Password, or Password Plus?

[Neumms]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Mar 8 2005, 02:57 PM\'][quote name=\'Neumms\' date=\'Mar 8 2005, 11:57 AM\']and I still contend the P+ set was chintzy.

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You are higher than high if you are calling the P+ set "chintzy" over a Super Password set that chyroned it's words, possessed the cheesiest doors in the history of game shows, and played the endgame off of a friggin' TV SET.

The desk flew in. Ooh. Pinch me.

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The red, yellow and blue neon? The awful "checkerboard square" puzzleboard? The cheezy logo? The desk covered in shag carpeting? The stairs with absolutely no function or visual interest? The flat, too-white area for the main game? Yeah, I'll call it chintzy. And garish and seedy and third rate and ten years behind the times the day it premiered. Geez, the set from "Go" looks better, and that was a Bob Stewart show.

I wouldn't call Super Password a hallmark of design, either, but the chyron was an improvement.

But, yeah, I have to concede your point on the doors.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Neumms\' date=\'Mar 8 2005, 04:36 PM\']The red, yellow and blue neon? The awful "checkerboard square" puzzleboard? The cheezy logo? The desk covered in shag carpeting? The stairs with absolutely no function or visual interest? The flat, too-white area for the main game? Yeah, I'll call it chintzy. And garish and seedy and third rate and ten years behind the times the day it premiered. Geez, the set from "Go" looks better, and that was a Bob Stewart show.
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We're clearly going to have to agree to disagree, because every word in this paragraph indicates to me that you are living in a 150% different reality than I am.

[Johnissoevil]

29 years old here.

My first memory of Password was Password Plus (before I started attending school).  I was too young to remember anything Allen had said about previous versions, so I didn't even know that there were previous incarnations until Bert Convy mentioned it on the first few episodes of Super Password.  When I finally got GSN in May of 1997, I saw the original Password for the first time, and although the format was different in some ways from Plus and Super, I actually enjoyed it.  I actually thought The Lightning Round was a neat bonus round, and was convinced that Password could work with either format.  Whenever I can, I do catch the reruns of Password to this day.

[Tim L]

I can't say I liked One version of Password over the others, but one thing I never understood, In the Lightning Round of the original Password, It seems to me that if a contestant had trouble with a word early on, why didnt they allow him/her to go back to the word if there was time left on the clock.  It seemed to potententially cheat them out of $50 or more IMO..

[Robert Hutchinson]

[quote name=\'Tim L\' date=\'Mar 8 2005, 10:28 PM\']I can't say I liked One version of Password over the others, but one thing I never understood, In the Lightning Round of the original Password, It seems to me that if a contestant had trouble with a word early on, why didnt they allow him/her to go back to the word if there was time left on the clock.  It seemed to potententially cheat them out of $50 or more IMO..[/quote]

Yes, if only the Lightning Round were easier . . . =P

[Ian Wallis]

That was also the case when P+ upped its winning score to $500 near the end of its run (which was introduced concurrently w/the mid-game contestant crossover and growing Alphabetics jackpot)...however, since they kept the same 100-100-200-200 scoring system, it really dragged things down, and there were more than a few eps where time ran out before they got to Alphabetics.

I watched "Password Plus" as frequently as I could when it was originallyon, and it blew me away when GSN ran an episode with that $500 format.  I just didn't recall that from original airings.  I guess they must have wanted to make changes to spice things up a bit, but I wonder how close to the end of the run the changes were actually made.  Since GSN has aired so few of the Kennedy shows, it's really hard to pin down exactly when the changes occured; that's another reason why "Super Password" was a lot closer to "Password Plus" than I originally thought!

