Airing: 4:00-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, July 7-November 28, ABC.

Personnel: Tom Kennedy, host; John Harlan, announcer. A Ralph Andrews Production. Taped in Los Angeles.

Description: A word game originally somewhat similar in structure to Password, but with far longer clues and a little more humor.

Game Play: Two players competed. Four celebrity panelists were shown the name of a famous person, place, or thing (as was the home audience). One player would choose one of the four celebrity panelists, who would construct a sentence in which the last word, left unsaid, sounded like part of the name they were trying to convey, without it being the name itself. For example, say the name being conveyed was Babe Ruth; the clue might be "When a husband and wife have a child, and it’s a newborn, it’s called a _____." (The last word of the sentence is the one you don’t say!) If the contestant got the word right, they have five seconds to guess the person, place, or thing (only one guess allowed). The celebrity was not allowed to say anything after not saying the last word, but was allowed to gesture. If the person, place, or thing wasn’t guessed, the turn passed to the other player, who would pick one of the other three celebrities for a second clue. For example, "When a tree is in the ground, it has these long things growing from the bottom of the tree holding it in place; one of these things is called a _____."

Scoring was as follows: $200 if guessed on the first clue, $150 on the second, $100 on the third, $50 on the fourth and final clue. All four celebrities had to be chosen at least once until one could be picked again. $500 won the game, and the winner went to the Bonus Board.

End Game: The player gave clues to the celebrities at this point. The player had up to five (later six) clues to convey four names, winning $500 for conveying one name, $1,000 for two, $2,000 for three, and $5,000 for four. Any player who got four names in four clues received a double bonus, or $10,000. Players continued until they lost two games.

Background: You Don’t Say! debuted on NBC April 1, 1963, after a four-month run on Los Angeles television station KTLA. Tom Kennedy, who had hosted a couple of short-run prime time games and done some announcing after following his brother Jack Narz to television (Kennedy’s real name is Jim Narz), was selected to host the network version. Kennedy replaced Jack Barry, who was anathema to the networks (and would be for six more years) because of his involvement with the quiz show scandals. In this version, two celebrities were partnered with two contestants, and each correct answer was counted as one point, with three points winning the game and going to the Bonus Board, where up to three clues were given for one answer, with a maximum win of $300. (After the scandals, games were played for very low stakes.) The clues were often submitted by home viewers, and a 3-0 win in the main game plus a one-clue solve at the Bonus Board won the contestant a new car.

According to Wesley Hyatt, author of The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television, the similarities between YDS! and Password did not escape Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions, who sued Ralph Andrews/Bill Yagemann Productions for copyright infringement. G-T lost the case, but won one concession, ridiculous as it seems: Kennedy couldn’t have his podium between the two sets of players, as Allen Ludden did on Password, but had to stand to the left or the right of them. (For what it’s worth, Kennedy and Ludden became very good friends, and Ludden played You Don’t Say! within weeks after CBS dropped Password in 1967.)

In a time slot where games hadn’t aired much before (or since), the show became quite popular, ranking among the top three game shows for five straight years, including #1 in the 1966-67 season. It also ran briefly in prime time in 1964, replacing the western Redigo. In 1969, NBC cleaned out its game schedule, dropping Eye Guess, Match Game, Personality, and You Don’t Say! on September 26. Some of the replacements worked out (Personality’s replacement was Sale of the Century, and You Don’t Say! was superceded by the soap opera Bright Promise, which ran three years); some didn’t (if I’m offending fans of Name Droppers or Letters to Laugh-In, I’m not offending many people).

Similarly, ABC cleaned house in 1975, dropping five game from their daytime lineup (Blankety Blanks, The Big Showdown, The Money Maze, Password, and Split Second). You Don’t Say! was dusted off, Kennedy kept a network job by moving from Split Second to YDS!, and the show replaced The Money Maze at 4 p.m. weekdays.

Note: according to Randy Amasia, the show got a warmup in the spring of 1975 on local television in Los Angeles, with Kennedy hosting. If this is the case, Kennedy was hosting three games simultaneously: the local YDS!, Split Second, and Name That Tune.

