Child's Play (game show)

This article is about the TV game show. For other uses, see Child's Play (disambiguation).

Child's Play
Child's Play title card.
Format	Game show
Created by	Mimi O'Brien for Mark Goodson Productions
Presented by	Bill Cullen
Narrated by	Gene Wood
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	258
Production
Location(s)	CBS Television City Hollywood, California
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	22–24 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	September 20, 1982 (1982-09-20) – September 16, 1983 (1983-09-16)

Child's Play is an American television game show in which adult contestants tried to guess words based on definitions given by children. The Mark Goodson-produced series debuted on CBS from September 20, 1982 at 10:30 AM Eastern/9:30 AM Central (immediately following The New $25,000 Pyramid, which debuted on the same day). That time slot was held by Alice for a little over two years. Child's Play was never able to make ratings headway against either Wheel of Fortune or Sale of the Century, two hit game shows that NBC aired opposite it; CBS ended the series on September 16, 1983 and replaced it with Press Your Luck, which performed much better for CBS.

Perhaps the first inklings of the format appeared on a 1967 episode of Goodson-Todman's earlier series I've Got a Secret, on which guest Woody Allen read children's definitions of words for the panel to guess.^[1] Child's Play host Bill Cullen was a member of that series' panel.

Hosts and announcers

Child's Play was hosted by game show veteran Bill Cullen (who had just finished hosting NBC's Blockbusters). This was both Cullen's final game for CBS and his last for Mark Goodson, ending a 30 year association with the Goodson company as an emcee. Gene Wood was the primary announcer for the entire run, with Johnny Gilbert, Fred Saxon, and Bob Hilton (who also announced on the pilot) filling in on occasion.

Cullen first plugged the show during his only appearance on Bob Barker's version of The Price Is Right (Cullen hosted the original version of Price from 1956-1965, although this was not mentioned in his appearance with Barker).

Main game

Two contestants competed. The object of the game was to correctly identify words based on videotaped definitions given by elementary school-age children (ages 5–9). The game was played in two rounds.

Round 1

In the first round, a word was given to the home audience, and a video clip of a child defining that word was played. (For example: "It's when you run around and wave your arms back and forth." Answer: Arms race.) Any incriminating words (including the word itself) were censored.

Once the clip ended, the contestant had a chance to guess the word; a correct response earned one point. If the contestant was incorrect, their opponent viewed a clip of another child defining the same word. If the opponent was wrong, control passed back to the first contestant, who saw one final clip (usually of an older child, and the answer usually not that hard to guess by this point). If the contestant was still wrong, Cullen announced the correct answer and no points were awarded.

The first round continued, with the players alternating control on words (originally the winner of the previous word played first on each new word), until the first commercial break.

Round 2: Fast Play

The second round was known as the "Fast Play" round. Both contestants were given the opportunity to guess what word the child was defining by hitting a buzzer to interrupt the video clip and guess the word. If the contestant was correct, they received two points; if incorrect, the rest of the clip was played and the opponent was given a chance to guess. When the school bell rang, the game was over. If there was a tie at the end of the game, a tie-breaking word would be played. If a contestant buzzed in with the right word, they won the game; if the contestant gave a wrong answer, the contestant was locked out, and their opponent got a chance to listen to the entire description of the same child, before taking a free guess.

Notes: In the first three episodes, correct answers in "Fast Play" were still worth one point. After the school bell rang the first time, correct answers were worth double, or two points. Also, upon stealing, the stealer would see the whole clip rather than start from where it left off. This rule was discontinued in favor of the rules above.

The contestant with the highest score when time expired won $500 and played the bonus round.

Bonus round

Two different bonus round formats were played during the year-long run of Child's Play. The object was the same in both — complete the round within forty-five seconds to win $5,000.

Format 1: Triple Play

In the "Triple Play" bonus game a winning contestant tried to guess words based on definitions written by three children. ("Child A", "Child B", and "Child C"). The contestant started by picking one of the three children, whose definition was then read by Cullen, and then either provided a guess or chose another child's definition. If the player was not able to guess the word after seeing all three definitions, they passed to the next word.

Each correct guess was worth $100, while getting six before time expired won $5,000.

Format 2: Turnabout

The "Turnabout" bonus round was instituted April 25, 1983. In this round, the winning contestant was joined by five of the children who were appearing in the film clips and had to describe seven words to them. Each time the champion got a correct answer from a child, they won $100 for themselves and the children won $100 to be split among them. The champion was able to pass and return to a word if time permitted. If the champion was able to get the children to guess all seven words within the time limit, they won $5,000 for themselves and the five children shared $1,000.

While giving clues a player could not give any illegal clue (i.e., saying the word, using a form of the word in the clue). Doing so took the word out of play and cost the player and the children a chance at their respective top prizes, but play continued until time ran out or all the other words had been successfully guessed by the children.

Champions returned until they were defeated, won five consecutive games, or reached the winnings limit CBS imposed on its game shows- which at the time was $25,000.

Episode status

The series is intact, and has been seen on GSN at various times.

Notable contestants

Several celebrities appeared on Child's Play before they became famous: Jeff Cohen, Breckin Meyer, Masi Oka, and Tara Reid were all featured children on the show. In addition, Anne-Marie Johnson appeared as a contestant.^{[citation needed]} Also, Sugar Ray Robinson appeared in the audience of the July 4, 1983 episode, and Bill Cullen introduced him as the boxing coach of one of the Child's Play kids participating in the Turnabout game.

Spanish version: Dame la Pista

On September 15, 2008 FremantleMedia, owners of the Goodson-Todman catalog of games, revived Child's Play in the Spanish-speaking market as Dame la Pista ("Give Me a Clue") hosted by Alessandra Rosaldo on Univision-owned TeleFutura. This show was the lead-in to ¿Qué dice la gente? (Spanish-language version of Family Feud) during its run. The show has been cancelled for unknown reasons as the show's page has been taken down from the TeleFutura website.

UK version

Main article: Child's Play (UK game show)

References

1. ^ I've Got a Secret, February 27, 1967. Date sourced from Kinescopes.com

External links

• Game Show Utopia: Child's Play
• Child's Play (game show) at the Internet Movie Database