Child's Play (game show)

Did You Know?

• Bill Cullen first plugged the show during his only appearance on Bob Barker's version of The Price Is Right on October 26, 1982.
• Several celebrities appeared on Child's Play before they became famous, including Suzan Stadner, Jeff Cohen, Breckin Meyer, Masi Oka, Tara Reid, and Adam Richman.
• Sugar Ray Robinson appeared in the audience of the July 4, 1983 episode, and Bill Cullen introduced him as the boxing coach of one of the Child's Play kids.

Main game

Two players faced off in a game where they had to guess words from video clips of children aged five to nine giving definitions. The game had two main rounds. In the first round, the home audience saw the word, then a clip played of a child defining it. If the child accidentally said the word itself or any part of it, or used language not fit for TV, the audio was bleeped and a graphic reading "OOPS" covered the child's mouth. After the clip ended, the player whose turn it was could guess. A correct guess earned one point. If wrong, a second child’s clip for the same word played, and the opponent got a chance. If that also missed, a third clip played, giving the first player one final try. No points were awarded if both were wrong. The reigning champion started with control of the first word, and control passed back and forth between players for each new word until the second commercial break. In early episodes, the player who guessed correctly took control of the next word. In the second round, a child’s clip started playing, and either player could buzz in at any moment to stop it and guess. A correct buzz-in earned two points. An incorrect guess or silence let the opponent see the rest of the clip before guessing. This round continued until a school bell rang. The player in the lead at that point won $500 and moved to a bonus round. If tied, one extra word decided the winner. For the first three episodes only, the second round was split into two halves, each ending with the bell. In the first half, correct answers were worth one point; in the second half, they were worth two. Also, if a player guessed wrong in that early format, the entire clip was shown to the opponent.

Bonus round

The show had two different bonus rounds, both with a 45-second time limit and a top prize of $5,000. A champion kept returning until they lost, had played five bonus rounds, or hit the $25,000 winnings cap that CBS had for its game shows at the time. In the first bonus round, the champion tried to guess words from definitions written by three children, labeled A, B, or C. After picking a child, the definition appeared on a screen and host Bill Cullen read it aloud. The champion could then guess or choose another child. A wrong guess let them pick another definition if any remained. If the champion could not figure out the word after hearing all three definitions, that word was dropped and a new one came up. Guessing all six words before time ran out won $5,000; otherwise, each correct guess earned $100. This format replaced Triple Play starting with the April 25, 1983 episode. In the second format, five children from the main game’s film clips came onstage with the champion. The champion had to describe seven words to them, one child at a time in order. The words were shown to the home audience. Each correct guess by a child gave the champion $100, plus another $100 to be split equally among all five children. The champion could skip a word and come back to it if time allowed. An illegal clue, like saying the word or any form of it, removed that word from play. If the children guessed all seven words before time ran out, the bonus round winnings increased: the champion got $5,000 and the children got $1,000 to split.

Broadcast history

Child's Play made its debut on CBS at 10:30 a.m. Eastern on September 20, 1982, airing right after The New $25,000 Pyramid, which also premiered that day. It took over a slot previously filled by reruns of Alice, which had occupied the time since June 2, 1980 after Whew! was canceled. The show went up against NBC's Wheel of Fortune and, starting in January 1983, Sale of the Century, but failed to gain ground against either competitor. CBS pulled the plug in summer 1983, with the last episode airing on September 16. The following Monday, Press Your Luck took over the time period.

International versions

Australia gave the format a short try in 1984, with Jeff Phillips—a former pop singer who had also hosted the music shows Happening '71 and '72—as host. Germany had a much longer run with its version, called Dingsda, which translates roughly to "Gizmo" or "Whatsit." It aired on Bayerischer Rundfunk from 1985 to 2000, first hosted by Fritz Egner from 1985 to 1994, then by Werner Schmidbauer from 1994 to 2000. A revival appeared on kabel eins a year later, hosted by Thomas Ohrner, but it lasted only from 2001 to 2002. After a sixteen-year gap, the show was remade for Das Erste in 2018, with Mareile Höppner as host. Greece had a short-lived version titled Tα παiδíα παíζεi (Children Play), which ran on ERT2 from 1987 to 1988 with Lefteris Eleftheriadis hosting. A revival came a decade later on ANT1, hosted by Isabella Vlassiadou, but it only lasted through 1998. Indonesia first aired Child's Play as Kata Si Kecil ("The Little's Says") on antv from 1996 to 1998, hosted by Kepra. From 2001 to 2005, a separate Indonesian version of Ronnie Corbett's Small Talk aired under the name Celoteh Anak, hosted by Dewi Hughes. Then antv revived the Child's Play format again with a new concept and atmosphere, calling it Apa..?? Apa..?? Apa..?? ("What...?? What...?? What...???"), with host Harsya Subandrio from 2010 to 2011. The Netherlands produced two different versions on NCRV. The first, 't Is Kinderspel ("It's Child's Play"), ran briefly in 1984 with Fred van de Graaf as host. A year later, the show was revived under the new name Dinges ("Whatchamacallit"), which proved much more successful, airing from 1986 to 1995. Its original host was Martine Bijl from 1986 to 1988, followed by Frank Masmeijer from 1989 to 1993, and finally Jo de Poorter, known from Familieraad, in 1995. In Russia, the show was called Уcтaми млaденцa (Mouths of Babes/Baby Lips) and was one of the first game shows officially licensed in the country. Hosted by Alexander Gurevich, it originally ran from 1992 to 1996 on RTR, then on NTV from 1997 to 1998, and returned to RTR from 1999 to 2000. A short-lived revival on Disney Channel Russia, hosted by Maxim Vitorgan, aired in 2013 and 2014. Two years later, the series was revived again on NTV, hosted by Alexey Kortnev from 2016 to 2017, then by Alexander Oleshko from 2017 to 2018.