There are words and phrases to avoid -- with some of them being 'iloveyou,' 'letmein' or 'abc123.' But here, too, if you apply the aforementioned methods for making a password more complex.

1. Password The Game Word List
2. Password Games Free

Password is an American television game show which was created by Bob Stewart for Goodson-Todman Productions. The host was Allen Ludden, who had previously been well known as the host of the G.E. College Bowl. In the game, two teams, each composed of a celebrity player and a contestant, attempt to convey mystery words to each other using only single-word clues, in order to win cash prizes.

Password originally aired for 1,555 daytime telecasts each weekday from October 2, 1961, to September 15, 1967, on CBS, along with weekly prime time airings from January 2, 1962, to September 9, 1965, and December 25, 1966, to May 22, 1967.^[1] 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: Password Plus from 1979 to 1982, and Super Password from 1984 to 1989, followed by a primetime version, Million Dollar Password, on CBS from 2008 to 2009.^[2] All of these versions introduced new variations in gameplay.

In 2013, TV Guide ranked it #8 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.^[3]

• 4Broadcast history
• 5Other versions
• 6Episode status
• 7International versions

Rules[edit]

Two teams, each consisting of one celebrity player and one 'civilian' contestant, competed. The word to be conveyed (the 'password') was given to one player on each team, and was shown onscreen to viewers as well as spoken softly on the audio track. Game play alternated between the two teams. On each team, the player who was given the password gave a one-word clue from which their 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, 'coined' words, 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. ten 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 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 that had lost the previous game, was offered the pass/play option; when the score was tied, the team that failed to get the previous password was awarded the pass/play option.

On the CBS daytime edition, the first team to reach 25 points won that contestant $100. On the nighttime edition, the winner won $250. The winning team earned a chance to win up to 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 scrambled phrase game on the original Beat the Clock). On the ABC version from 1971 to 1974, immediately after completing the Lightning Round the player was given a chance at 'the Betting Word,' in which they could wager any amount of their winnings on their celebrity partner's ability to guess it within 15 seconds. This increased the maximum bonus prize to $500 ($1,000 from 1973 to 1974 when the regular Lightning Round values were doubled).

On each episode from 1961 to 1975, Ludden would caution the players about unacceptable clues by stating, 'When 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 (that dictionary being still a work-in-progress at the time of the show's first airing, first appearing in print form in 1963). Robert Stockwell from UCLA and Carolyn Duncan served as word authorities during the ABC version.

Clark, Vines, and Harlan whispered the password to viewers on the first two versions of the show, but the practice was discontinued, beginning with Password All-Stars, when a computer (referred to as 'Murphy' on-camera by Allen Ludden) was incorporated. The computer would display the password one letter at a time (like a typewriter), followed by the quotation marks. A beeping sound would accompany each letter as it appeared on the screen. A final beep would signal that the password was revealed to the home viewer, and play would start. On Password Plus, a bell would ring when the password was revealed. On Super Password from September 24, 1984 to October 31, 1986, a chirping sound was heard when the password was revealed. However, Gene Wood began whispering the words on Super Password just like in the original, starting on November 3, 1986. The practice was again discontinued on Million Dollar Password.

Before the cancellation of the Goodson-Todman game show Snap Judgment on NBC in 1969, that program's set was changed in order to make it resemble the look of the CBS Password. Goodson-Todman did this to correspond to rule changes that, in fact, made Snap Judgment identical to Password.

Contestants[edit]

On the CBS daytime version, contestants played two matches, win or lose, with each game awarding $100 to the winner. For most of the CBS nighttime version's first year, the same two players stayed for the entire show, playing as many matches as time allowed. However, after three contestants managed to break the $1,000 mark, this practice was changed in November 1962 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 two shows in July 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.

Early on the ABC version, contestants played a single elimination game; the winning contestants could stay until either defeated or win a maximum of 10 games, thus retiring them as undefeated champions. Later on, the limit was dropped, and champions stayed on the show until defeated. From 1973 to 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, received a free trip to Macedonia and faced the previous year's champion in a best-of-seven match for $10,000. Lewis Retrum, from Boston, won the Tournament of Champions two years in a row and retired undefeated when the show went off the air.

