"Million Dollar Password": For Crying Out Loud, Say Cleveland!

When I was growing up, we lived for one year in White Plains, New York. My dad commuted into the city every day, where he was a general agent for the Manhattan Life Insurance Company. To hear him tell it, among his policyholders were Desi Arnaz and the pioneering game-show producers, Mark Goodson and Bill Todman.

I'm not sure whether he ever met any of those people, but he certainly had Goodson-Todman connections, because for my birthday that year, he got tickets for us to see a taping of "Password," which at the time was videotaped in New York City.

I don't remember who the celebrity guests were the day we saw it (it was 1963 -- I was minus two at the time), but that doesn't matter. "Password" has held a special place in my heart ever since. I've watched it on four networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, GSN) and through at least four different variations (the original, as well as "Password Plus," "Super Password" and "Password All-Stars").

So there was never any doubt that I'd be in front of the TV set last night, when CBS premiered the latest iteration, "Million Dollar Password," with Regis Philbin taking over the hosting duties once performed by Allen Ludden, Tom Kennedy and Bert Convy.

The best game shows can be explained in one sentence -- or even just a few words. I'm sure you can guess which shows I'm talking about from the clues below:

> Three people claim to be the same person, but only one of them is telling the truth.
> Guess the contestant's occupation by asking yes-or-no questions.
> "Hangman" for money.
> "Tic-tac-toe" with stars in the boxes.
> Here's the answer. What's the question?

"Password" (created by Bob Stewart, who also came up with "To Tell the Truth" and later invented the "Pyramid") may be the simplest game-show idea of all: Get your partner to say a word by giving him a one-word clue. On this most basic of premises was built a show that contained, in spades, three of the required elements for a game show to become a classic:

> Humor (sometimes derived from the double meaning of a clue, sometimes from the facial expressions of exasperated or bewildered contestants)
> Suspense (will they get all five words in the allotted time?)
> The ability to play along at home (as in, "I could have given a better clue than that loser!" or, "Cleveland! Say Cleveland!")

"Million Dollar Password," I am delighted to report, has all of these elements as well. The show has been brought into the new millennium with features that reflect the latest trends in game shows, and it's lost a little bit of its charm and challenge along the way, but overall the newest "Password" is as funny, exciting and engaging as any of its predecessors.

Once again, the game begins with two teams, each consisting of a celebrity and a civilian. Last night's guests were Neil Patrick Harris and Rachael Ray, the woman for whom the word "ubiquitous" was coined. They are attractive, endearing and energetic stars who were no doubt chosen for their appeal to a younger audience, but really -- who under the age of 25 has been tuned in to CBS on a Sunday night at 8:00 since the last appearance of the Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show"? You don't get teen viewers with "Murder, She Wrote," "Touched by an Angel," or anything that comes on immediately after Andy Rooney.

So in that spirit I would like to say, "Shame on CBS for not having Betty White be one of the first celebrity guests on the new 'Password.'" One of the brightest and most competitive "Password" players ever, Betty White also met her late husband Allen Ludden when she guested on the original series. I know she's going to be on an upcoming episode; the promos have shown her. Come on. Would it have been so demographically destructive to give her the honor of going first? I don't care if she is 86 years old; even in her dotage, she couldn't be worse than Rachael Ray.

In previous versions of the show, what's now called the Elimination Round involved both teams trying to guess the same word (revealed to the audience by the announcer whispering, "The password is . . . "). Celebrity A, going first, might try to get his partner to say the word "penny" by giving the clue "cent." His partner, not realizing his teammate meant "cent" and not "scent," might respond "aroma." Now it's Celebrity B's turn to try to correct his teammate's thinking by saying "coin." His partner, though, thinks the first clue was "sent," and in trying to connect "sent" and "coin" responds "stamp." Now it's back to Celebrity A, who may well be completely flummoxed at this point. Eventually someone says "nickel" or "shiny" and the word is guessed, earning that team points (the fewer clues necessary, the more points won).

The first team to 25 points went on to the Lightning Round, in which the celebrity tried to get his partner to say five passwords, again using only one-word clues, in 60 seconds, to win the grand prize -- a whopping $250, if I recall correctly.

My, how times have changed.

The Elimination Round -- in fact, the whole show -- is now based on the Lightning Round concept. First, Team A's celebrity must try to get his partner to guess as many passwords as possible in 30 seconds (up to five maximum). Then Team B's celebrity must do the same. Then the civilians must give the clues. Then the celebrities switch teams and the process begins again. After each celebrity has given and taken clues from each civilian, the civilian with the greatest number of guessed passwords moves on to the Million Dollar Round, accompanied by the celebrity with whom he earned the most points.

If you think getting someone to say five words in 30 seconds using one-word clues would be easy, think again. It hardly happened at all in last night's premiere. Yet contestants regularly won the Mystery Seven on the "Pyramid," where clue-givers had 30 seconds to get their partners to say seven words or phrases. But on "Pyramid" you could say as many words as you wanted in giving a clue. One-word clues may seem more time-efficient, but they require some general knowledge plus the ability to come up with synonyms, opposites and half-phrases very quickly. All that thinking takes time.

