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(Redirected from Password (game show))
'''Password''' was an 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 1,099 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.
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 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—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.
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 $1200 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 $1000 and the right to compete in the annual Tournament of Champions. The winner of the annual contest won $5000 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 second tournament involved Richard Dawson, Bill Bixby, Hal Linden and Betty White, with Dawson earning the championship title.
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 $5000).
''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.
Main articles: Password Plus and Super Password
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."
On September 24, 1984 NBC brought the format back as ''Super Password'' with Bert Convy hosting (Allen 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.''
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 Broadway stage 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''.
''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.
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 '' 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. 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. 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.
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, and at one point, celebrity guest Bob Crane considered recording a vocal version of this theme!) 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.
★ In New Zealand, a Māori language version called ''Kupuhuna'' is aired 3 nights a week on Māori Television.
★ 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.
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]
★ 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 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'' 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.
★ 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.
★ According to buzzerblog.com, FremantleMedia is reportedly looking for several New York-based people to do a run-through for a possible revival of ''Password''.
★ The Password game show was featured in an episode of ''The Odd Couple'', where Felix (Tony Randall) and Oscar (Jack Klugman) were playing as a team, and also featuring Allen Ludden and Betty White.
★ Password was spoofed in an 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."
★
★
★
★ GSF, Go Inside the Game, ultimate Super Password Facts Page
★ 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
'''Password''' was an 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 1,099 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 |
| Rules |
| Contestants |
| Revivals |
| ''Password Plus'' |
| ''Super Password'' |
| Celebrities |
| Episode status |
| Theme Songs |
| Versions outside the USA |
| Other versions |
| Trivia |
| External links |
Rules
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.
A game in progress in 1975.
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 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 Big Money Lightning Round from 1975.
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.
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 $1200 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 $1000 and the right to compete in the annual Tournament of Champions. The winner of the annual contest won $5000 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 second tournament involved Richard Dawson, Bill Bixby, Hal Linden and Betty White, with Dawson earning the championship title.
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 $5000).
''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.
Revivals
Main articles: Password Plus and Super Password
''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."
''Super Password''
On September 24, 1984 NBC brought the format back as ''Super Password'' with Bert Convy hosting (Allen 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.''
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 Broadway stage 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''.
''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.
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 '' 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. 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. 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.
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, and at one point, celebrity guest Bob Crane considered recording a vocal version of this theme!) 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.
Versions outside the USA
★ In New Zealand, a Māori language version called ''Kupuhuna'' is aired 3 nights a week on Māori Television.
★ 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.
Other versions
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, 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]
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. 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 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'' 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.
★ 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.
★ According to buzzerblog.com, FremantleMedia is reportedly looking for several New York-based people to do a run-through for a possible revival of ''Password''.
★ The Password game show was featured in an episode of ''The Odd Couple'', where Felix (Tony Randall) and Oscar (Jack Klugman) were playing as a team, and also featuring Allen Ludden and Betty White.
★ Password was spoofed in an 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."
External links
★
★
★
★ GSF, Go Inside the Game, ultimate Super Password Facts Page
★ 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
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