"What." "Game." "Show." "Isn't." "The." "Ancient." "Board." "Game?" [ding!]
Short-lived Game Show created by Bob Stewart, best known for being the creator of Password and the Pyramid franchise. The NBC game ran for a blistering sixteen weeks from October 3, 1983 to January 20, 1984.
Much like Pyramid, Go relied on celebrity-contestant tandems trying to describe words to each other. It relied on a more unusual description method: each team comprised one celebrity and four contestants. One player would serve as the guesser and, two at a time, the others would try to build a description for each word, one word at a time ("What" "website" "hangs" "lampshades?"). After the clue was finished, one player would hit a bell (ding!) and the guesser would respond with an answer ("TV Tropes!"). If s/he was right, the guesser moved on to the next pair in the team, and on down the line, playing to either 99 seconds or five words. Cash was accumulated for out-scoring the opposing team or beating their time to get five words right, in a $250-$500-$750-$1250 format. The first team to score at least $1500 kept the money and advanced to the Bonus Round.
Originally using standard game show championship rules (i.e., winner stays), the format was slightly altered on October 31 (Week 5) to have both teams stay on the entire week. This format, previously used on 3 For The Money (1975) and Mindreaders (1979-80), was referred to on Go as "Head-To-Head".
This show provides examples of:
- The Announcer: Johnny Gilbert, who also did The $25,000 Pyramid and has been announcing Jeopardy! since 1984. Jack Clark filled-in for two weeks.
- Bonus Round: Basically the same game with a goal of seven words in 60 seconds. In this instance, one player was the receiver again, and the others built the questions: all four for the first one, three for the second, two for the third, and one working solo for the fourth. The progression was then reversed, with two for the fifth, three for the sixth, and all four for the seventh. $200 a word, all seven was worth $10,000. The round would be played twice if the team had won the main game by sweeping the first three rounds.
- Catchphrase: Kevin's sign-off: "K.O. for G-O!"
- Celebrity Edition: Celebrities were the captains, but two all-celeb weeks were done — Week 6 (November 7-11) had the cast of Days of Our Lives competing against Another World, while Week 9 (November 28-December 2) had Another World taking on Search for Tomorrow.
- Game Show Host: News anchor/weatherman Kevin O'Connell, in his only game show role which went to series.
- Opening Narration: "Ladies and gentlemen, the name of the game is Go. And two teams are here to compete for a jackpot worth up to $20,000. This week our celebrity captains are [name] and [name]. And now here is your host, ready to go, Kevin O'Connell!"
- Spin-Off: The maingame format was previously the Bonus Round to an earlier Stewart show for NBC, Chain Reaction. Before that, it was the maingame in the 1977 Stewart pilot Get Rich Quick!
- Title Drop: Pretty much unavoidable, as each round would start with "Ready, go!" Also taken to literal extremes, as the set had "GO" written in about a zillion places.
- Transatlantic Equivalent: The show returned on September 10, 1984 as Get Set Go
on BBC1. Hosted by Michael Barrymore, it folded on November 26 after a mere 12 episodes.