Format changes[edit]

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 (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 viewers, 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. If no contestant identified the password after four clues, the word would be discarded. A correct response earned that contestant one point, with three points needed to qualify for the regular game. An incorrect response locked 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, in 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 step. 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. The round ended if the contestant was unable to guess at least one of the three passwords.
• Part Two: The money earned in part one would be multiplied by the number of passwords guessed here. Naming all three passwords this time added $10 for each second left. If the receiver failed to identify at least one of the passwords here, the round ended and the contestant still kept all part-one winnings; he or she then returned to the elimination panel to compete for the right to play the main game again.
• 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 $5,000).

Broadcast history[edit]

CBS: 1961–1967[edit]

With Goodson-Todman established as a reliable producer of high-rated games for CBS, including What's My Line?, To Tell the Truth, and I've Got a Secret, the network gave the new word association game the 2:00 PM (1:00 Central) time slot, replacing the 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 into a solid Nielsen favorite for nearly five years as shows came and went with great frequency on the other networks. A concurrent prime time version which debuted in January 1962 was also successful, albeit somewhat less than the daytime show. Both versions performed strongly in the ratings.

On July 11, 1966, CBS preempted Password in favor of CBS News' live coverage of a press conference held by Secretary of DefenseRobert McNamara on the progress of the Vietnam War. The other two networks went ahead with their regular schedules, as their news divisions had not been granted the power to make programming decisions. A new show beginning that day on ABC—The Newlywed Game—attracted some Password fans. NBC also benefited from the CBS programming decision, experiencing success with their recently launched soap operaDays of Our Lives.

Over the next year, Newlywed and Days achieved higher ratings than Password. CBS daytime head Fred Silverman, who was not a personal fan of the genre, cancelled Password in the spring of 1967. The cancellation occurred after squabbles over where the show would be taped (New York City or Hollywood). Silverman wanted the show permanently moved to CBS Television City, where it was moved for part of the 1966–1967 season to allow the show to tape in color, as CBS' New York studios had not made the full switch to colorization.

Password was most often taped in New York at CBS-TV Studio 52 (later converted to the Studio 54 discothèque) and CBS-TV Studio 50 (the Ed Sullivan Theater) until the end of the daytime run in 1967. The original CBS version made annual trips to CBS Television City during the 1960s, including once when the CBS New York studios were refurbished for color TV. During its run, Password was taped in all four of the studios at different times (31, 33, 41 and 43).^[4]

As Mark Goodson opposed a permanent move of the show to Hollywood, Silverman canceled the series on September 15, 1967.

ABC: 1971–1975[edit]

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 mid-morning or late-afternoon slots. This prompted ABC to contact Mark Goodson about reviving the game; this time around, Goodson agreed to have the show tape in Hollywood per ABC's wishes. Password (commonly called Password ABC to distinguish it from the CBS run)^{[according to whom?]} would become Goodson-Todman's first show to be staged in Los Angeles full-time rather than New York City. The company eventually moved almost all production to southern California during the 1970s. The show was taped at ABC Studio TV-10, 'The Vine Street Theater,' in Hollywood and the ABC Television Center.

The network slated Password to replace the cult soap Dark Shadows at 4:00 PM (3:00 Central) on April 5, 1971. Some of the more devoted Shadows fans threatened ABC with physical disruption of the first tapings of Password at the Hollywood studios. These plans never materialized and ABC went ahead, managing strong results against NBC's Somerset and reruns of Gomer Pyle, USMC on CBS.

ABC promoted the show to 12:30 PM (11:30 AM Central) 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, which had been on for two years. Password held up well there for six months until the network moved it up a half-hour to 12:00 PM (11:00 AM Central) on March 20, 1972 for the new Hatos-Hall game Split Second. Password came in a solid second to NBC's Jeopardy! and out-performed three-year-old CBS soap Where the Heart Is. CBS replaced Heart on March 26, 1973 with the youth-oriented The Young and the Restless, causing Password and Jeopardy! to hit ratings trouble that summer.

