Password Plus and Super Password

Password Plus was hosted by original Password host Allen Ludden from its debut until April 1980, when he took a leave of absence after being diagnosed with stomach cancer. Bill Cullen, who at the time was hosting the show that preceded Password Plus on NBC, Chain Reaction, filled in until Ludden returned a month later.[1] Ludden left the program again in late October of 1980 due to further health problems and was replaced by Tom Kennedy. Cullen was hosting Blockbusters, another Goodson-Todman production also airing on NBC by this time.[1] Ludden made no further television appearances before his death on June 9, 1981, and Kennedy hosted the remainder of the series.

Bert Convy was the host for the entire run of Super Password.

Gene Wood was the regular announcer on both Password Plus and Super Password. Johnny Olson, Bob Hilton, John Harlan, and Rich Jeffries substituted for Wood on different occasions on Password Plus.

Jeffries was the first announcer of Super Password and served as a regular announcer until November 23, 1984. After the first nine weeks, Wood replaced Jeffries as announcer on November 26, 1984. Jeffries and Hilton occasionally substituted for Wood.

The new element of the revivals was the "Password Puzzle". Each password, once revealed, became one of five clues to a puzzle referring to a person, place, or thing. The passwords themselves were not worth any money; only the puzzle affected the scores. Correctly guessing a password allowed that participant one chance to solve the puzzle. If a password was not guessed by either player, it was added to the board without a guess at the puzzle. If that occurred on the final password, or if the solution to the puzzle was inadvertently revealed in any way, the puzzle was removed from play, and a new one was played. If a clue-giver said the password or any form of it (including the final password), or if his/her partner guessed it based on any infraction by the clue-giver, it was added to the board and the guesser on the opposing team was given a chance to solve the puzzle as a penalty.

For the final password in a puzzle, if the guesser was incorrect, his or her partner was given a guess as well. On Password Plus, if both teammates did not guess correctly, the puzzle solution was revealed and a new puzzle was played. On Super Password, if one team failed to guess the puzzle after all five words were revealed, the opposing team's contestant and celebrity partner were each given a final chance to solve it.

A correct guess by either team won money for its contestant, and any remaining passwords were revealed. Additional puzzles were played until one contestant reached the designated goal to win the game.

In 1981, the switch in celebrity partners that normally took place before the start of each game was moved to after the third puzzle. On Super Password, the contestants switched partners before the $300 puzzle. However, on All-Star Specials, partners did not switch after the Cashword game.

"Cashword" was an additional bonus on Super Password played by the winner of the second puzzle for an accumulating cash jackpot. The celebrity gave clues to a more difficult password. The contestant won a jackpot which started at $1,000 and increased by that much each time it was not won by guessing the password within three clues. This round did not affect the scores and only awarded bonus money. If the celebrity gave an illegal clue, the Cashword would automatically end.

The winning team played for a cash prize in the bonus round, called "Alphabetics" on Password Plus and "Super Password" on Super Password.

The gameplay of the round was the same on both shows. The contestant had 60 seconds to guess 10 passwords beginning with consecutive letters of the alphabet (e.g., "A" through "J"), with the celebrity giving one-word clues as in the main game. The celebrity could see only the current password until the contestant either guessed it or the celebrity passed. He/she could use multiple words to form a sentence, but had to pause distinctly after each one. For the period on Password Plus in which opposites were forbidden, this was enforced in Alphabetics as well. The contestant won $100 per guessed word, and a cash jackpot for solving all 10 before time expired.

On Password Plus, Alphabetics was originally played for $5,000, with the jackpot reduced by $1,000 for every illegal clue given. Coinciding with the changes made to the front game in 1981, for each time Alphabetics was not won, $5,000 was added to the jackpot. Illegal clues resulted in a reduction of the jackpot by twenty percent of its current value; for example, if Alphabetics was played for $20,000, each illegal clue would reduce the value of the jackpot by $4,000. Like the other changes, these remained in place until the end of the series, save for a brief period when the reduction was $2,500 in 1981.

Super Password's bonus round was also played for the same accumulating jackpot as in the final months of the Plus run. However, if an illegal clue was given, the word in play was removed.

Champions retired after playing the bonus round seven times on Password Plus, or five times on Super Password.

Password Plus was first shown at 12:30 p.m., filling part of the time left when the talk/variety program America Alive! was cancelled. On March 5, 1979, two months after its debut, the series made its first time slot move to noon following the cancellation of NBC’s revival of Jeopardy!. It moved back to 12:30 p.m. on August 13, 1979 when the Goodson-Todman game Mindreaders premiered at noon. On June 20, 1980, three other NBC game shows were canceled to make room for David Letterman's morning talk show and in the shuffle that followed, Password Plus was moved on August 4, 1980 to 11:30 a.m. when the daytime drama The Doctors moved from 2:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. (this time facing the second half-hour of CBS's The Price Is Right and ABC's Family Feud), with Card Sharks taking the noon slot on June 23, 1980, replacing Chain Reaction. The series returned to noon on October 26, 1981 upon the cancellation of Card Sharks, and remained there for the rest of its run. The final episode aired on March 26, 1982, and through a scheduling shuffle its place on NBC's schedule was replaced by Search for Tomorrow (which had moved to the network from CBS).

The program returned in September 1984 as Super Password and aired in the noon Eastern time slot, facing, for its first two weeks, the then 8-year-old Family Feud, then Ryan's Hope on ABC. Although several stations passed on it to air local news or syndicated programming, Super Password remained in that time slot for its entire 4½-year run. Later in the decade, NBC affiliates began dropping most of the network's daytime game shows, along with Super Password. The increasing number of stations carrying local newscasts at noon during this time caused the program to experience a decline in its viewership. The show's final episode aired on March 24, 1989, the same day Sale of the Century aired its series finale.

Super Password was Bert Convy's last network game show (and final for Mark Goodson Productions) hosted before his death two years later. Though he emceed a pilot for an ABC revival of Match Game in late 1989, he was too ill to host when it was picked up a year later (the hosting duties ultimately went to Ross Shafer for the series). Convy later hosted Win, Lose or Draw and 3rd Degree for syndication before his death from brain cancer in 1991.