Password Plus and Super Password
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 retained the format of play as their predecessor, with two teams of two people each—a celebrity and a contestant—attempting to guess a mystery word using only one-word clues. New features included a series of five passwords as clues to an overarching puzzle for the teams to solve, as well as a bonus round requiring the winning team to guess ten passwords under a time limit to win a cash jackpot. 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.[3] Super Password aired for 1,151 episodes from September 24, 1984, to March 24, 1989. CastHostsPassword Plus was hosted by original Password host Allen Ludden from its debut until April 1980, when he took a leave of absence after being diagnosed with stomach cancer. Bill Cullen, who at the time was hosting the show that preceded Password Plus on NBC, Chain Reaction, filled in until Ludden returned a month later.[1] Ludden left the program again in late October 1980 due to further health problems and was replaced by Tom Kennedy. (By this time, Cullen was hosting Blockbusters, another Goodson-Todman production also airing on NBC.)[1] Ludden made no further television appearances before his death on June 9, 1981, and Kennedy hosted the remainder of the series. Bert Convy was the host for the entire run of Super Password. AnnouncersGene 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 announcer for the first nine weeks of Super Password; he was replaced by Wood on November 26, 1984. Jeffries and Hilton occasionally substituted for Wood. GameplayMain gameThe 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). The following infractions by the clue-giver forfeited the receiver's chance to guess the password:
Capitalized words, proper names, and foreign words were allowed, as were vocal inflections intended to lead the receiver to the password. A clue-giver was allowed to repeat a previous clue or guess from either team. As on the ABC run of Password, the team with initial control of a 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. Super Password eliminated the option entirely, requiring the team that guessed a password to give the first clue on the next one. The rules regarding clue-giving were the same as on all previous versions of Password, with the exception of two instances exclusive to Password Plus. Effective April 23, 1979, Password Plus enforced two new rules: one, direct opposites (antonyms) were no longer allowed as clues (ex: "loose" for "tight", "hot" for "cold", "weak" for "strong", etc.); and two, anytime a clue-giver on either team failed to give a clue in time, the opposing team's clue-giver was allowed to give two clues to his/her partner (this change expanded on the original penalty in which if the clue-giver with the option to pass or play did not decide in time or decided to play and failed to give a clue in time, the opposing team's clue-giver was allowed to give two clues to his/her partner). In either case, both clues had to be given separately, with one guess allowed after each clue. Super Password did not enforce either of these rules. Password PuzzleThe 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. Correctly guessing a password allowed that team member one chance to solve the puzzle. If a password was not guessed by either player, it was added to the board without a guess at the puzzle. If that occurred on the final password, or if the solution to the puzzle was inadvertently revealed in any way, the puzzle was discarded and a new one was played in its place. If a clue-giver said the password or any form of it (including the final password), or if his/her partner guessed it based on any infraction by the clue-giver, it was added to the board and the guesser on the opposing team was given a chance to solve the puzzle as a penalty. For the final password in a puzzle, if the guesser was incorrect, his or her partner was given a free chance to solve the puzzle. On Password Plus, if both teammates failed to solve the puzzle, the puzzle's solution was revealed and a new one was played in its place. On Super Password, if both members of a team failed to solve a puzzle after guessing the final password, then their opponents were each given a chance to solve it. A correct guess by either team won money for its contestant partner, and any remaining passwords were revealed. Additional puzzles were played until one contestant reached the designated goal to win the game.