Even though NBC moved Jeopardy! on January 7, 1974 from 12:00 PM to 10:30 AM (9:30 Central) in favor of Jackpot!, the ABC Password was sliding into third place. In May, the show won the first-ever Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show. A large Emmy statue then became part of the set's backdrop until the overhaul in November.

Beginning on July 15, 1974, several gimmicks were tried to boost ratings.^[5] This included:

• Monty Hall guest-hosting for several weeks; from July 15 to the 26th he did two weeks with Ludden and Elizabeth Montgomery as the celebrities, while the third (September 23–27) was a 'Four-Celebrity Charity Week' with Ludden and his wife Betty White competing as a team against celebrities including Richard Dawson, Arlene Francis, Vicki Lawrence, and White's mother Tess.
• Several other celebrity-filled weeks for charity were also held from July 29 to August 2, September 16–20, and October 14–18.
• A week (September 2–6) in which Joyce Bulifant and Joseph Campanella played with their children ('Celebrities and Their Children Week'); this was followed by 'Celebrities and Their Wives Week' from September 9 to the 13th and a 'Celebrity Husbands & Wives Charity Week' from September 30 to October 4.
• Two weeks containing big winners from throughout the show's run aired from October 21 to November 1; this was followed from November 4 through the 8th by a week in which the show's producers and writers played the game for charity with George Peppard and Linda Kaye Henning.

On November 18 (after one final week of unknown content) the show ran an all-celebrity format called Password All-Stars. Although Goodson-Todman had success with celebrity-driven formats such as Match Game (which debuted in 1973) and Tattletales (which began earlier in the year) through the late 1970s, the lack of civilian contestants and significantly altered rules on Password drove more viewers away.

On February 24, 1975, Goodson-Todman abandoned the format (but changed the contestant configuration in order to avoid another set redesign) in a last-ditch effort to save the program. Although Password was given another eighteen weeks, ABC had all but given up on the show. Aside from a week in which Betty White hosted while her husband played (March 24–28), no more gimmicks were attempted for the rest of the run.

On June 27, 1975, four members of the show's staff played a 'mock game' which filled some time after the final Lightning Round.^[6] Mark Goodson then appeared to declare Ludden 'Mr. Password' and mentioned that numerous elementary schoolteachers in the U.S. used the various editions of the Milton Bradley-packaged home game as a tool to teach their pupils English. Ludden and White then gave an emotional farewell. Password was replaced with Showoffs, which lasted six months.

In 1978, Goodson-Todman tried again and successfully brought Password to NBC on January 8, 1979. Originally titled Password '79, celebrity guest Carol Burnett remarked during a run-through that with the various new elements the show had adopted, it was 'Password Plus'.

Other versions[edit]

Password Plus[edit]

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. The show ran until March 26, 1982.

Ludden hosted until 1980, when he was forced to step down due to a bout with stomach cancer. Initially, Ludden took a month off from taping to deal with his illness and Bill Cullen took time off from hosting Chain Reaction to step in for him. Eventually Ludden's cancer worsened and he left the series after October 24, 1980. He succumbed to the disease in 1981. The producers, reportedly at Ludden's request, hired Tom Kennedy to take over Password Plus, and he remained as host until the show was cancelled.

Super Password[edit]

On September 24, 1984 NBC brought the format back as Super Password with Bert Convy hosting. Rich Jeffries was the first announcer until November 23, 1984 and filled in for Wood sporadically thereafter. Bob Hilton also filled in on occasion on the show.

Super Password ran until March 24, 1989 and was canceled on the same day as another NBC game show, Sale of the Century. In some markets in the Eastern time zone, the show was preempted by local news due to its 12:00 PM time slot. NBC stations in the Central and Pacific time zones usually preempted Scrabble at 11:30 for local news and aired Super Password at 11:00.

Million Dollar Password[edit]

Password The Game Word List

CBS picked up a new version of the show entitled Million Dollar Password, hosted by Regis Philbin, which premiered on June 1, 2008 and ran for 12 episodes over two seasons.^[2] The series was taped in New York, and was the second million-dollar game show that Philbin has hosted (the first being the American network version Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?). The first season taped at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York City, and the second season was taped at the CBS Radford studios in Los Angeles.

