Five years after its premier and cancellation, what are your thoughts about the show now? Did you feel it was a good remake, better than no remake at all or a poor effort.
I remember feeling like the first when it was new but when I saw it on Saturday reruns on GSN my opinion shifted to the second.
Wow where has the time gone? I haven\'t seen it in the five years since...I remember it being a decent enough revival (esp. given it was Fremantle), but it felt.....\"empty\", like it was missing something. Maybe I just wasn\'t big on it being so similar to Pyramid, or maybe I felt the end game seemed a little too simple, but it came across as rushed and half-baked. Polish it up a bit, and maybe cap the bonus game at $50K, and you\'re on to something as a daytime show (say, 3 out of 5 for $10K, 4 out of 5 for $20K, 5 for 5 for $50K).
Again, it was decent, but lacking. Regis\' voiceover dubs kinda annoyed me a bit too. I did, however, like that contestants had the option to give in the end game.
Between the 1960s and the early \'90s, when the first few Password incarnations aired, most Americans still had a decent command of the English language. We even knew the difference between their, they\'re, and there. Synonyms didn\'t throw most people if they had at least a basic education. Furthermore, contestants weren\'t chosen mainly for their physical hotness, intelligence be damned.
Also, we were blessed with decent attention spans. Since the game itself was fun and interesting, we didn\'t need huge cash prizes to make the show exciting. The top prize in 1966 was, what? Five-hundred a game? Even then, that was practically chicken feed. And look at the top prize for a contestant on What\'s My Line? or To Tell the Truth back then.
The game of Password doesn\'t work, for me anyway, with all kinds of suspense, scary music, and excitement. It\'s a frickin\' parlor game, and it\'s a good one.
I thought Super Password was an excellent version of the show with actual big money pumped into it. I think that a version like that, with slightly raised values, would work today. Find some good celebrities and have at it.
I was happy to see Password return to television back then and I was more than happy to play along because it\'s one of my top favorites. It was a little too cold for me to really enjoy it. The set left me feeling empty since it looked like a large hallway with people on either side and three podiums in the middle.
I agree with everything Travis said. I said at the time that it was a better revival of Pyramid than Pyramid.
I was one of the \"contestants\" who worked on the run-throughs with the producers. My buddy and I (we wore jackets and ties and were called \"The Suits\". Hi, G. Are you on the board?) won the top prize, twice. OK, so we did not win any money. You can\'t have everything. Where would you put it?
Here\'s where I disagree with my learned colleague: I thought re-purposing Cashword was a brilliant way to have a bonus round without going to the Alphabetics well again. (Mind you, I love Alphabetics as much as anyone, but I don\'t think it would work here.or maybe I felt the end game seemed a little too simple, but it came across as rushed and half-baked.
I\'m with Geno. Password and What\'s My Line? were light entertainment games appreciated for the cleverness of the participants. Though it\'s a great game in general, would it have been a success in the 60s without the celebs as an added draw? If you had two teams of civilians only playing, then more money might be needed to make it a viewer grabber. You had an excellent mix of witty celebs, smart civilians and an intellectual image host. I\'m delighted they gave Password another try, even with a million dollar format. Perhaps the element of Pyramid they should have used instead was the tournament option - rewarding the best players of the regular classic game over X number of weeks with chances at a later Million Dollar playoff instead of trying to give away a million every week. Let good game playing be the excitement - not cheesy lighting and mood music. But like Travis says...would that be enough today?
What makes me sad is that decades ago Vanilla Password was on in prime time. These days it would never happen; you have to have music, sounds, action, jump cuts, ADR, all the stuff that was never seen in the old days. As great a game as it is, it\'s a relic of those old times and you\'d have to change it (perhaps even make it unrecognizable?) to fly today.
I don\'t know if it\'s as much that, as (a) more money (even if you adjust it for inflation, the bonus round wouldn\'t be more than $5000; who would be interested in that - for that matter, who would be interested in a daytime $5000 bonus round?), and (b) trying to find celebrities that people want to watch. Then again, even 1960s-era primetime Password had to dip into the Broadway well (Inga Swenson, about a decade before Benson, and pre-Brady Bunch Florence Henderson).
As great a game as it is, it\'s a relic of those old times and you\'d have to change it (perhaps even make it unrecognizable?) to fly today.
