This month our blog series is “Life is Just a Game,” and we are looking back at some of the game shows that debuted in the fifties and sixties. Today we are taking a peek back at Password. A funny moment occurred that first year when one of the celebrities was Jack Benny. The word he had to describe was “miser,” and he said, “Me” which got a lot of laughs.
The Goodson Todman partnership created many game shows over the years. One of their first was Password. It debuted in 1961 on CBS at 2pm ET. Allen Ludden, a former G.E. College Bowl host was chosen as the emcee. Ludden is also known as the husband of Betty White whom he met on the game show.
Ludden was born in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. After his father passed away from Spanish flu, his mother later remarried, and the family ended up in Texas. Ludden graduated from the University of Texas with honors in 1940, later returning for his Masters in English. He served in the US Army in charge of the Pacific theater entertainment district. In 1948, he became the program director for New York radio station WCBS and in 1959 was program coordinator for all CBS owned-and-operated stations. Ludden began hosting shows for teens and then College Bowl. His opening catch phrase while hosting Password became “Hi Doll” which he said was meant for his mother-in-law Tess White.
The rules of the game were that teams were formed with one contestant and one celebrity. The word was given to one player on the team and the other player had to guess what the word was based on one-word clues. If the player failed to guess the word within the five-second time period, play passed to the opposing team. This continued until the word was guessed. The quicker the word was guessed, the more points a team received.
The first team to reach 25 points won $100 for the contestant. That partnership got to play the Lightning Round where the celebrity gave the clues, and the contestant got five passwords within a minute. They received $50 for each right answer.
On July 11, of 1966 Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara updated the country on the progress of the Vietnam War one afternoon. CBS went with the coverage of the live news while NBC aired its soap opera Days of Our Lives and ABC aired its new show which began the same day, The Newlywed Game. Quite a few people turned off CBS that day and during the next few months, Password continued to lose viewers to these two shows. The next spring, Password was cancelled.
After the show was canceled, reruns were sold to CBS which it placed in syndication in the late 1960s. It became so popular that the show began to be filmed again in Hollywood. In 1971, it was placed on the network schedule when Dark Shadows ended. It held its own until 1973 when The Young and the Restless took a huge share of the market, and both Password and Jeopardy saw deep declines in ratings. In 1973 Password won the first Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show.
In 1974 the show became Password All-Stars; in 1978 it became Password Plus; and in 1984 it became Super Password. CBS revived the show in 2008 as Million Dollar Password, but it ended by 2010. Jimmy Fallon produced a new version beginning in 2022 with Keke Palmer as host.
Sadly, the episodes from the first version no longer exist. There were rumors that the videotapes were recycled and used for Family Feud.
The Milton Bradley Company introduced a home version of the game in 1962, releasing 24 editions from then until 1986 which they also did with Concentration.
I always enjoyed watching this game. One of my favorite portrayals of the show was when Oscar Madison and Felix Unger go on Password during an episode of The Odd Couple. Since you can’t watch the original shows, check out the Odd Couple episode (season 3, episode 11) for some fun.
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