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 segment; however, on all-star specials, partners did not switch after the Cashword was played. CashwordWhichever team solved the $200 puzzle on Super Password got to play a bonus segment called "Cashword" (stylized as "Ca$hword"). The Cashword in question was a significantly more difficult password that the celebrity partner had to describe to his/her contestant partner in three one-word clues (with five seconds allowed per clue), and if the contestant guessed the Cashword in three clues or less, he/she won a progressive cash jackpot that started at $1,000 and increased by that much each time it was not won (the highest Cashword ever won was $12,000), and it was theirs to keep whether they won the game or not (it did not affect their score). However, if the celebrity partner gave an illegal clue at any time, the Cashword segment ended immediately. Alphabetics/Super PasswordThe winning team played for a cash prize in the bonus round, called "Alphabetics" on Password Plus and "Super Password" on Super Password. The bonus round was played the same way on both shows. The celebrity partner on the winning team had 60 seconds to describe 10 passwords to his/her contestant partner by using one-word clues as in the main game. These passwords were arranged in alphabetical order (ex: A-J, B-K, C-L, etc.), and the celebrity could see only the current password until he/she passed on it or until their contestant partner correctly guessed it, whichever happened first. The celebrity could also use multiple words to form a sentence but had to pause distinctly after each one. When the "no opposites" rule was enforced on Password Plus, it applied to both the main game and Alphabetics. The contestant partner earned $100 for every word he/she got right, and a cash prize for guessing all 10 passwords before time expired. On Password Plus, Alphabetics' original grand prize was $5,000 from the series premiere until October 1981, and $1,000 was deducted for each illegal clue given (this penalty was briefly increased to $2,500 in late 1981). From November 1981 until the series finale, Alphabetics' grand prize was changed to a progressive cash jackpot that started at $5,000 and increased by that much each time Alphabetics was not won, with a cap limit of $50,000 (the highest jackpot ever won in Alphabetics was $35,000); and the jackpot was now reduced by 20% for each illegal clue (ex: if an Alphabetics round was played for a $20,000 jackpot, then $4,000 was deducted from the jackpot for each illegal clue). On Super Password, the Super Password round was also played for the same progressive cash jackpot, but unlike Password Plus's Alphabetics, the Super Password round's jackpot did not have a cap limit (the highest jackpot ever won in the Super Password round was $55,000). However, if a celebrity gave an illegal clue at any time, the password in play was discarded and the jackpot was forfeited, but his/her contestant partner still earned $100 for each word he/she got right. If an illegal clue was given on any password except the last one and there was still time left on the clock, then the Super Password round continued until the remaining passwords were correctly guessed or until time expired, whichever happened first, but if an illegal clue was given on the last password in play, then the Super Password round ended immediately, regardless of how much time was left on the clock. Contestants were allowed to keep playing until they were defeated or until they won seven games in a row on Password Plus, or five games on Super Password, whichever happened first on either series. MerchandiseThree 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.[4][5] 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 MS-DOS, Apple II, and 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 by Tiger Electronics was released. Program informationBroadcast historyPassword PlusPassword Plus was first shown at 12:30 pm ET/11:30 am CT and PT, filling part of the time left when the talk/variety program America Alive! was cancelled. On March 5, 1979, two months after its debut, the series made its first time slot move to Noon/11:00 am following the cancellation of NBC’s revival of Jeopardy!. It moved back to 12:30/11:30 on August 13, 1979 when the Goodson-Todman game Mindreaders premiered at Noon/11:00. 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, 1980 to 11:30/10:30 when the daytime drama The Doctors moved from 2:00/1:00 to 12:30/11:30 (this time facing the second half-hours of CBS' The Price Is Right and reruns of The Love Boat on ABC), with Card Sharks taking the Noon/11:00 slot on June 23, 1980, replacing Chain Reaction. The series returned to Noon/11:00 on October 26, 1981 upon the cancellation of Card Sharks, and remained there for the rest 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). Super PasswordThe program returned in September 1984 as Super Password and aired in the noon Eastern time slot, facing, for its first two weeks, the then 8-year-old Family Feud, then Ryan's Hope on ABC. Despite some of NBC's affiliates preempting the 12:00 pm hour in favor of local newscasts or other syndicated programming, as it was also the case with Password Plus, Super Password remained in the top-of-the-hour time slot for its entire 4½-year run. Later in the decade, however, NBC affiliates began dropping most of the network's entire daytime programming, along with Super Password; the increasing number of stations carrying local newscasts at noon during that time caused the program to experience a decline in viewership. The show's final episode aired on March 24, 1989, the same day Sale of the Century aired its series finale.[a] Episode status and rerunsBoth 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, GameTV in Canada began airing the first 65 episodes of Super Password.[6] Kerry KetchemIn January 1988, a man later discovered to be a previously convicted felon with active warrants for his arrest appeared on Super Password.[7] 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 was 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 ran down eleven flights of stairs and was apprehended and taken into custody by local officials after being found in the restroom. The arrest came two days after his appearances finished airing.[8] 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;[8] to defraud a used car dealer; and to collect illegally on an insurance policy on the life of his ex-wife.[9] Ketchem, who had previously spent 18 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[7] and his winnings were rescinded as he was ruled to have violated contestant eligibility rules by using a false name.[10] International versions
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