Episode status[edit]

CBS[edit]

All of the CBS prime time episodes were preserved on videotape, and have aired on GSN and Buzzr. The final year of the CBS daytime version and the second prime time 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.

ABC[edit]

The ABC version is considered to be almost completely gone^{[according to whom?]}. Clips from the December 7, 1971 episode featuring Brett Somers and Jack Klugman were featured on VH1's I Love the '70s: Volume 2 in 2006. GSN aired the complete Somers/Klugman episode on September 11, 2006 in the early morning hours as part of its weekly overnight classic game-show programming (and aired it again in tribute following Somers' death).

A second studio master from February 14, 1972 with Sheila MacRae and Martin Milner is also known to have survived; the opening of that episode can be seen on YouTube. Three episodes from 1975 circulate amongst collectors, two as recorded by home viewers: the Password All-Stars Finale; a studio master of episode #15 of the big-money revamp (March 14, 1975) with Betty White and Vicki Lawrence; and the June 27, 1975 Finale with Kate Jackson and Sam Melville. An audio recording of an episode featuring Jack Klugman and Loretta Swit from 1975 is also known to have survived. A few more episodes from this run are held in UCLA's film and television archive.

It is believed that the videotapes that were used for the ABC Password were recycled and reused for the Dawson version of Family Feud, which began on July 12, 1976.

DVD release[edit]

On December 2, 2008, BCI Entertainment Company LLC (under license from FremantleMedia Enterprises) released a DVD box set 'The Best of PASSWORD, starring Allen Ludden: The CBS Years - 1962–1967'. The set predominately features the nighttime show, with most of the final disc containing daytime episodes from 1967; notably, despite their existence, neither the nighttime nor daytime finales are present. This 3-Disc set contains 30 episodes of PASSWORD (1961 daytime episodes and 1962-1967 primetime episodes), uncut and un-edited, and also digitally transferred, re-mastered and restored from the original B&W kinescopes and original 2-inch color videotapes.

Although Password began in 1961, the DVD set consistently states 'The CBS Years: 1962–1967'. This misleading title may be due to the earliest episode on the set being the nighttime premiere, which aired in early 1962. A rerelease by Mill Creek, which acquired the rights to the Fremantle game-show DVD sets following BCI's collapse, corrected this error.

An early mock-up of the packaging showed host Ludden on the later CBS set, with the original ABC logo on the front of the desk (as well as on the spine), while a slew of celebrities were listed on the bottom of the cover. Further, the press release stated that set would range 'from the early 1960s all the way up to the mid 1970s', indicating that ABC episodes would be included.^[7] A later update to the box art removed the celebrity list and clarified that the set would only cover the CBS era, although the ABC logo was still present (the front cover now had it in place of the CBS logo above Ludden).^[8] The ABC logo was omitted altogether when the DVD set was released, with the CBS logo behind Ludden in the original picture being enlarged.

International versions[edit]

Australia[edit]

The 1962–1966 Nine Network series Take the Hint may have been based at least partially on Password, judging by a description in a newspaper article announcing the series.^[9]

Brazil[edit]

An old version was called Passe A Palavra ('Spread The Word') hosted by Silvio Santos; another version is called MegaSenha, airs Saturdays on RedeTV!.

Japan[edit]

An all-celebrity group version, based on the original CBS format, called 連想ゲーム (Rensou Geemu) (Association Game) aired on NHK from 1968-1991 with one-off revival specials airing every few years since 2003.

New Zealand[edit]

A Maori-language version has aired since 2006.

Portugal[edit]

A version based on Super Password called Palavra Puxa Palavra ('Word Pulls Word') hosted by António Sala ran on RTP2 in 1990 before it moved to Canal 1 due to the success of the show.

United Kingdom[edit]

In popular culture[edit]

An episode of The Odd Couple featured both Oscar and Felix appearing on the show season 3, Episode 11 'Password'.
The game was parodied as a 'porn' version in the 1996 film The Cable Guy.
The game was parodied in Family Guy season 2, episode 20 'Wasted Talent'.
Comedy Central parodied the game as 'Buzzword' for a promo as part of their 'Stand-Up Month' in 2005.
The game is played a couple of times on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with celebrities playing.
The game was parodied as 'Secret Word' on Saturday Night Live.