Say What?: One would have hoped that fans of Match Game ’75 were twisting their dials after that show ended at 4 p.m. to watch the revised You Don’t Say! (which had obviously been reconfigured to add a few celebrities). But they didn’t. The celebrity bookings, which had been so marvelous in the NBC run (June Lockhart and Leonard Nimoy! Carolyn Jones and John Astin! Howard Duff and Ida Lupino! Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Anne Baxter!), fell off a bit. Television stars in series both present (Loretta Swit, Sherman Helmsley) and past (Abby Dalton of Henessey, Larry Hovis of Hogan’s Heroes) were used, but many celebrities were unknown to the viewing public (I went a long time not knowing how Conny Van Dyke and Ann Elder became famous). The game’s restructuring hurt its flow as well. Most importantly, Fred Silverman had become president of ABC, and the network acquired the rights to The Edge of Night after CBS dropped it in November. Silverman had never been a game show fan; The Edge of Night’s strongest time slots had been late afternoons… you get the picture. (In fairness, ABC ran two soaps in the 3-4 p.m. hour before You Don’t Say!, so a final soap to wrap up the afternoon made a lot of sense.) You Don’t Say! was dropped November 28, after a five-month run.

Kennedy’s Administration: Tom Kennedy became a popular host as a result of YDS!, and hosted more games than anyone but Bill Cullen. After the ABC version of YDS! was dropped, he ran Break the Bank (1976, ABC), 50 Grand Slam (1976, NBC), a daytime version of Name That Tune (1977, NBC), To Say the Least (1977-78, NBC), Whew! (1979-80, CBS), Password Plus (1980-82, NBC, replacing Allen Ludden after his stroke), Body Language (1984-86, CBS), a syndicated version of The Price Is Right (1985-86), and Wordplay (1987, NBC). He’s happily retired and living in southern California. Among his most recent television appearances: a guest shot on Cybill, playing himself hosting Name That Tune.

Say Goodbye: The show returned for a year in first-run syndication in September 1978, hosted by Jim Peck (as Tom Kennedy was already busy with Name That Tune). The 1975 format was used again (with the exception that one point was awarded for every correct answer instead of cash, regardless of what clue yielded the answer, with five points winning the game), the celebrities were not huge names (Bob Ridgely, Marty Cohen), the time slots varied (in New York, it ran at 8:30 p.m. on an independent station), and the result was less than a one-year run.

• "I’m an Italian-o…" Clever way of getting the contestant to say a word and add "O" to the end. (Also, "I’m an Italian-a…") Drives my wife crazy when we play the home game.
• "That’s the word you don’t say!" The wrapup of Tom Kennedy’s rules explanation. You’ve really got to play or see the game to understand it; the explanation doesn’t do it justice.

The Home Game: None from the 1975 version. Milton Bradley released a lovely home game in 1963, which I finally acquired 35 years later. Oddly, they only did one edition. It’s available often enough on eBay; pick it up if you can.

Reruns: Gone, gone, and gone. A couple of episodes of each version are on the trading circuit, but that’s it. The one episode from the 1975 version features Larry Hovis, Bob Ridgley, Conny Van Dyke, and Ann Elder (giving an extraordinarily bad clue at one point) and a $10,000 win.

Revivals: It would take some work – Password would be the easier game to sell to station managers. I believe Ralph Andrews still has the rights to the show, but his production company hasn’t been active since the late 1908s.

Curt Alliaume, Executive Producer: First of all, return to the 1960s version, which in my opinion worked better. Second, develop a new end game, preferably one that involved a race against the clock (five answers in 60 seconds, with a maximum of one pass? revive the Bonus Board?). Finally, a special host is needed, and Tom Kennedy is retired. This project would require a lot of work – but the end result could be fabulous.

My 1975 Grade: C+.

Read More About It:

• Chuck Donegan’s Illustrious Game Show Page features an interview David Hammett conducted with Tom Kennedy in 1996.
• Mike Dudas’ Game Show Site includes a full Tom Kennedy scrapbook, which features a few screen grabs from the 1960s edition of YDS!
• Adam C. Nedeff’s Tom Kennedy’s World has a full page on the early version of the show, with a bunch of screen grabs. And since it is a Tom Kennedy page, he has a full page on the 1975 version as well.