Body Language

Host: Tom Kennedy
Announcer: Johnny Olson, Gene Wood
Lifespan: June 1984-January 1986, CBS

Two contestants are paired with celebrity partners for charades and puzzles written by Steve Ryan. "Super Password" meets "Showoffs".

Two contestants, one a returning champion unless retired yesterday, were paired with a celebrity partner. The new player and their celebrity partnerwould get to play first.

In round one, the contestant would get into the actor's position, and 60 seconds were put on the clock. The actor would see a series of words on a screen, and the guesser would try to get as many as possible, up to five. The actor could gesture, point, or do anything at all but speak, if he did that, the round would end at that point. After going through all five words, the team could come back and get any that remained unguessed until all five were played successfully, or time ran out.

Tom and the guesser would then focus on the puzzle board. The puzzle board displayed a sentence with seven blanks in it. Any words that were guessed successfully were placed in the proper blanks in the puzzle. The guesser then got one guess to figure out what the puzzle was talking about. A correct guess was worth $100 for the team. If the guess was wrong, the guesser from the other team would join the group. He would ask for a number on the board to be revealed, and then would try to guess. This would continue until someone guesses, or both people get to guess with a fully revealed puzzle. If neither team guessed, no one won the money.

Round one puzzles were worth $100, and round two has a pair of $250 puzzles. As a bonus, a team who could get all five words in round two would win a $500 bonus for the contestant, win or lose. The game was won by the player who reached $500 first. If neither did after four puzzles, a playoff puzzle was filled in until someone guessed and won. Contestants would alternate calling for numbers and guessing until someone guessed the puzzle and won the game.

Bonus Game: The champion played the Sweepstakes game. The champion decided to give clues or guess words. The team had 60 seconds to get up to ten words at $100 each. Speaking from the actor would disqualify that word only. If time remained and words were left on the table, they could go back and pick them up.

In the second half of the bonus, the team could multiply the winnings from the first half by ten if they could get three moderately difficult words in 20 seconds. If not, the first half money was unchanged.

Players stayed on the show until they lost two games, or won six matches.



Click here to return to the home page.
Click here to return to the Rules/Reviews page.