Home games[edit]

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, but never did a version for Super Password.

More recently, Endless Games has released seven editions of Password since 1997, including a children's edition (with gameplay closer to the various incarnations of Pyramid) and a DVD edition featuring the voice of Todd Newton (notably, the latter uses the original ABC logo on its packaging). In addition, Endless released a home version of Million-Dollar Password in 2008.

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 series was canceled. A Nintendo Entertainment System version was also planned but never released. Tiger Electronics released an electronic hand-held 'Super Password' game in the late 1990s. More recently, Irwin Toys released a new hand-held electronic version featuring a touch screen with stylus to enter words.

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 four envelopes offered by the celebrities. Finding the 'Password' envelope advances the player to a new level with four more envelopes, worth more prize money.^[10]

See also[edit]

• Subconscious Password, a comedic 2013 3-D animated short inspired by the original Password.^[11]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abcdeSchwartz, David; Ryan, Steve; Wostbrock, Fred (1999). The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows (3 ed.). Facts on File, Inc. pp. 163–165. ISBN0-8160-3846-5.
2. ^ ^ab'Breaking News - CBS Unveils Its 2008 Summer Schedule - TheFutonCritic.com'. www.thefutoncritic.com.
3. ^Fretts, Bruce (June 17, 2013). 'Eyes on the Prize', TV Guide, pp. 14 and 15.
4. ^'Shows–CBS Television City'. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
5. ^'WEBSITE CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE - FreeServers'. abcpassword.tvheaven.com.
6. ^Only three words were played in the time allowed. All normal rules were in effect; however, no mention was made of what would happen had one team reached the 50-point goal.
7. ^'Password DVD news: Announcement for Password - The Best Of - TVShowsOnDVD.com'. www.tvshowsondvd.com. Archived from the original on 2008-10-21.
8. ^'Password DVD news: Box Art for Password - The Best Of - TVShowsOnDVD.com'. www.tvshowsondvd.com. Archived from the original on 2008-12-08.
9. ^'The Age - Google News Archive Search'. news.google.com.
10. ^https://web.archive.org/web/20071216015814/http://www.wms.com/game-detail.php?Category=00&Themes=337
11. ^Sarto, Dan (6 May 2013). 'Chris Landreth Talks Subconscious Password'. Animation World Network. Retrieved 4 July 2013.

External links[edit]

• Password on IMDb
• Password Plus on IMDb
• Super Password on IMDb
• Million Dollar Password on IMDb
• 'Official' website that created the Password video slot machine (via Internet Archive)^{[dead link]}

Password Plus and Super Password are American TV game shows that aired separately between 1979 and 1989. Both shows were revivals of Password, which originally ran from 1961 to 1975 in various incarnations. With only subtle differences between them, both Password Plus and Super Password followed the same general gameplay as their predecessor, whereby two teams of two people each – a celebrity and a contestant – attempted to guess a mystery word using only one-word clues.

Password Plus and Super Password aired on NBC, and were taped on Stage 3 at NBC Studios in Burbank, California. Password Plus was a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Production and Super Password was a Mark Goodson Production.

Password Plus aired from January 8, 1979, to March 26, 1982, for 801 episodes. The program also won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show in 1982. Super Password aired for 1,151 episodes from September 24, 1984, to March 24, 1989.

• 1Cast
• 2Gameplay

Cast[edit]

Hosts[edit]

Password Plus was hosted by Allen Ludden from its inception until April 1980, when he took a leave of absence after he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Bill Cullen filled in as host until Ludden returned in May.^[1] Ludden left the program again in late October due to further health problems and was replaced this time by Tom Kennedy. (Cullen had recently begun hosting Blockbusters, another Goodson-Todman production also airing on NBC.)^[1] Ludden would make no more television appearances before his death in 1981, and Kennedy stayed on to host the remainder of the series.

