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A Secret Word is frequently used in popular culture to provide tension and excitement. A minority of people know it, others don't and everyone is curious whether those who don't know it will find out what it is, or, how long it will take them? In certain stories the secret word may be a Trigger Phrase: once it's said a magic spell or hypnotic mind control device may change everything. In other stories a guard may only let someone enter a room if the visitor says the secret word. See also The Password Is Always "Swordfish", Highly Visible Password (for tropes about obvious secret words) and Joe Sent Me (when a secret word has the variation "X sent me".)

In certain TV shows the audience is informed beforehand what the secret word for today is, while the panel members or contestants are unaware. During the show they have to guess it or, even more fun, are tricked into saying it. When the secret word is finally revealed to everybody the audience will laugh and cheer in excitement. He/She who said the secret word may win a prize or is considered to be the Butt-Monkey for that episode.

Secret words are also sometimes used during stage performances, as a sort of Inside Joke that either only the fans can get (and thus feel united by) or something that they can try to decipher as the show goes on.

Not to be confused with Trust Password.


Examples:

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    Radio 
  • The Dutch radio show "Ekstra Weekend" (2006-2013) had an item called "The Secret Word", in which listeners could send their text messages at the moment the secret word-jingle was played. When a listener was chosen, he or she would receive the secret word off-air. Then a friend or relative of the listener is called. When they pick up the phone, the contestant has to describe the secret word, without actually saying it or mentioning they are on national radio. When the other person guesses the word, instantly the James Last version of the "Too Fat Polka (She's too fat for me)" is played, while the entire studio goes crazy. Hammering things with trashcan lids or forming a conga line to celebrate the correct answer. At last the prizes the contestant wins are revealed. When the provided relatives or friends can't be reached, Fabienne de Vries was called. She's usually helpful to the contestant and almost always gets the right word.

    Film 

    Live-Action TV 
  • Password: In this game show contestants had to guess a secret word through a series of clues.
  • Keep Talking: Had the same format as Password.
  • You Bet Your Life: Some show tension revolved around whether a contestant would say the secret word, a common word revealed to the audience at the show's outset. If a contestant said the word, a toy duck resembling Groucho Marx with a mustache and eyeglasses, and with a cigar in its bill, descended from the ceiling to bring a $100 bill. Groucho sometimes slyly directed conversation to encourage the secret word to come up.
  • Peewees Playhouse: At the start of every show Pee-Wee informed the audience, "The secret word for today is _____." He would try to make his guests say it, but they were not always that easily fooled and so sometimes Pee-Wee accidentally said it himself. When the secret word was said all children were allowed to scream real loud while in Pee-Wee's house itself an alarm went off.
  • Saturday Night Live: A recurring joke in the show was the segment "Secret Word" in which two contestants in a game show had to guess hidden words based on clues from their celebrity partners.
  • Ribert And Roberts Wonderworld: In this children's show three "magic keys" need to be obtained, after which a secret word is revealed in line with the day's subject.
  • Ellen DeGeneres had a "Mystery Word" on her talk show, which she tried to get her guests to say. If one of them said it, it meant either a prize for the audience or a charity donation.
  • In the episode of Sesame Street where the adults finally see Mr. Snuffleupagus, Big Bird arranges for them to come over whenever he shouts a secret word, "food". At one point, the cast debates over whether "food" is a silly word to Phil Donahue.
  • The Kenny Everett Video Cassette had a segment whose sole purpose was to have a celebrity guest Covered in Gunge. They could allegedly avoid this by saying the 'secret word', which was always something incredibly unlikely to come up in casual conversation, like 'theodolite'.
  • The first version of the game show Now You See It introduced an element where a team could score 10 bonus points if his/her partner found the answer to a question that the other team member had written down beforehand.

    Music 
  • Frank Zappa introduced a "secret word" to his audience during all of his concerts. This was usually an inside joke only he and his band members would get, but it would hold the attention of the audience during the show. It's specifically mentioned during Fillmore East, June 1971 and The Yellow Shark.

    Mythology and Religion 
  • Played straight in The Bible (in Judges 12:5–6 KJV):
    And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

    Western Animation 
  • The Simpsons: In the episode "Marge Gets A Job" Krusty's TV show also turns out to have a "secret word" segment. Unfortunately the word is "loud" and involves a lot of celebration and noise, which alarms the wolf of a zoo keeper being a guest on the show so much that it escapes.
  • The Fairly Oddparents: The original pilot episode has Cosmo approach Vicky with a Groucho impression—complete with the glasses—to literally do this when Wanda turns herself into a baby and lands on Vicky.
    Grocho!Cosmo: That's the first time the baby ever sat on the sitter.
    Vicky: HELP!
    Grocho!Cosmo: Sorry. The secret word was "pie".
    (pies her in the face)
  • Family Guy: The episode "Peter Griffin: Husband, Father... Brother?" has a parody of Pee-wee's Playhouse in which Peter turns his house into Pee-Wee Herman's playhouse. After Lois calls this "ridiculous" it turns out that was the secret word for today.

    Other 
  • The word game Jotto also lets each player pick a secret word of five letters that the other players have to guess.
  • Every defense system, from the military to social network sites, uses secret words as a pass word.

    Real Life 
  • AA members call themselves "friends of Bill W."
  • Pacific theater US soldiers used the world "lollapalooza" due to the difficulty it would give native speakers of Japanese.
  • The term in sociology for these kinds of phrases is shibboleth.

    Web Original 


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