Short-lived ABC Game Show by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman which pit two contestants, each paired with two celebrity teammates. One team was sequestered out of sight, while the other split up between "actors" and "guesser". The actors mimed up to six words in 60 seconds for the guesser to identify. Afterward, the other team came out and communicated the same words. The team with the highest score won the game, and best-of-three won the match.
In the Bonus Round, the celebs acted out a series of words to the contestant in 60 seconds, with $1 awarded for each. After this, the player got another 15 seconds and three words; each one guessed added a zero to the amount earned beforehand, for a possible payout of more than $10,000.
The series probably shouldn't have gone to air at all (see the Trivia tab for the explanation why), but debuted on June 30, 1975 at 12:00 PM Eastern (replacing Password ABC) and ran until December 26. In late 1983, Goodson found success with a tweaked format, Body Language.
This show provides examples of:
- The Announcer: Gene Wood.
- Bonus Round: Celebs acted out a series of words to the contestant in 60 seconds, with $1 awarded for each. After this, the player got another 15 seconds and three words; each one guessed added a zero to the amount earned beforehand, for a possible payout of more than $10,000.
- Later on, the champion had to guess three words given one at a time by one of their celebrity partners, with a successful guess worth increasing amounts of money ($1,000 for the first word, $2,000 for the second word, and $5,000 for the third and final word). They could stop at any time, because if they failed to guess the next word within the lime limit, they lost half their winnings.
- Color-Coded Multiplayer: One team wore red turtleneck sweaters, while the other team wore blue. Around midway through the show's run, the name "REDS" and "BLUES" were added for the benefits of viewers watching on black-and-white televisions (which were still somewhat common at the time).
- Game Show Host: Larry Blyden did the pilot, Bobby Van did the series.
- Opening Narration: "Places, please...it's curtain time for the Showoffs!"
- Episode Code Number: Like all ABC shows of the time, a three-letter code, with the total number of shows recorded in the year, and the year itself was used. The Christmas Day episode that's held at UCLA, for example, says #128-SHF-'75.
- Show the Folks at Home
