' long-running Search for Tomorrow and NBC's The Who, What, or Where Game. Nonetheless, Password held up well there for six months, until the network moved it up a half-hour to Noon/11 to make way for the new game Split Second.
At Noon/11, Password came in a solid second to NBC's Jeopardy!, but easily defeated the CBS soap Where the Heart Is. However, CBS would launch the youth-oriented Young and the Restless to replace WtHI, and Password and Jeopardy! both hit ratings trouble beginning in summer 1973, in large measure due to the college- and high-school-aged viewers of the games being lured away by the serial. Even though NBC moved Jeopardy! in January 1974 from Noon/11 in favor of Jackpot!, the ABC Password was sliding into third place. One failed gimmick to boost ratings involved Betty White substituting for her husband in the host's chair while he played as a celebrity.
So, by the fall, the show decided to take a risk on an all-celebrity format. Although G-T would have success with celebrity-driven formats such as Match Game and Tattletales during the 1970s, the lack of civilian contestants and significantly altered rules of the game drove even more viewers away. G-T abandoned the "All-Stars" format in February 1975 (but changing the contestant configuration in order to avoid another set re-design) in a last-ditch effort, but it was too late, and ABC dropped the show in the summer. Host Ludden gave an emotional farewell on the June 27 finale with Mark Goodson declaring him "Mr. Password." All was not lost for G-T, however, as it got the chance to replace Password with a new game, the ill-fated Showoffs, which lasted six months.
[edit] Versions outside the USA
- In Turkey, a Mehmet Aslantuğ version called Parola is aired weekdays a week on Kanal 6.
- In the United Kingdom, versions of Password were produced by the BBC in the 1970s, and by Thames Television for Channel 4 which was hosted by Tom O'Connor and UTV for ITV in the 1980s which was hosted by Gordon Burns.
- In New Zealand, a Maori language version has aired since 2006.
[edit] Other versions
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, including a DVD edition featuring the voice of Todd Newton.
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.
As with several other Goodson/Todman game shows, Password has been adapted into a slot machine by WMS Gaming. A simulated Allen Ludden emcees the proceedings, with the voices and caricatures of Rose Marie, Dawn Wells, Adam West and Marty Allen. One bonus round offers the player free spins; the other involves choosing from 4 envelopes offered by the celebrities. Finding the "Password" envelope advances the player to a new level with 4 more envelopes, worth more prize money.[1]
[edit] Sitcom spoofs
- The show was featured in a 1972 episode of The Odd Couple, where Felix (Tony Randall) and Oscar (Jack Klugman) were playing as a team, with Oscar's "celebrity" status referring to his sports writing, and also featured Allen Ludden and Betty White. The high point in the episode was when, for a password of "birds," Felix gave the clue "Aristophanes", which utterly mystified Oscar by replying, "Greek". (A. wrote the play "The Birds".) During the commercial break, Oscar tells Felix no more Greek clues, Airstophanes is ridiculous. When the game was back in play, the next password was "ridiculous". Oscar gave the clue "Aristophanes" an a mad tone & Felix responded "ridiculous"!
- Password was also spoofed in a 2000 episode of Family Guy. Peter is playing the game with Tony Randall, and tries to convey to him the password "flaming," saying repeatedly, "You...you...." Randall guesses incorrectly twice, with "actor" and "Tony."
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Password at the Internet Movie Database
- Password Plus at the Internet Movie Database
- Super Password at the Internet Movie Database
- GSF, Go Inside the Game, ultimate Super Password Facts Page[dead link]
- Curt Alliaume's Game Shows '75: Password
- CBS Daytime and Nighttime Password Guide
- The ABC Password Page
- password-plus.com
- Funny Password clues and answers
- The Password Home Game Home Page
- New York Password run-through info[dead link]
| Preceded by First winner |
Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show 1974 |
Succeeded by Hollywood Squares |
| Preceded by Face the Facts |
2:00 p.m. EST, CBS 10/2/61 – 9/15/67 |
Succeeded by Love Is a Many Splendored Thing |
| Preceded by Dark Shadows |
4:00 p.m. EST, ABC 4/5/71 – 8/27/71 |
Succeeded by Love, American Style |
| Preceded by Love, American Style |
12:30 p.m. EST, ABC 8/30/71 – 3/17/72 |
Succeeded by Split Second |
| Preceded by That Girl |
12:00 p.m. EST, ABC 3/20/72 – 6/27/75 |
Succeeded by Showoffs |
