Number Please
Game Show produced by Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions for ABC and hosted by Bud Collyer which replaced Beat the Clock, a Goodson-Todman game hosted by Collyer. The daytime game had two contestants facing a pair of 19-slot boards (numbered, as you'd expect, from 1-19; the top row belonged to the champion). The contestants each chose three numbers to start the game, then alternated picking one number at a time to reveal either letters or spaces.
This continued until one of them buzzed-in, in which case s/he then had to give the answer to both their own puzzle and their opponent's exactly as they were on the board. Doing so awarded the puzzle answers (always prizes, and always related to each other), along with a few bonuses.
Originally, each match consisted of a single pair of puzzles. By May, the format was altered to a best-of-three match.
The show ran from January 30-December 29, 1961 and, while Collyer continued with To Tell the Truth on CBS, Number Please quickly dropped into obscurity thanks to being wiped.
- Game Show Winnings Cap: Five games, a limit that may have been dropped when the format was altered.
- Home Game: One was produced, which doesn't really bear any resemblance to the TV format (or at least that of the existing episode).
- Personnel:
- The Announcer: Ralph Paul.
- Game Show Host: Bud Collyer.
- Studio Audience
- Catch Phrase:
- "[Let's] light up the game board."
- "Congratulations from Number Please!"
- Opening Narration: The logo was a smaller version of the game board, with twelve spaces on two rows. The letters revealed themselves as Paul said them.
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"N-U-M-B-E-R, P-L-E-A-S-E...Number Please. This portion of Number Please is brought to you by Johnson shampoo — the no-tears shampoo that can't burn eyes. And now here's your host on Number Please, Bud Collyer!" |
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- Recycled Soundtrack: At least part of the music library consisted of prize cues from The Price Is Right.
- Title Drop: "[Contestant], what is your first number, please?"