Showoffs

Did You Know?

• The sound effects used on Showoffs—the bell, the dings for winning, and the time's-up buzzer—were later employed on Goodson-Todman's Family Feud.
• When a player lost the bonus round, the "Losing Horns" fanfare from The Price Is Right was played.

Payoff round

In the first version of the bonus round, the four celebrities took turns acting out words for the winning contestant, who had sixty seconds to guess them. Each correct guess earned one dollar. After time expired, the contestant picked one celebrity to act out three words in thirty seconds. Each word guessed added a zero to the contestant’s first-round earnings: one word multiplied the money by ten, two by one hundred, and all three by one thousand, with a maximum possible prize of ten thousand dollars. When the main game changed, the bonus round did too. Now the contestant acted out up to three words for one of their two celebrity partners. The first two words each had ten seconds to be guessed, and each was worth one thousand dollars. After either word, the contestant could stop or risk half of their current earnings to continue. The third word, typically harder, allowed fifteen seconds for the celebrity to guess. If guessed, the contestant won an additional three thousand dollars, for a total of five thousand. If the celebrity failed to guess a word before time ran out, the contestant lost half of the money earned so far and the game ended. In either format, the champion switched teams and faced the next contestant, unless they lost or had won at least twenty thousand dollars in total.

Broadcast history

On May 24, 1975, Larry Blyden hosted two test episodes of Showoffs featuring Elaine Joyce, Ron Masak, Linda Kaye Henning, and Dick Gautier. Right after those pilots were recorded, Blyden went on a brief trip to Morocco. There, he crashed his rental car, which flipped over, and he died from his injuries on June 6, 1975. Because the series was about to start taping, Goodson-Todman urgently needed a replacement and picked Bobby Van, a regular on Tattletales and Match Game. Showoffs first aired on June 30, 1975, at noon Eastern, taking over for Password and inheriting its weak ratings. It went up against NBC's Magnificent Marble Machine but couldn't compete with CBS's The Young and the Restless, which was a top-ten show. The program lasted just six months, ending on December 26, and was replaced by Let's Make a Deal. A schedule change involving Rhyme and Reason cleared a spot for The Neighbors. The show came back on CBS from 1984 to 1986 as Body Language with Tom Kennedy hosting. Johnny Olson announced from the start until his death in October 1985; then Gene Wood, who had announced Showoffs, and Bob Hilton took over. Kennedy once noted that "Goodson was in love with Showoffs, so he asked his staff to rework the idea!" An ABC pilot called Body Talk, hosted by Vicki Lawrence and announced by Gene Wood, was taped on October 11 and 12, 1990, but never sold. In 2015, Buzzr aired an online version of Body Language hosted by Cynthia LuCiette, featuring internet personalities instead of celebrities and civilians.

Episode status

Like many shows from its era, the series was largely wiped. Only a single broadcast episode is known to survive, circulating among tape collectors in varying condition. That November 28 episode featured Dr. Joyce Brothers, who was injured during taping; her partner Dick Gautier performed her charades alone in the final round. The other celebrities that day were Karen Morrow and Mike Farrell. UCLA holds one of Larry Blyden's pilots, a clip of which appeared on VH-1's 2005 series Game Show Moments Gone Bananas. Wink Martindale's YouTube channel released a pilot on January 19, 2021.