For example, one of last night's passwords was "Ohio." The civilian contestant tried to get Neil Patrick Harris to say that word with the clue "state." Oh, that narrows it down. Then she came up with this stunner: "Indiana." Poor Doogie; all he could do was mumble, "Missouri?" before his unfortunate teammate decided to move on to the next password.

Cleveland! Say Cleveland!

The Elimination Round, in its new incarnation, rates high on the suspense scale, but only mid-range on the laugh-o-meter -- and what laughs it generates are mostly based on the cluelessness of the contestants. (Although NPH's facial expression when his partner, trying to get him to say "chat," said "chit," was priceless. "I thought he was swearing at me!")

While we no longer get to see what happens when two teams try to guess the same word, trying either to build on or dismantle what they've heard from their competitors, the thing I missed most last night was that surreptitious announcer sharing his secret with the viewers at home at the beginning of each round. "Password" without "The password is . . . " is like "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" without "Is that your final answer?" -- or "To Tell the Truth" without "Will the real so-and-so please stand up?" -- or "Survivor" without "The tribe has spoken; it's time for you to go." Every great game show has its catchphrase; "Million Dollar Password" hasn't found one yet.

As the old Lightning Round forms the basis of the new Elimination Round, it also serves as the starting point for the high-stakes endgame. Here, the cluegiver (who can be either the civilian or the celebrity -- civilian's choice) must first get his partner to say five passwords out of a possible ten in 90 seconds, giving a maximum of three one-word clues for each. Having done that successfully earns the contestant $10,000 and the opportunity to try to get his partner to say five passwords out of a possible nine for $25,000. If he completes that level, he gets to keep the $25,000 no matter what. The next rung up the ladder is five passwords out of a possible eight for $50,000. And so on and so forth until the contestant loses, chooses to go home with his winnings, or reaches the million-dollar level, where he must get his partner to say five passwords out of five, always with only three one-word clues allowed.

In last night's episode, both contestants who reached the endgame ended up going home with $25,000, although the second contestant, a hapless bartender named Eric who likes to be called E-Rock, provided some high drama. He reached the $100,000 level, where Regis will actually show the cluegiver the first five passwords so the contestant can choose whether to compete or take his previous winnings and run. If I recall correctly, E-Rock (whose apartment was broken into the week before taping) and Neil Patrick Harris stumbled on the word "corner" (the perfect third clue, after "street" and "crossing," would have been "intersection," but it didn't occur to E-Rock) and then E-Rock ran into a major problem: he didn't recognize the word "fiasco." As a result, he found himself living one.

Meanwhile, at my house, we were screaming, "Disaster! Debacle! Italian!" And that's as sure a sign as any that "Million Dollar Password" can be a hit show -- the format itself thoroughly engages the audience, as much in 2008 as when the original debuted in 1961.

Allen Ludden wouldn't recognize the new set. It bears all the earmarks of modern game shows, the ones that have been around since the advent of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" in 1999, including:

> The audience surrounding the host and contestants, in stadium seating, bathed in an eerie glow (here it's red)

> A theatrical, postmodern black set with dramatic lighting (and, interestingly, no chairs -- everybody's standing up, looking a little rumpled, the entire time)

> Musical underscoring for every round of competition, its tempo accelerating like the contestants' heartbeats

Allen Ludden's contestants sweated it out while seated in an all-beige world, their Lightning Round accompanied only by the tick-tock of an annoying cuckoo clock. Regis Philbin's contestants are racking their brains while trying not to fall over inside the International Space Station, set to the score of Jaws.

Regis, of course, makes a logical successor to Ludden, Kennedy and Convy. He knows that the most important thing a game-show host can do is to relax the contestants and move the proceedings along. In the first episode, Reege didn't seem to have an innate understanding of the show (the rules for the million-dollar round are, after all, a bit complex), but that will come with time. He also didn't try to de-brief the players after a round ("Ah, if you had only said, 'Cleveland,' he probably would have gotten it"), but then he's Regis Philbin, not Alex Trebek. You never got the sense that Regis knew any of the answers on "Millionaire," and he's not pretending to be the reincarnation of Roget here. He's being Reege, moving things along, grumbling (that Rachael Ray has never been on his talk show when Regis has actually been there), going for the occasional laugh (including a pretty funny allusion to Neil Patrick Harris's sexuality) and generally being the type of person you're happy to have in your living room for an hour at a time. In other words, he's perfect.

According to Zap2it.com, "Million Dollar Password" had the highest overnight Nielsens of any show on network TV last night, scoring a 6.8 rating and a 12 share. (Second overall for the night was "60 Minutes" with a 6.6/13; the runner-up in "Password"'s 8:00 time slot was the second half of a "Most Outrageous Moments" special on NBC, which mustered only a 3.7/7.)

I am hoping that what kept the original series going for so many years -- the desire of viewers to see how the next week's celebrities do playing the game -- will entice the healthy premiere audience to tune in again. I know I plan to.