[ITSBRY]

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Mar 7 2005, 02:06 PM\']I'd like to know whether the young members of the board share my sentiments, or the 'seniors' look at it differently.  Or maybe age isn't an issue.  Either way, I'd like to know where you fall on the Password/Plus line, and your age (approximate if that's a sensitive thing for you)

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I also grew up with SP (I'm 30) and until I got GSN, it was the ONLY version of Password I'd ever seen. I loved SP...until I saw P+. While I don't care for the 'reduce jackpot' rule in Alphabetics, everything else is far superior to SP. The scoring system (time for more end games-the front game gets tedious when you're playing to 500 IMO), the play/pass option (why didn't SP keep this?), the no opposites rule...just about everything. Convy was a fine host and the format wasn't horrible, but it just could have been better.

Having said that, the original Password was a bit of a novelty for me. When I first got GSN, I was very interested in watching all these old shows I'd never seen before just because I love game shows and it was all new to me. B&W Password was the first show I ever saw on GSN. I didn't even know I had the channel...I just found it surfing one day.

The novelty did wear off after awhile though and I did find the original a bit bland for my tastes, but I'd still watch now and then to see some old A-List stars do something they don't do now...play game shows.  Given a choice, I'd pick P+ over any of the versions I've seen.

ITSBRY
itsbry@juno.com

[SplitSecond]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the original P+ scoring system and the SP scoring system basically allow for the same number of games?  That is, the first game is a throwaway warm-up game, then the winner of the match is whoever wins two of the next three games.

How was each game scored on P+ when the target was raised to 500?

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'SplitSecond\' date=\'Mar 9 2005, 01:51 PM\']How was each game scored on P+ when the target was raised to 500?

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I'm pretty sure it was first two games worth $100 and third game and beyond worth $200, so it could've taken five or even six games to get someone to $500.  

Doug

[Ian Wallis]

First three games were worth $100, then all games after were worth $200.  So you could conceivably play up to 6 puzzles to determine a winnner.

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Mar 9 2005, 02:42 PM\']First three games were worth $100, then all games after were worth $200.  So you could conceivably play up to 6 puzzles to determine a winnner.

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I meant that.  Sorry.  

Doug

[uncamark]

In their constant attempts to impress Mr. G that they were doing something different, some G-T scoring systems got a little convoluted.  Personally, I would've just stuck with the basic two-out-of-three puzzles for "Plus/Super."  If you were in a no-straddle situation (like bicycling syndication), then play each show to time with the first two puzzles worth one amount and the third and thereafter a higher amount--if time runs out in the middle of a puzzle, show the remaining words one at a time and have lockouts for the contestants.  Game ends in a tie, do the same thing as a tiebreaker.

And I'm sure Goodson would immediately state that I hadn't thought this through...

[ChuckNet]

Really? Having one completely-irrelevant puzzle leads to a better scoring system? You must've *loved* Body Language and Feud '99!

Oh yeah...forgot about that extraneous $100 puzzle, LOL.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[edholland83]

I'm 22 Years Old

My first memory of Password was Bert's Version, I agree with some of the other posts that sometimes Bert sort of slowed down the show with some of his banter, but imagine if he had been hastily rushing the contestants as he did in WLOD.

In regards to the previous versions:

When I finally was able to see the CBS Passwords, it felt like there was more of an intellectual feel to it (aside from the fact that opposites were used). That was what drew me to the original more than SP.

Password Plus was also great in it's own way of course it was because of a few reasons. It was Allen's last show and because of Alphabetics, which was far superior to the CBS Lightning Round. Of course from what little I have seen from the post All-Stars ABC format, that triple-tiered bonus round was great as well although Allen had to be exceptionally quick with addition and multiplication to be able to give the exact total for winnings.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'edholland83\' date=\'Mar 10 2005, 02:45 PM\']although Allen had to be exceptionally quick with addition and multiplication to be able to give the exact total for winnings.

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Just a hunch: I'm suspecting there was a stagehand offstage who was exceptionally quick with addition and multiplication. Not to say he COULDN'T do the math, and maybe he did, but he was dealing with other show-hosting-type things at the time, and someone off-camera woule be in better position to do the math.