Super Password Question

[JonSea31]

I have a question to ask, regarding the Super Password end game.  I'd like to know, what letter in the Super Password round yielded the most illegal clues?  I know illegal clues in the end game were not very common, but they did happen.

After viewing one of the Christmas 1987 All-Star Specials recently, I am starting to sense that the letter "D" may have yielded the most illegal clues, with four I know of thus far.  I do know one episode, the one with the $100 end game win, a female celebrity gave "high school" for "diploma", and I think there were two occurrences where "deaf" was a password, and on both those occurrences (including an early 1987 episode that I recorded in 2014), male celebrities gave away the password.  On one of the Christmas week 1987 episodes, for the word "dream", a contestant gave "rapid" then paused briefly, then said "eye movement" together, resulting in an illegal clue.

[Sodboy13]

F.

[Thunder]

I more than chuckled at that, sir.

[TLEberle]

Thing one: you don't have to tell us that you have a question to ask, you can just ask us the question.

Thing two: I cannot imagine why there would be any correlation to which letters "caused" more illegal clues in Alphabetics instead of it being a purely random distribution. I'm not saying that it was out of the realm of possibility, but it escapes me for the nonce.

[Kevin Prather]

Unless you go through the whole damn dictionary and pick out every word that's likely to trap a player, I can't imagine coming close to an answer.

Even more so since weren't common roots allowed on Super Password? "Airplane" for "airport", for example? I don't think you can compare it to the Winner's Circle, where certain categories are actually designed to be traps.

[aaron sica]

I have a question to ask, regarding the Super Password end game.  I'd like to know, what letter in the Super Password round yielded the most illegal clues?  I know illegal clues in the end game were not very common, but they did happen.

Ñ.

[Fedya]

The Eth.

[Mr. Matté]

It's actually X which is odd since they've only ever used the same three words in the end game: Xerox, x-ray, and xylophone.

[PYLdude]

I have a question to ask, regarding the Super Password end game.  I'd like to know, what letter in the Super Password round yielded the most illegal clues?  I know illegal clues in the end game were not very common, but they did happen.

Ñ.

Oh come now. This was far more difficult.

[TimK2003]

I remember seeing a SP episode where Bert, Betty White and the player in the "alphabetics" game were talking about what was the hardest letter to get an answer for in that round.  I want to say it was for the letter I, since the letter itself was pronounced as a "long I", but most words began with a "short I" sound.

Paging Chris C....

It's actually X which is odd since they've only ever used the same three words in the end game: Xerox, x-ray, and xylophone.

I thought I saw Xenon (the element) as well once.

[TLEberle]

Unless you go through the whole damn dictionary and pick out every word that's likely to trap a player, I can't imagine coming close to an answer.

There were over 1,150 episodes shot over the series run--since illegal clues are relatively rare in the end game I would say that the questioner should start watching episodes straight through and see what data is gathered.

[PYLdude]

Unless you go through the whole damn dictionary and pick out every word that's likely to trap a player, I can't imagine coming close to an answer.

There were over 1,150 episodes shot over the series run--since illegal clues are relatively rare in the end game I would say that the questioner should start watching episodes straight through and see what data is gathered.

But as he's established, he won't do that. That's requiring too much effort and we should be understanding of that.

More importantly, why is this something that someone would want to know? Call me crazy but doesn't this cross the lane from fandom over to obsession? And this is coming from an admitted details geek.

[BrandonFG]

More importantly, why is this something that someone would want to know? Call me crazy but doesn't this cross the lane from fandom over to obsession? And this is coming from an admitted details geek.

I dunno if he's simply curious or trying to spark a discussion, but I can't see this as being a question anyone would have the answer to without sitting through 4.5 years' worth of episodes*. Maybe he thinks the producers have that factoid in their records, kinda like "What's the most called letter on Wheel?" I genuinely doubt the producers know either, though.

*/Get to work, Jon

[TLEberle]

Call me crazy but doesn't this cross the lane from fandom over to obsession? And this is coming from an admitted details geek.

To the first thing, don't know, don't care. To the second: details are fine and everyone is welcome to enjoy something in whatever way they choose as long as those same people understand that other people may not want to hear about it ("Nobody gives a damn about your level seventeen Paladin.") Something like "I forget, was "illegal clue" graphic a black square or dark blue?" is an easy thing to ask and answer. "Please tell me every category from every episode of The Joker's Wild over the course of the entire syndicated run" isn't.

Maybe he thinks the producers have that factoid in their records, kinda like "What's the most called letter on Wheel?"

Not quite the same, but knowing what topics come up on Jeopardy, where the DDs are, what grocery items show up over and over again on TPIR, or what vulgar thing is likely to score you the face-off are good to know if you're going to be on the show.

*/Get to work, Jon

Let us assume that someone could watch an episode in five minutes if all they care about is Alphabetics, and mark down whether or not an illegal clue happened and if so, under what letter, means you could do 96 of those in an eight-hour day, meaning that someone with the entire library of episodes could know the answer in about twelve days.

(edited the math: Jon doesn't need a bathroom or lunch break, since he enjoys the show.)

[chrisholland03]

I would like to make a correlation of illegal clues to day of the week the show aired.  I'm putting my chip on Tuesday.