"Password Plus" vs. "Super Password"

[TLEberle]

1) I can’t imagine anything by Mark Goodson as an accident.

2) same as any game show that doubles the stakes (and the difficulty)—it allows the player to gain comfort with the surroundings and playing the game for real.

3) if the show just did 200, 300, 400 with the Cashword interval you’re not getting Alphabetics to augment by its base value on a miss. I sure as hell wouldn’t. So you get “next time it will be for $12,500” or $6,000. Or new champion, new bank.

They may not be things we like or understand or how we do them, but in the 80s the company was setting the standard, even with clunkers like On a Roll, Oddball and TKO. The design was purposeful.

[TheInquisitiveOne]

This is a good question. If I were to choose based on what we got, I’d choose Plus by a hair. Better pedigree of hosts (Allen, TK, Cullen), better set pieces (especially from an Alphabetics standpoint), and tighter, more challenging gameplay (banning of opposites). I can’t get past the feeling that the Super Password set felt cold and bland. A couple neon lights here and there, better placement of the main game puzzle board, Chyron, better production quality later on for the bonus round, and not much else. Bert Convy never really did it for me. I wish NBC got Tom Kennedy before CBS did for Body Language.

I always wished they mixed some of the best elements from Password Plus onto Super. Better, more lively bonus round set for “The Endgame” (hell, the show as a whole) and banning opposites (I know I’m in the minority here; reinstating opposites did help to make the show flow more smoothly, so I completely understand why they did that). The shortcomings of Convy’s hosting have already been discussed, so I won’t go into it here. I will say that there wasn’t much in the way of seriousness when the jackpot started to exceed $25,000…a tone that Jim Perry handled well on his show just a few studios down and Kennedy himself could’ve easily handled (especially given his experience with Name That Tune and the final months of Plus).

Super Password deftly handled the bonus round rules in a more understandable way. One foul in the bonus round resulting in an automatic forfeiture of the jackpot made the bonus round more tense (and could serve as another valid reason to allow opposites again) and balanced the difficulty. I love the split screen technique they used later in the show and the use of Chyron throughout. I just wished they used more than a TV screen for the bonus round.

Last thing: I just want to touch upon what TLEberle said in his response:

if the show just did 200, 300, 400 with the Cashword interval you’re not getting Alphabetics to augment by its base value on a miss. I sure as hell wouldn’t. So you get “next time it will be for $12,500” or $6,000. Or new champion, new bank.

I was always of the thought that if progressive jackpots have to be a thing, it should never increase by base value. It should be upped by $1000-$2500 per miss, and should be the champion’s jackpot alone. Maybe chuck the latter if it makes for better television, but base rate jackpot increases never did it for me.

The Inquisitive One

[whewfan]

I've always liked both shows the same. Yes, there were moments on SP where I thought Bert was chatting it up a little too much, but as I said in another post, he was following orders and stretching where he was asked to stretch. As for Password Plus, I compare Tom's hosting of PW+ to the way he handled You Don't Say, a similar show. (He would acknowledge in his last interview that it was basically a Password knockoff.) I didn't really care for PW+ new scoring format, and the Alphabetics increasing jackpot had odd penalties for illegal clues. SP did better by completely disqualifying the bonus money and only getting $100 a word.

[JMFabiano]

About all the"Getting a better Super Password host" talk...after seeing that episode from the ABC run, as well as a certain excellent podcast's show on the 1/3/1983 game show premieres, I was thinking....could Betty White have hosted SP?  This would be relatively fresh off of her Just Men! Emmy win, which Goodson could tout when promoting the new show. 

[TLEberle]

What you gain in a competent host you lose as an excellent player who can likely fill in any time there is an emergency. Bert would be a capable player but not missed.

[JMFabiano]

What you gain in a competent host you lose as an excellent player who can likely fill in any time there is an emergency. Bert would be a capable player but not missed.

True dat.  Plus a little thing called The Golden Girls would take a lot of her time, to say the least. 

[jjman920]

I'm the weirdo that loves playing Password puzzles over Alphabetics, so the more puzzles, the better, even if they went dead. For that reason, I like Plus more. Watching Super Password, it seemed like it would take forever to start a game. Bert would talk to the celebs, then talk to the contestants, and it felt like five minutes had passed before we were shown the first word. It felt like Super Password got through half the puzzles Plus would get through in an episode and all I'd feel at the end of an episode was that I was shorted out of game content.

Plus was definitely super flawed. Everyone's mentioned it here. Allowing a puzzle to go dead without giving the other team a chance was a massive oversight. And their judging was *wildly* inconsistent. What they defined as an "opposite" was loose or tight depending on what it was. They were also way too lenient in taking forms of the word for the actual password.

In the end though, I love playing along to the password and the puzzles, both by myself or watching with friends, so in the end, give me all the Password Plus.

[Stackertosh]

I like Both versions i think Plus has the lead

Bert was better suited for Tattletales and Match Game both were shows he can have fun with.

[chris319]

Plus was definitely super flawed. Everyone's mentioned it here. Allowing a puzzle to go dead without giving the other team a chance was a massive oversight. And their judging was *wildly* inconsistent. What they defined as an "opposite" was loose or tight depending on what it was. They were also way too lenient in taking forms of the word for the actual password.

No doubt about it. The first mistake was not having a word authority.

The no-opposites rule came about on impulse because Howard Felsher had a bug up his b*tt and felt antonyms made game play too facile. It was not well thought out. One time a player was buzzed because Howard felt that "cat" was the opposite of "dog". Allen challenged that call on the air.

The form-of-the-word sound effect was a big step up in SP.

