Password Plus and Super Password
Two revivals of the classic Password game show.
Password Plus and Super Password are American television game shows that revived the classic Password format, airing on NBC from 1979 to 1989. Both programs retained the core two-team, one-word-clue gameplay while introducing new features such as a password puzzle and a bonus round. Password Plus won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show in 1982.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Game show
- Camera
- Multi-camera
- Runtime
- 22 minutes
- Location
- NBC Studios; Burbank, California
- Creator
- Bob Stewart
- Developer
- Robert Sherman
- Presenter
- Allen Ludden
- Bill Cullen
- Tom Kennedy
- Executive producers
- Howard Felsher
Facts from the source article.
Cast
Allen Ludden, host of all prior Password versions, hosted Password Plus from its debut until April 1980, when he took a leave of absence due to stomach cancer. Bill Cullen, then hosting Chain Reaction, substituted until Ludden returned a month later. Ludden left again in late October 1980 because of further health problems, and Tom Kennedy replaced him; Ludden died on June 9, 1981. Bert Convy hosted Super Password for its entire run. Gene Wood was the regular announcer for both shows; Johnny Olson, Bob Hilton, John Harlan, and Rich Jeffries substituted on Password Plus. Jeffries announced the first nine weeks of Super Password, then Wood took over on November 26, 1984.
Merchandise
Milton Bradley produced three editions of the Password Plus board game in the early 1980s, as well as an eight-track cartridge version for its OMNI Entertainment System. In 1983, The Great Game Company planned versions for the Atari 2600 and Intellivision, but both were scrapped due to the video game crash. A Super Password video game was released for MS-DOS, Apple II, and Commodore 64 by Gametek in 1988; a planned NES version never surfaced. Tiger Electronics released a Super Password hand-held game in 2000.
Program information
Password Plus, originally known as Password '79, debuted at 12:30 pm ET/11:30 am CT and PT. It moved to noon/11:00 am on March 5, 1979, then back to 12:30/11:30 on August 13, 1979. On June 20, 1980, three other NBC game shows were canceled for David Letterman's morning talk show; when that program was reduced to sixty minutes on August 4, 1980, Password Plus moved to 11:30/10:30. It returned to noon/11:00 on October 26, 1981, after Card Sharks was canceled, and remained there until its final episode on March 26, 1982. Super Password premiered in September 1984 in the noon Eastern time slot and stayed there for its entire 4½-year run, though many NBC affiliates preempted the hour for local programming. Viewership declined as affiliates dropped daytime programming, and the final episode aired on March 24, 1989. Both series exist in their entirety and have aired on Buzzr and previously on GSN, though some episodes were not shown due to celebrity clearance issues. GameTV in Canada began airing the first 65 episodes of Super Password on July 2, 2018.
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