Bert Convy was the host for the entire run of Super Password.

Announcers[edit]

Gene Wood was the regular announcer on both Password Plus and Super Password. Johnny Olson, Bob Hilton, John Harlan, and Rich Jeffries substituted for Wood on different occasions on Password Plus.

Jeffries was the first announcer of Super Password and served as a regular announcer until November 23, 1984. After the first nine weeks, totaling 45 episodes, Wood replaced Jeffries as announcer on November 26, 1984. Jeffries and Hilton also filled in for Wood on occasion on Super Password. Wood whispered the passwords to home viewers from October 20, 1986, until the end of Super Password's run.

Gameplay[edit]

The rules for Password Plus and Super Password were almost identical. Two teams, each composed of a contestant and a celebrity, competed. The object, as on the original Password, was for the clue-giving partner to get the receiving partner to guess a given word (the 'password'). The giving partner on the first team offered a one-word clue, to which the receiving partner was allowed one guess; there were brief time limits for both the clue and the guess. Teams alternated giving one-word clues until the password was guessed, or until each side had given two clues (three in the early days of Password Plus until June 15, 1979). Giving an illegal clue (multiple or hyphenated words, using more than one word, using overly-expressive gestures or too much physical movement, forms of the password, made-up words, etc.) forfeited the receiver's turn to guess, as did having clue-giving time expire without giving a clue.

Like the ABC run of Password, the first clue-giver for each password on Password Plus had the option to give the first clue or pass to the other team. Originally, the team that did not get the previous password was given the option, but this changed on August 13, 1979. This option was eliminated on Super Password, with the team that got the previous password given first crack at the next one.

The rules regarding cluegiving were the same as on all previous versions of Password, with the exception of two instances exclusive to Password Plus. Beginning with the April 23, 1979 edition of Password Plus and continuing until the series went off air in 1982, two rules were put into place. The first disallowed any password's direct opposite as a legal clue (such as 'loose' for 'tight'). The second expanded a penalty already present in the game. When the series began, if the cluegiver being given the option to play or pass did not decide in time or failed to give a clue, the other team's cluegiver was allowed to give two clues to his/her partner. After the change, the two-clue penalty was extended to any time a cluegiver failed to give a clue in time.

Password Puzzle[edit]

The new element of the revivals was the 'Password Puzzle'. Each password, once revealed, became one of five clues to a puzzle referring to a person, place, or thing. The passwords themselves were not worth any money; only the puzzle affected the scores. A guesser who correctly guessed a password was given a guess at the answer to the puzzle. A password that was not guessed by either player was added to the board without a guess at the puzzle, and if it was the final password in the puzzle, the solution was revealed, the puzzle thrown out, and a new puzzle was played.

For the final password in a puzzle, if the guesser was incorrect, their partner was given a guess as well. On Password Plus, if both teammates did not guess correctly, the puzzle solution was revealed and a new puzzle was played. On Super Password, if one team failed to guess the puzzle after all five words were revealed, the opposing team's contestant and celebrity partner were each given a final chance to come up with the correct solution.

Correctly guessing the puzzle won the contestant money; any remaining passwords (if any) were revealed and new puzzles were played until one contestant had enough money to win the game. If the solution to the puzzle was inadvertently revealed in any way, the puzzle was thrown out.

Password Games Free

In 1981, the switch in celebrity partners that normally took place before the start of each game was moved to after the third puzzle. On Super Password, the contestants switched partners after the Cashword game which followed the $200 puzzle. However, on All-Star Specials, partners did not switch after the Cashword game.

Cashword[edit]

'Cashword' was an additional bonus on Super Password played by the winner of the second puzzle for an accumulating cash jackpot. The celebrity acted as clue-giver and was given a more difficult password. If the contestant teammate guessed the password within three clues, he or she won a jackpot which started at $1,000 and increased by that much each time it was not won; this did not affect the scores and only counted as bonus money. If at any time an illegal clue was given, the Cashword round immediately ended and the jackpot was forfeited.

Alphabetics/Super Password[edit]

The winning team played for a cash prize in the bonus round, called 'Alphabetics' on Password Plus and, initially, 'Super Password' on Super Password.

