"Password Plus" vs. "Super Password"

[gamed121683]

 

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.

Something tells me I’m in the minority, but I LIKED the checkerboard looking puzzle board. Especially when they were still using the slide projector to show off the words. It wasn’t until when they switched over to the art cards, I started to notice the “tackiness” of the pattern! Isn’t that weird?

[Ian Wallis]

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.

I'm with you there.  I thought it was a dumb idea.

[BrandonFG]

Something tells me I’m in the minority, but I LIKED the checkerboard looking puzzle board. Especially when they were still using the slide projector to show off the words. It wasn’t until when they switched over to the art cards, I started to notice the “tackiness” of the pattern! Isn’t that weird?

I think they needed to decide on either the checkerboards or the colorful slanted lines covering the words. Having both was just too busy IMO.

[Mr. Armadillo]

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.

A question that's gone through my head several times - what if Cashword was moved from the $200 puzzle to the $100 puzzle?  Obviously solves the issue of the $100 puzzle not meaning anything, but does that make up for any other issues it causes?

[Jeremy Nelson]

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.

A question that's gone through my head several times - what if Cashword was moved from the $200 puzzle to the $100 puzzle?  Obviously solves the issue of the $100 puzzle not meaning anything, but does that make up for any other issues it causes?

Nah, I like the idea of the $100 puzzle being a "warmup". There's no real stake in it and someone still gets paid from it. Also, I like the idea of being able to play a max of two puzzles with each celeb.

The $100 puzzle is just fine, IMO. No reason to remove it.

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.

Travis, I love how I can always count on you to find tweaks to make game shows tougher and cheaper.

[TLEberle]

I’m not saying I would do that—I would rather a flat amount that won’t ruin the company every day. If I have the chance at two end games per day I’m going to slow the growth. It wouldn’t be my first choice. (*) I understand why Plus was $5,000 day in day out and why Super wanted the ebb and flow of the fluctuating pot, but they also banked on only playing the end game once a day.

My issue with turning the $100 puzzle into the bonus opportunity is that the contestant who is coming in fresh has that disadvantage of not getting reps under the lights.

(*) Actually my first choice is new champion new jackpot.

[chris319]

I never watched Super Password when it was on NBC but I've seen more than enough of it on Buzzr, as well as Tattletales.

Bert was great with the celebs on Tattletales but he's painful to watch on SP. Oy, what a chatterbox! He says "good clue" for just about every password and never fails to broadcast when the light bulb flickers on and he knows the answer to a puzzle. Also way too much clowning around with Gene Wood and Geoff Cooper (sound effects).

[clemon79]

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.

I'm with you there.  I thought it was a dumb idea.

I think you guys missed the joke then. That was clearly a callback to the original Carol Burnett Show Mama's Family sketches where they would frequently play Password.

[Eric Paddon]

Perhaps, but having McLean Stevenson and Joanna Gleason simultaneously be their "characters" from "Hello Larry" was a joke of the unfunniest kind (just like that show).      They ended up abandoning the whole approach mid-week.

[TimK2003]

Nothing could beat the Uncle Jesse (Dukes of Hazzard) vs. Sgt. Getraer (CHiPs) week.  There were zero connections between the two characters/shows.

Wait...it was the Eldest Show Characters' Week on Password Plus.  Must've slipped Tom's mind.

[clemon79]

Perhaps, but having McLean Stevenson and Joanna Gleason simultaneously be their "characters" from "Hello Larry" was a joke of the unfunniest kind (just like that show).      They ended up abandoning the whole approach mid-week.

That's just an example of how desperate NBC was to get Hello Larry over. Hell, at that point NBC was desperate to get anything over in prime time.

[JasonA1]

This thread is showing me that it's a real shame we never got a fully battle-tested version of Password to enjoy, with the best of all worlds coming together in one format. We all clearly like a lot of things from both of these versions of the show.

These days, I'd have to give the edge to Password Plus. When I come across it on Buzzr, I often stay for the entire episode or hour, whereas I frequently don't stay for Super Password. By and large, the guests on Password Plus take the game seriously while still having lots of fun. That said, when my college classes fell around GSN's then-daily hour of SP, I was really enjoying the groove they were in at the part of the run -- 1988.

But yes, still lots of stuff worth tweaking on both shows. I imagine the Alphabetics penalty came from a good place -- they didn't want celebrities costing people THAT much money -- but in a world where Pyramid got by just fine without doing it, it looked odd on Password Plus. Ca$hword on Super Password is a great idea, but looking at the back of people's heads for the entire show as they turn to see the puzzle is not.

-Jason

[Eric Paddon]

I think the real pity is that ABC Password doesn't survive to let us experience that version of the show in full and add to the overall discussion since it was the first attempt to liven things up from the old CBS format.     Even though the random episodes expose what some of us see as weaknesses, perhaps if we'd been able to experience the full run of that show unfolding what we think of as flawed in that format maybe wasn't as flawed based on our impressions from just a handful of remaining shows. 

[chris319]

Lately I've noticed that Bert Convy seems to have an aversion to the word "Alphabetics". Was this by decree or was Bert just being his airheaded self, referring to it only as "the end game".

Some of the bookings on SP were really from the bottom of the barrel o' celebrities. That said, we never booked JoAnne Worley when I worked on P+; I wonder why. We should have. We were too busy booking Nancy Lane and Judy Norton Taylor.

Bert was great on Tattletales but Super Password wasn't his forte. Some day I'll count the number of times he says "good clue" or words to that effect and we can do an over-under here.

[nowhammies10]

Lately I've noticed that Bert Convy seems to have an aversion to the word "Alphabetics". Was this by decree or was Bert just being his airheaded self, referring to it only as "the end game".

ISTR that the endgame on SP shared its title with the title of the series. Super Password *was* the endgame.