Password Plus and Super Password

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).

The following infractions by the clue-giver forfeited the receiver's chance to guess the password:

• Giving more than one word, or a hyphenated word.
• Giving a word that was not dictionary-valid, as determined by a panel of off-stage judges.
• Taking too much time to give a clue.
• Excessive gestures or physical movement.
• Saying the password or any form of it.

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. Beginning with the April 23, 1979 episode and continuing until the series' end 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 clue-giver being given the option to play or pass did not decide in time or failed to give a clue, the other team's clue-giver was allowed to give two clues to his/her partner. After the change, the two-clue penalty was extended to any time a clue-giver failed to give a clue in time. In all cases, the two clues had to be given separately, with one guess at the password after each.

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.[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 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.

Password Plus was first shown at 12:30 p.m., filling part of the time left when the talk/variety program America Alive! was cancelled. Two months after its debut, the series made its first time slot move to noon, when short-lived The All-New Jeopardy! was dropped. It moved back to 12:30 p.m. 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, 1980 to 11:30 a.m. when the daytime drama The Doctors moved from 2:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. (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 to 12:30 p.m. 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 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. Although several stations passed on it to air local news or syndicated programming, Super Password remained in that time slot for its entire 4½-year run. Later in the decade, NBC affiliates began dropping most of the network's daytime game shows, along with Super Password. The increasing amount of stations carrying local newscasts at noon during this time caused the program to experience a decline in its viewership. The show's final episode aired on March 24, 1989, the same day Sale of the Century aired its series finale and a little more than two months after Ryan's Hope ended. 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.

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, GameTV in Canada began airing the first 65 episodes of Super Password.[6]

In 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 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.[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.[10]

• Password
• Million Dollar Password

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