The gameplay of the round was the same on both shows. The round featured 10 passwords beginning with consecutive letters of the alphabet, and the celebrity was always the clue giver. He or she could see only the current password until the contestant either guessed it or passed. As in the main game, all clues had to be one word; the celebrity could use multiple words to form sentences, but had to pause distinctly after each word. For the period on Password Plus in which opposites were forbidden, this was enforced in Alphabetics as well. The contestant won $100 per guessed word, and the entire jackpot for guessing all 10 words in 60 seconds.

On Password Plus, the grand prize was originally a flat $5,000, but if an illegal clue resulted in a solved password, the jackpot value was reduced by 20% of the original total. Later, during the time Tom Kennedy hosted, the bonus round was played for an accumulating jackpot, which started at $5,000 and increased by that much each time it was not won. Illegal clues still reduced the pot by 20%, but this was later changed to a flat $2,500 reduction in late 1981. By the final week, the 20% reduction had returned.

Super Password's bonus round was also played for a jackpot. However, if an illegal clue was given, the word in play was thrown out and the contestant forfeited a chance at the jackpot, but still won $100 for each correct password. Also, NBC imposed no limit as to how high the pot could go.

Champions could return for a maximum of seven matches on Password Plus. On Super Password, champions could return for up to five matches.

Tournaments[edit]

Super Password held its only Tournament of Champions in 1985. In this tournament, the eight contestants with the highest amount of money up to that point competed. The front-game rules were identical to the regular season with no Cashword played throughout the tournament. The first-round matches consisted of only one game, with the winners playing Super Password for $2,500. The semi-final and final matches were best-of-three game matches. In the semi-finals, the first win by a player gave the contestant a chance at $2,500 in Super Password, and winning the match sent that player to the finals and gave the player a chance at $5,000 in Super Password. The winner of the tournament won $25,000 and a chance to double it in Super Password. The overall champion, Natalie Steele, earned a total of $106,000.

Both shows also held all-star weeks with various stars playing for charity. The bonus round was played for $5,000 to be split between the partners' respective charities. Super Password's Cashword was worth $1,000 throughout the entire week. When played on Password Plus, a $5,000 bonus was awarded to the player(s) with the highest total. When played on Super Password, a larger cash prize was awarded to the player(s) with the highest total.

In February 1986 and again in September 1986, Super Password also held a week-long 'Tournament of Losers', with Pat Klous & Dick Martin, and Constance McCashin & Dick Gautier. In it, players who had won nothing on their previous appearances returned to play in a week-long tournament. The Cashword was worth $1,000, and the bonus round was worth $5,000 all week long. Regardless of the outcome, all players in the Losers tournaments were guaranteed at least $100.

Controversy[edit]

In January 1988, a man later discovered to be a previously convicted felon with active warrants for his arrest appeared on Super Password.^[3] Kerry Ketchem, who competed on the program under the name 'Patrick Quinn', won a total of $58,600 in cash over four days on Super Password, which included a record-tying $55,000 jackpot win in the bonus round. However, his appearance on the show led to his apprehension on charges of fraud.

Ketchem's arrest came as the result of an investigation started when a bank manager in Anchorage, Alaska, called the United States Secret Service after having seen his episodes. He was discovered to have outstanding fraud warrants in Alaska and Indiana, and producer Robert Sherman was contacted by the Secret Service shortly thereafter. Around the same time, Ketchem—claiming that he would be leaving the country on work-related business—called Mark Goodson Productions and asked if he could collect his winnings in person instead of having a check mailed to him, which is the usual standard procedure. Sherman said yes, with the knowledge of the Secret Service, and gave him a date and time. When Ketchem showed up to the Goodson offices he was apprehended and taken into custody by local officials. The arrest came two days after his appearances finished airing.^[4] Booked on the outstanding Indiana warrant, Ketchem was found to have used his 'Patrick Quinn' alias (which came from the name of one of Ketchem's college professors) to commit credit card fraud in Alaska;^[4] to defraud a used car dealer; and to collect illegally on an insurance policy on the life of his ex-wife.^[5] Ketchem, who had previously spent eighteen months in prison on an unrelated felony charge, agreed to a plea deal in May 1988 on charges of mail fraud. He was sentenced to five years in prison^[3] and his winnings were rescinded as he was ruled to have violated contestant eligibility rules.^[6]

