Boggle (game show)

Boggle is an American game show that was broadcast on The Family Channel from March 7^[1] to November 18, 1994.^[2] It was based on the board game of the same name. Wink Martindale was the host, and Randy West was the announcer.

Martindale and Bill Hillier created and produced four "interactive" games for FAM, Boggle being one of them. The other three were Trivial Pursuit, Shuffle, and Jumble. Martindale hosted and West announced all four programs.

Boggle premiered the same day as Shuffle. The two shows shared the same theme song, sound effects and set. After the taping of an episode of Boggle was complete, the set pieces were redone and rearranged into the set for Shuffle. The set pieces were re-arranged a third time for Jumble.

Gameplay[]

Round 1[]

Four contestants competed. Each one had a 3×4 telephone keypad built into their podium, which was used to find words in a Boggle board. A typical Boggle board is illustrated to the right.

The words were formed from adjacent letters, and the same letter could not be used more than once. Martindale reminded contestants to ignore the letters printed on their telephone keypad and only focus on the ones on the board. Using the example board, a contestant pressed 6, 8, 9, and # to spell S-O-C-K.

Martindale read a clue to a word, and contestants had 10 seconds to punch in the keys corresponding to the word. After three seconds, the first letter of the word was revealed. Contestants received points depending on how quickly they punched in the right answer, starting at 1,000 and counting down as time passed.

Five words were played; the first three were four letters long, and the last two were five letters long. After those five words, the contestant with the lowest score was eliminated.

Round 2[]

In Round 2, all the scores were reset to zero and the three remaining contestants played a new board. The lowest scoring contestant after five more words was eliminated.

Round 3[]

In Round 3, the scores were reset to zero again and one final board was played. The contestant with the higher score after five more words won a trip and a small prize. The second-place contestant won a smaller prize.

Interactive Component[]

After each round with the studio contestants concluded, home viewers could call a special 1–900 number and play a game of "Interactive Boggle". The cost to play was $4.98. The game was played similar to a round of the studio game, with home viewers answering by using their touch-tone telephone keypad. The home viewer with the highest score received a small prize and the right to enter a weekly playoff. The playoff was played exactly as before, and the ultimate winner received a trip.

References[]