P+ & Alphabetics illegal clues

[JakeT]

The ridiculous rule that lets the celebs use an illegal clue to garner an answer with only a $1,000 penalty will bug me for eternity...I am so glad that SP finally fixed this mess...illegal clues should always be a disqualification...allowing this as the did seems almost as loosy-goosy as the original Lightning Round on the CBS version...

JaketT

[Blanquepage]

I lost track of PW+ after the episodes started repeating, so not sure which BUZZR aired today, but I'll always have in mind Debralee Scott's Alphabetics with the final "W" password "window". She blurts it out, the contestant says "window", and is awarded $4K. That's when I for one was over it 

[JMFabiano]

The ridiculous rule that lets the celebs use an illegal clue to garner an answer with only a $1,000 penalty will bug me for eternity...I am so glad that SP finally fixed this mess...illegal clues should always be a disqualification...allowing this as the did seems almost as loosy-goosy as the original Lightning Round on the CBS version...

JaketT

Wonder what would happen if you gave five illegal clues?  Would that be like five strikes and you're out?  Or does the bank stay at $1,000 till you finish?

[TLEberle]

Wonder what would happen if you gave five illegal clues?  Would that be like five strikes and you're out?  Or does the bank stay at $1,000 till you finish?

The prize would remain at $1,000 as if the contestant solved each word in a failed campaign.

My summer stock theater counselor won $10,900 in July 1980 on a week with Betty White and Bill Cullen. Betty gave an illegal clue so Ross ended up winning $4,000 instead of $900. Perhaps I'm biased. Perhaps they were trying to differentiate from Pyramid or to salvage a game where an illegal clue would make Alphabetics anti-climactic.

[Mr. Matté]

It seems like P+ was a lot clunkier when it handled illegal clues. Referencing Travis's story above, here's the actual episode where the clue was given: Other episodes I've seen there was a long delay after the illegal clue was given (e.g. Rober Urich's "Chocolate chip...") allowing the contestant to correctly guess the clue before the doot-doot-doot-doot was sounded.

At least if a questionable clue was given on SP, you heard a Bobby Sherman "Hold it!" while they looked up the work before continuing.

[JakeT]

Wonder what would happen if you gave five illegal clues?  Would that be like five strikes and you're out?  Or does the bank stay at $1,000 till you finish?

The prize would remain at $1,000 as if the contestant solved each word in a failed campaign.

My summer stock theater counselor won $10,900 in July 1980 on a week with Betty White and Bill Cullen. Betty gave an illegal clue so Ross ended up winning $4,000 instead of $900. Perhaps I'm biased. Perhaps they were trying to differentiate from Pyramid or to salvage a game where an illegal clue would make Alphabetics anti-climactic.

I totally understand the sentiment behind it but it seems really messed up to allow a player/celeb to break the cardinal rule of the game in an effort to reward the contestant...bottom line is if you can't win the money while playing within the rules, you don't deserve the money...

JakeT

[tyshaun1]

I totally understand the sentiment behind it but it seems really messed up to allow a player/celeb to break the cardinal rule of the game in an effort to reward the contestant...bottom line is if you can't win the money while playing within the rules, you don't deserve the money...

JakeT

Did either show allow the contestant to be the giver though? Perhaps Plus didn't want the bad vibes if a celebrity screwed the contestant out of $4,100 because of bad clue-giving. I assume Super removed it because of the progressive jackpot.

[BrandonFG]

I believe Chris C. once said that, according to the show bible, only the celebrity was allowed to give clues.

[Casey]

I totally understand the sentiment behind it but it seems really messed up to allow a player/celeb to break the cardinal rule of the game in an effort to reward the contestant...bottom line is if you can't win the money while playing within the rules, you don't deserve the money...

JakeT

Did either show allow the contestant to be the giver though? Perhaps Plus didn't want the bad vibes if a celebrity screwed the contestant out of $4,100 because of bad clue-giving. I assume Super removed it because of the progressive jackpot.

Perhaps, though Password Plus had a progressive jackpot late in the run and illegal clues only cost you 20% of the value of the jackpot.  If I'm Dick Martin, and I'm trying to help a contestant win $25000, if I can get them $21000 of that by giving an illegal clue, I'd certainly be tempted if I didn't have a better clue to give.  Super Password fixed that mess.

[chrisholland03]

What if the penalty were not only a reduction in jackpot, but the word was replaced by a new one?  It's a double penalty - you lose money and time, and are still forced to give 10 'legitimate' correct answers in 60 seconds to get some portion of the jackpot. 

Granted the P+ setup didn't lend itself to word substitution on the fly, but if you really wanted to do a jackpot reduction that's the best way to go.

[calliaume]

Chris C. would be able to address this, but my guess the 10 percent illegal clue rule was probably a goodwill effort to keep from penalizing a contestant if their celebrity partner made a mistake, at a time where having that happen wouldn't clobber the budget. (It might have also been a slight nod to Pyramid, which probably had more celebrities fall into that trap--William Shatner being the obvious one, but I'm sure there were others we don't remember.)

Once the progressive jackpot was instituted, and the production company realized celebs could deliberately give an illegal clue with a second or two left in order to salvage a partial win, the rule obviously had to go.

[SRIV94]

Once the progressive jackpot was instituted, and the production company realized celebs could deliberately give an illegal clue with a second or two left in order to salvage a partial win, the rule obviously had to go.

Clearly there were occasions where an illegal clue was blurted by accident--Dick Gautier on the last word of a $35,000 end game said the word "purple" (which was the word) meaning to say "violet."  (Said contestant did win the next game but couldn't get the $40K, and Gautier won the $45K for the next champ.)

That stunk.