Password (American game show)

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 Defense Robert 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 opera Days 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.

The show was featured in a 1973 episode of The Odd Couple series, in which Oscar and Felix were contestants

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 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, 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. Celebrity guest Carol Burnett remarked during a run-through that with the various new elements the show had adopted, it was "Password Plus". The name stuck and became the title of the revival. Password Plus 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.

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.

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.

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.

The ABC version is considered to be almost completely gone. 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, with the complete episode being uploaded in May 2020.[7] Four 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; a kinescope of episode #24 of the revamp (March 27, 1975); 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.

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.[8] 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).[9] The ABC logo was omitted altogether when the DVD set was released, with the CBS logo behind Ludden in the original picture being enlarged.

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.[10]

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

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 to 1991 with one-off revival specials airing every few years since 2003.

A Maori-language version has aired since 2006.

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.