I think that the attention span for playing games for the fun of it rather than the big money is there, but it\'s not long enough to work as a standalone half hour. Even people in my generation who are a couple years too young to remember any form of first-run Password other than MDP seem to like it when Jimmy Fallon plays it.
I\'ve often thought the same would apply to some British panel games like \"Would I Lie To You?\". All you\'d really need is a celebrity who\'s wiling and able to play along and you\'ve filled several minutes of show.
That Ol\' Guy\'s post about celebrities being part of the original Password\'s draw got me thinking. I was born in 1983, so by the time I got into game shows celebrities were for the most part limited to C-list status and below. My understanding over the years was that the majority of celebs on the original Password were big names for their time. My question is at what point did celebrities on game shows go from cream-of-the-crop A-listers to \"that guy with a recurring role on Obscure Eighties Sitcom That Was Canceled After 13 Weeks\"?
As a sidebar to MTCesquire\'s post, what would it take to entice honest-to-goodness A-listers to appear on celebrity game shows nowadays?
As a sidebar to MTCesquire\'s post, what would it take to entice honest-to-goodness A-listers to appear on celebrity game shows nowadays?
Some of the primetime shows like the Glee gym teacher\'s show have A-listers (or their friends). The upcoming Craig Ferguson show sounds promising..
As a sidebar to MTCesquire\'s post, what would it take to entice honest-to-goodness A-listers to appear on celebrity game shows nowadays?
I think it would depend on the exposure of the show, and where it\'s airing. Hollywood Squares had some big names here and there when it came back in \'98, and I\'m thinking Whoopi\'s name had something to do with that. However, I remember a fair bit of buzz when the show returned, and even after she left, the last two seasons still had some decent names, Probably wouldn\'t call them A-list, but there were some names in there too.
Hollywood Game Night is another good example, but being it was a primetime show on a Big 4 network, I\'d like to think you want big names there, and not just the Wacky Next Door Neighbor from That One Wednesday Night Sitcom. Again, being on NBC helped; I guarantee you wouldn\'t get those caliber names if it was on GSN, or even a basic cable channel like FX or TBS. Although AMC\'s Celebrity Charades had a few big names for the one week it aired, no?
AMC\'s Celebrity Charades had a few big names for the one week it aired, no?
Wasn\'t that helped by the fact that it had a producer who was also a big name more or less going \"Hey, we do this in my living room anyway, would you mind dressing up this time so we can record it for TV?\"
Correct. It was Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe basically getting their friends together at their NYC pad...
Although didn\'t Corey Feldman do Wordplay at the height of his popularity?
Insofar as he had popularity to achieve a height, yes. (I think someone posted one of his episodes the other day, when Jamie Farr filled in as host.)
MDPw was no fun to watch. I don\'t miss the series at all.
On a somewhat unrelated, but ironic/coincidental note, I found it amusing to have Ryan Seacrest on his NBC quiz show throwing it to regulars of The Voice and America\'s Got Talent to be guest question readers. Shows that are copies of his Fox show that are now are more trendy than AI.
On a somewhat unrelated, but ironic/coincidental note, I found it amusing to have Ryan Seacrest on his NBC quiz show throwing it to regulars of The Voice and America\'s Got Talent to be guest question readers. Shows that are copies of his Fox show that are now are more trendy than AI.
No, shows that are copies of his Fox show are on NBC.
Seriously, I\'m beginning to think Lemon may be right about you.
On a somewhat unrelated, but ironic/coincidental note, I found it amusing to have Ryan Seacrest on his NBC quiz show throwing it to regulars of The Voice and America\'s Got Talent to be guest question readers. Shows that are copies of his Fox show that are now are more trendy than AI.
No, shows that are copies of his Fox show are on NBC.
Seriously, I\'m beginning to think Lemon may be right about you.
I guess if someone says something often enough, you start to believe them. :)
I guess if someone says something often enough, you start to believe them. :)
Repetitiveness of behavior is certainly what I\'m talking about.
At the time, I thought, well at least it\'s an alternative to DoND and hey, they remembered Betty White. Other than that, what others have said: not original Password, Pyramid without the pyramid, you could have got better players, etc.
/Oddly, Pyramid without the pyramid would also describe the Andy Richter pilot of The Pyramid.
