I wonder if Bert's tendency of "chatting it out" was just following orders... they usually played only one end game per show, and if the game is moving quickly, then Bert is being directed to "stretch", which he was of course quite good at doing. If the end game happens to OPEN the show, then that game will be particularly chatty since the end game is done and they don't want to do another one. Another alternative would be to adjust the scoring, like they did with Password Plus later on, to have more puzzles, but obviously they didn't want to do that.
From what I understand of the opening All Star Week, Tom taped his first week with all celebs to play out the game and familiarize himself with the rules and such. If he makes mistakes with celebs playing, who cares... it's charity, he laughs it off, they tell him where he went wrong. The France/French episode fell on an early week for Tom, so it certainly showed how his confusion with a rule was played out with him laughing it off, and being further milked by Dick Martin. Betty White, meanwhile, doesn't mind the antics at all and I am sure it was great relief considering what she was going through at that time.