Merchandise[edit]

Three editions of the Password Plus board game were made by Milton Bradley in the early 1980s. Milton Bradley made an eight-track cartridge version of the game for its OMNI Entertainment System. In 1983, a version for the Atari 2600 and Intellivision was going to be made by The Great Game Company. However, both versions were scrapped later on due to the Video Game Crash at the time.

A Super Password video game was released for DOS, the Apple II, and the Commodore 64 by Gametek in 1988. A version for the NES was also planned around that time, but never surfaced. In 2000, a Super Password hand-held game was released.

Broadcast history[edit]

Password Plus was first shown at 12:30 pm, replacing America Alive. Two months after its debut, the series made its first move when it replaced the short-lived revival of Jeopardy! at noon. It moved back to 12:30pm on August 13, 1979 when the Goodson-Todman game Mindreaders premiered at noon. On June 20, 1980, three other NBC game shows were canceled to make room for David Letterman's morning talk show and in the shuffle that followed, Password Plus was moved on August 4 to 11:30 am when the daytime drama The Doctors moved from 2:00pm to 12:30pm, (this time facing the second half-hour of CBS's The Price Is Right and ABC's Family Feud) with Card Sharks taking the noon slot on June 23, 1980, replacing Chain Reaction. The series returned there in October 1981 upon the cancellation of Card Sharks and remained there for the remainder of its run. The final episode aired on March 26, 1982, and through a scheduling shuffle its place on NBC's schedule was replaced by Search for Tomorrow (which had moved to the network from CBS).

The program returned in 1984 as Super Password and aired in the 12:00-noon Eastern time slot, facing, for its first two weeks, the then 8-year-old Family Feud, then Ryan's Hope on ABC. Although several stations passed on it to air local news or syndicated programming, Super Password remained in that time slot for its entire ​4¹⁄₂-year run. Later in the decade, though, NBC affiliates began dropping most of the network's daytime game shows, along with Super Password, causing ratings to slide. The show's final episode aired on March 24, 1989, the same day Sale of the Century aired its series finale. Super Password was Bert Convy's last network game show (and final for Mark Goodson Productions) hosted before his death two years later; though he emceed a pilot for an ABC revival of Match Game in late 1989, he was too ill to host when it was picked up a year later. Convy later hosted Win, Lose or Draw and 3rd Degree for syndication before his death from brain cancer in 1991.

Episode status[edit]

Both shows exist in their entirety, and can currently be seen on Buzzr. Both shows were previously aired on GSN. However, certain episodes were not shown due to celebrity clearance issues that were out of GSN's control.

Beginning on July 2, 2018, Super Password started airing on GameTV in Canada.^[7] Only the first 65 shows have aired on there so far.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abcdefSchwartz, David; Ryan, Steve; Wostbrock, Fred (1999). The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows (3 ed.). Facts on File, Inc. pp. 165–166. ISBN978-0816030941.
2. ^ ^abcdSchwartz, Ryan, Wostbrock, p. 213
3. ^ ^abMurphy, Kim (5 September 1997). 'Game Show Winner Gets 5 Years for Insurance Scam'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
4. ^ ^ab''Super Password' Then Jeopardy Big Winner On Game Show Identified As Wanted Con Man'. Orlando Sentinel. United Press International. 16 January 1988. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
5. ^'Luck Runs Out for a Winner As TV Publicity Boomerangs'. The New York Times. 16 January 1988. Retrieved 2013-09-15.
6. ^'The luck of Kerry D. Ketchem ran out the day...'Orlando Sentinel. 3 February 1989. Retrieved 2013-09-15.
7. ^'Super Password schedule'. GameTV. Retrieved 2018-06-25.

External links[edit]

• Password Plus on IMDb
• Super Password on IMDb
• Password Plus at TV.com
• Super Password at TV.com