The "dead puzzle" problem was a big problem for us which was solved in SP. We had a policy that the 5th clue had to be absolutely "gettable", else we'd have yet another dead puzzle. Howard once approved a puzzle with "footwear" as the 5th clue (answer: moccasins). I felt the players would never guess "footwear" and Bobby was at CBS for a taping of Match Game. I drove to CBS and brought it up with Bobby and the clue was changed to a more "gettable" word.

I think the quality control of the puzzles was better on P+.

I became reluctant to make suggestions to the big-shot G-T executives who were full of themselves and had been producing game shows for 400 years back in New York. Whenever a player guessed a puzzle on the first clue it was always surprising and exciting. I suggested to Howard that we award some kind of bonus for one-clue solves, but the suggestion was ignored. So much for making suggestions to the higher-ups.

[Jeremy Nelson]

Super corrected many of these issues (if you consider them such), but it also had a host whom I don't think was a perfect fit for the game. Convy wasn't *bad*, he just needed to rein in the chatter (which gave away puzzle answers on some occasions) and perhaps to demonstrate more authority.

Honestly, it was moments like this that endeared me to SP. I love Allen Ludden, but his hosting was akin to the person in the friend group who kept you on itinerary during the trip, for better or worse. Sure, you’ll be up in time for free continental breakfast, but you’re probably not having any fun adventures off the beaten path either. Even Dick Clark, as a scholarly as he was on Pyramid, has his moments, and seeing how completely opposite Allen and Bert are in how they approach Password, it’s a testament to how difficult it is to find someone who can strike a happy balance on a show like this.

[wdm1219inpenna]

Password Plus to me is the one I prefer.  Bert was too chatty too often and gave away puzzle answers much more often than Allen ever did.  Password was Allen's baby and when it came back in 1979 as Password Plus, I never saw a more overjoyed Master of Ceremonies than Allen.  He truly cared about the game. 

The caliber of celebrities on Plus seemed to be overall slightly better to me than on Super Password.   I don't recall if Greg Morris ever appeared on Super Password, but I loved him on Plus.  One of my favorites, as well as Elizabeth Montgomery.  Just seemed like the celebs on Plus were of a higher echelon both in star power and in the ability to play the game and not clown around (e.g. Marty Cohen on Super Password). 

I was okay with the 20% penalty for Alphabetics because it was more often than not no fault of the contestant when a celebrity gave an illegal clue.   

One thing about Plus though that made me cringe to high heaven was when they would have their all-star charity weeks and they would have the celebrities acting in character (e.g. Vicki Lawrence as Mama, Carol Burnett as Eunice, Denver Pyle as Uncle Jesse, etc.).  Hated those weeks big time.

One thing about Super Password that I did rather like, and it was a novelty, was they had their Tournament of Losers, those who won like $0 or just $100 perhaps return to play.  They also had a Tournament of Champions I believe at least once, something Plus never had.

Overall I'd say I prefer Plus about 70 to 30 over Super Password.  Bert was more jovial, but to me Password was a more cerebral game and exercise and with big prize money at stake, there's a time for clowning and chatting and a time not to.  Allen seemed to have much more respect for the game and the franchise as a whole.   

[Neumms]

I confess I like Super Password better.

1. Ludden beats Convy, but I’m impressed with how Bert hosted totally differently yet very well. A new direction was smart following Ludden the icon, but it could have gone as badly as John Davidson replacing Dick Clark. Bert handled his occasional mistake with welcome self-effacing humor, and I enjoy his byplay with Gene Wood.

2. I love the Cashword.

3. I find that P+ had more weeks with lousy pairs of celebrities.

4. I hate the P+ set. There are drawbacks to Super’s but nothing as bad as the checkerboard puzzle board. The on-screen graphics helped, too. Neither set was as impressive as Password All-Stars, though.

[BrandonFG]

I'll add on another reason why I prefer the first two or so years of Plus: the progressive jackpot does nothing for me. I'm very happy for the people who won 30/40/50K on Super, but it felt a bit gimmicky. I think a flat 10K in 1984 would've been fine.

[whewfan]

I confess I like Super Password better.

1. Ludden beats Convy, but I’m impressed with how Bert hosted totally differently yet very well. A new direction was smart following Ludden the icon, but it could have gone as badly as John Davidson replacing Dick Clark. Bert handled his occasional mistake with welcome self-effacing humor, and I enjoy his byplay with Gene Wood.

2. I love the Cashword.

3. I find that P+ had more weeks with lousy pairs of celebrities.

4. I hate the P+ set. There are drawbacks to Super’s but nothing as bad as the checkerboard puzzle board. The on-screen graphics helped, too. Neither set was as impressive as Password All-Stars, though.

Allen also expressed disdain for the checkerboard puzzle. I don't dislike it, but I do like it better than the previous yellow board. The first board was colorful enough, then neon was added to give it more pizazz, I guess, but for me it also looked "tacked on." It's a good thing they went with one color for the set in general, because changing one color might've given unintentional attention to the swastika patterns in the negative space of the pluses.

[TLEberle]

Plus was definitely super flawed. Everyone's mentioned it here. Allowing a puzzle to go dead without giving the other team a chance was a massive oversight. And their judging was *wildly* inconsistent. What they defined as an "opposite" was loose or tight depending on what it was. They were also way too lenient in taking forms of the word for the actual..

I think it is worth discussing. It makes sense that if the guesser can’t solve the puzzle the giver can swoop in and save the day, but why should the other team get to steal the pot? There are five chances to win control and I don’t recall many times when one team kept control with five bang-bang guesses.

I can see giving the other side a chance to win money that isn’t part of the score, but Password isn’t Family Feud.