- Network: ABC
- Series Premiere Date: Jun 26, 2016
Summary:
Welcome to The $100,000 Pyramid guide at TV Tome.
Next to Password, The $100,000 Pyramid ranks as one of the greatest word-association games of all time. The contest of attempting to associate words and phrases within a time limit, along with the pressure-packed "Winners' Circle" bonus round, made for what remains a television masterpiece.
Pyramid, an expansion of creator Bob Stewart's Password (which he created during his time with Goodson-Todman Productions), had gone through two daily versions (1973's The $10,000 Pyramid, retitled The $20,000 Pyramid in 1976; and The $25,000 Pyramid, which began in 1982) and two syndicated versions (a mid-1970s entry known as The $25,000 Pyramid and a short-lived tourney, The $50,000 Pyramid, which came out in 1981).
Play in this five-a-week show was virtually identical to each of the previous versions. Two contestants (one a returning champion), competed, each paired with a celebrity partner. Two full games were played per show, each having a front game and the Winners' Circle.
Host Dick Clark announced a series of six pun-styled categories (e.g., Accessorize Me, You're All Wet), which more often than not had no bearing on what the category was about (for instance, "Accessorize Me" might pertain to options you order on a car, while "You're All Wet" could be about things you do to fool others).
Each team alternated in choosing categories, each having seven words. The cluegivers then had to communicate the words to their partner within 30 seconds; the cluegiver could say or do anything he/she needed to get his/her partner to say the word, except say all or part of the word itself. Each team earned one point per word guessed, while a team could not score on words that were passed (though the player could score if he/she thought of it later; plus, Clark sometimes allowed a team to come back to a word if a win or tie score was at stake, without using any new clues). Any time all or part of a word was said, the famous Pyramid cuckoo would hoot and the clue was disqualified. Play continued until all words were played or time ran out.
One of the cryptic clues in each round hid a special "bonus" category:
• 7-11, a first-round game where the contestant won $1,100 for getting all seven words.
• Mystery 7, played in the second round, where a bonus prize was awarded to the contestant for guessing all seven words. The subject was not announced until after its playing.
Each team member took turns giving...
Details
| Network: | ABC |
|---|---|
| Genre(s): | Talk & Interview, Game Show |
| Seasons: | 7, 6, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1 |
