You Don't Say

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Game Show first produced for KTLA (local Los Angeles television) by Desilu, hosted by Jack Barry. It was later acquired by producers Ralph Andrews and Bill Yaggemann, and moved to NBC from 1963-69.

It was a word association game like Password, except the catch was to identify names of famous people or places. Two teams, each of a celebrity and a civilian, communicated the names by forming a sentence with the last word missing. That word could sound like, but not spelled like, part of the name. Each team had up to two attempts to communicate the name. Doing so scored a point, with three winning the game.

The show was revived on ABC in July-November 1975, and used a larger format: now, four celebrity panelists alternated giving clues to two contestants, with correct guesses worth money starting at $250 for the first clue and ending at $50 for four clues. The first to get $500 won.

The last run was in daily syndication for six months in 1978-79, hosted by Jim Peck.

The following Game Show tropes appear in You Don't Say:

• Bonus Round: The Bonus Board.
  • NBC: Three clues were shown, one at a time, to a famous name. $300 was awarded for getting the name on the first clue, $200 for the second, and $100 for the third.
  • ABC/Syn.: The player gave clues to the celebrity, winning $1,000 for each name guessed up to four names in five tries. If four names were guessed, that player won $5,000; late in the run, going "five for five" won $10,000.
• Personnel:
  • The Announcer: John Harlan.
  • Game Show Host: Jack Barry on the original KTLA series, followed by Tom Kennedy. Clark Race hosted part of the 1974-75 KTLA series, followed by Tom. Jim Peck helmed the syndicated run.
• Show the Folks At Home: Names were flashed on-screen along with a hushed spiel by Harlan. Subverted at least once per show with "Guess Who" or a series of question marks.

Tropes used in You Don't Say include:

• Expy: Indeed, it was so similar to Password that Goodson-Todman threatened a lawsuit for plagiarism; while they didn't get YDS off the air, they did get them to move Tom's podium from the center to the far left.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Shortly into the NBC run, players that won the game 3-0 (a "blitz") and got $300 on the Bonus Board also won a new car.
  • The names on the Bonus Board were furnished by viewers not too long after the show started. The viewer whose name used on the Board when a player wins a car won 100,000 S&H green stamps. In 1968, that was upped to 1 million green stamps.
• Opening Narration: The NBC era had celebrities with their backs to the camera, each giving a clue to part of their name, to which Tom would crack a silly joke. Example:

Michael Landon: A two-wheeled vehicle is called... Tom Kennedy: Half a Volkswagen.

• • After which Tom said "And I'm Tom Kennedy, and the name of our show is You Don't Say!"
  • The ABC opening was "Today, (names of celebrities) are all here to play television's funniest game, You Don't Say!" (This was later changed to "television's most challenging game", since many viewers considered Match Game '75 to be the funniest.)