This'll be the third time at least this has made it to our "airwaves," but here is a play-by-play on the pilot courtesy of SplitSecond:
The best way I can describe it is to relate it to Scrabble's Speedword round, except that letters are revealed in order from first to last, and the two players have celebrity partners (Charles Nelson Reilly and Debralee Scott, as you can see in the picture).
The game starts with the "free-for-all" round, where everyone is read a clue to the word or phrase, which Bill then starts spelling one letter at a time. If the civilian jumps in and gets it wrong, the other civilian gets the next letter alone and gets a free guess; if the other civilian is wrong, it goes back to the first civilian with another letter and a free guess, and it volleys back and forth like that. If it's a celebrity that jumps in and is wrong, the word volleys between the two celebrities until one gets it.
A typical clue would be "No fun to take out" for "GARBAGE", or "It makes you stand" for "STARSPANGLEDBANNER" (spaces are eliminated, obviously).
That said, when someone gets a word right, their team gets $50 and 1 point. The first team to three points wins the "free-for-all" and then gets to play "Spellbinders" by themselves to add to their score.
In "Spellbinders", one member of the team goes backstage while the other comes up with three items in a category that Bill poses. For instance, in the category "Things you eat with spaghetti", possible answers would be "MEATSAUCE", "BREAD", and "WINE". Then, the other teammate comes back onstage, and the first teammate can use up to five letters (from the start of the respective words) to convey all three words. (Think of one of the Chain Reaction bonus games). Each word is worth $50. If the team is down to one letter, the team not playing has the chance to challenge the team "at bat" to get the word they're working on with that one last letter. $100 for the team "at bat" if they get the word, $100 for the challenging team otherwise.
The game then returns to the free-for-all (with doubled stakes), and the game goes back and forth between free-for-all and Spellbinders until one team reaches $500, winning the game.
The bonus round ("Lucky 7") features the winning contestant and both celebrities. The contestant is sent backstage, and the two celebrities each come up with an item in another category ("Card games", for instance), then solicits five more answers from the studio audience. The contestant comes back onstage and then has to guess all 7 items in 60 seconds, being shown only the first letter. The contestant can call for more letters in each word to help her out (not including the last letter), but that eats up time. Solving all 7 items earns the contestant a jackpot of $5000 + $1000 for each non-win.
The best part is that at the end of one of the pilots, you get this great shot of Debralee Scott staring at her watch. No offense meant at all to Mr. Ryan, but that was my reaction too.
Here's Chris describing one of Puzzler's many games:
Puzzlers had an elaborate format with so many mini-puzzle games that it's hard to recall all of them 23 years after the fact. One puzzle game involved a picture or drawing of something enclosed on the top and bottom by blanks representing the letters in words associated with the picture, for example:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
(PICTURE OF BIRD)
_ _ _ _ _
One by one the letters in the upper word were revealed:
M _ _ K _ N G
(PICTURE OF BIRD)
and then the letters in the lower word:
(PICTURE OF BIRD)
B R A _ N
And as we saw on a "Bananas" special, yet another game involved the players seeing the ends of several words, trying to guess the starting letter that links them all (ex: AD, APER, ITCH, ARTRIDGE - answer: P)
-Jason
