It was 15 years ago today that "Super Password" aired its last show, and I hope "Password" in some form comes back on the air soon. It is too great a game not to be on television. If it does come back, I'd like to see a host that keeps his or her mind in the game in unusual situations, which leads to this: I know that some people seem to like Bert Convy's hosting duties on "Super Password", but I beg to disagree. Bert usually seemed to be flustered when an unusual situation came up. Examples of this include:
1. He always seemed to be incredulous when someone gave an illegal clue
during the Cashword as if it never happened before. He was also flustered
(usually) when someone gave the password as a clue.
2. During the fall 1986 Tournament of Losers, Constance McCashin saw the
word "often" in the bonus round and gave what I thought was "a lot" and
thought she would be flagged for an illegal clue. Not until about a year
later when I was taking a business communications class at Cleveland
State University did it hit me; the professor either said or wrote the word
"allot" and then I realized that's what Constance might have said in that
bonus round, and in those cases, the clue giver gets the benefit of the
doubt, but Bert never bothered to explain it to the audience. (A similar
thing happened when Constance was on "Win, Lose, or Draw" when the
phrase in play was "No right turn" and Constance said "Do not turn to the
right" and I thought that answer would be accepted, but it was not, and
Bert never explained why it wasn't.) Tom Kennedy did a good job doing
this on "Password Plus".
Bert also actually laughed at Stacy Keach's personal problems right in front of Keach's "Mike Hammer" co-star, Lindsay Bloom, when she appeared with James Widdoes on the show, and Bert also said the bar pick-up line "You come here often?" to a contestant. (If Allen Ludden had said a thing like that, he would have been excoriated!)
