Crazyclimber80's Tribute To THE CROSS-WITS!
9One more game show-- and that'll be it for a while, I think-- and this is the syndicated game show THE CROSS-WITS, which ran from 1975 to 1980 and 1986-87 (also under the title of THE ALL NEW CROSSWITS). The original series had the much more fun and affable Jack Clark (who was more known for announcer duties than hosting, but he's good here) and both versions featured a (watered-down/simplified) crossword board. The 2 contestants are named captains of their two-celebrity teams, and a coin flip determined who started the game. The captain chose which word to start with, and which celebrity to guess what the word was (the host read a clue). If they missed, the captain had a crack at it and if they missed control shifted to the other team. After all words were uncovered they tied to a single common theme. The team that guessed the theme (all 3 could confer for 7 seconds, which was the same amount of time allowed for a word guess) won the game. Puzzles kept being played until a bell sounded to end the main game. Whoever was in the lead at that point won and played the bonus game dubbed CROSS FIRE. Here, the captain chose one of their celeb partners to help them (either could answer) on a board of 10 words to complete in 60 seconds for a prize package. Notes: the 2nd round was the "car round" or "car puzzle", in which the winner of the 1st round got one crack at solving the whole puzzle theme after only one clue for a new car (understandably hard to do). Also, 10 points were given to a team for each letter in a word, and 100 for a puzzle solved. If 1,000 points were accrued by either team $1,000 was given to the captain. I like that neither series "straddled" (had an episode in progress pick up the following show-- they made sure to end a show proper at the conclusion). And Jack Clark was a nice, personable and funny host. I remember the 1975-80 version playing at night after dinner, somewhere around 7 or 7:30 PM (maybe later). A model (Jerri Fiala) would point to the letters in the word the team chose with a long stick, seeing how computer technology was pretty primitive at the time and didn't have a generated graphic highlight the line or something. The 1986-87 version was not good IMHO, though it had plenty of computer graphics to highlight various things on the board (and show a splashy graphic of crosswords and a pencil zooming across the screen at the open). David Sparks was.. meh. The music and set were not great IMHO either, but the format of the game was generally the same as 1975-80. An additional game was played at the very end where after the Cross Fire round all the celebs had boxes and the champion captain (champtain?) picked the celeb who they thought might have a sign that said the name of the car on display that they wanted to win. As far as I know the whole series is still intact, and some episodes have been shown on Game Show Network. Plenty of celebs from the time appeared on The Cross-Wits. Jack Clark died of bone cancer 8 years after the end of his run on The Cross-Wits. RIP Jack. Great voice and an even greater personality. This is Crazyclimber80 speaking for The Cross-Wits! A Ralph Edwards production.