Scrabble was an American television game show that was based on the Scrabble board game. The Reg Grundy production (co-produced in association with Exposure Unlimited) ran on NBC from July 2, 1984, to March 23, 1990, and again from January 18 to June 11, 1993. Chuck Woolery hosted both incarnations of the show.

Rules of the game

Crossword round
Two contestants played a crossword game on a computer-generated Scrabble board. They were given a letter to build on, the number of letters in that word, and a clue to help them figure out the word. The player going first had the option of guessing the word, or selecting two tiles from a rack of 11 (which included three stoppers--letters that were not in the word). The letters from the tiles are thus revealed, and the player had to choose one of the two letters. If it was in the puzzle, he/she can guess the word or select the other letter. If the other letter appears in the word, he/she can again guess the word or select two more tiles. If a letter selected was a stopper, that player lost his/her turn.

When control of the board is passed to the second player, he/she can guess the word, or select two tiles. If that player had one unused letter when control changed hands, he/she can select only one tile to bring that player up to speed.

When the player knows the word, he/she hits a button and guesses the word. If correct, that player wins the word. If incorrect, play continues & that player loses their turn.

When a player picks the third and final stopper, his/her opponent can either guess the word or play "speedword", in which the remaining letters are put in place, one at a time, except for the final letter. The first player to buzz in with the right answer won the word. If guessed wrong, his/her opponent gets a chance to see the remaining letters. If neither answers correctly, the word is revealed and no one scores.

Once a word is guessed, another word is put into play, building on a letter from the previously guessed word. The player who did not guess the last word went first. The first player to guess three words correctly won the game and $500 cash. In the event of a 2-2 tie, the fifth and last word is played as a speedword (instituted in 1985), and whomever guessed the word wins.

In 1985, a new rule was added, in which if a player lands either on a pink or blue square, and guessed the word immediately, that player won bonus money. A $500 bonus was awarded for the blue square, and a $1,000 bonus on a pink square (players were given "Chuck Bucks" instead of real dollar bills when the bonus word is guessed). Originally the bonuses were not in play during speedword, but in 1986 the rule was changed to have the bonuses be available in every word, including speedword rounds. In the 1993 version, there were no bonuses; however, landing on a colored square and guessing the word added money to a bonus sprint jackpot which is explained later.

In the early days, a pot was used instead of $500 for winning the game and the $500 and $1,000 bonus squares. For every letter revealed, $25 was added to a pot, $50 if a letter landed on a blue square, and $100 on a pink square. The first to guess three words won the game and the money in the pot.

During a short time in 1985, not only the player had to guess the word when he/she wanted to solve the puzzle, the player had to spell the word, one letter at a time (like Lingo). That rule proved to be very unpopular and was eventually abandoned. One episode in particular was in 1985, when two contestants couldn't spell "Mosquitos". That eventually became one of the funniest moments on Scrabble and has been replayed on game show retrospectives such as VH1's Game Show Moments Gone Bananas.

In 1987, when the "straddling" format was abandoned, two crossword games were played each day. The first game was played by one of three challengers and a returning champion (with the challenger going first to begin the game), and the second crossword game was played by the other two challengers, with a coin-toss determining which player goes first. When time is running short, five loud bells are sounded, and the rest of the crossword game is played in speedword format.

NOTE: A male player always faces a female player in the crossword games, and both have two different-sounding buzzers.


Scrabble Sprint
The Scrabble Sprint Round was originally played between the winner of the crossword game and the game's returning champion. The crossword winner selected one of two envelopes (pink or blue) and played three words from that envelope, establishing a time in which the champion had to beat, using the other packet with three different words.

The sprint begins with a five or six-letter word, with the clue given. After host Chuck Woolery says "go", two letters are revealed in the selector, thus starting the clock, and the challenger selects a letter from the selector, one at a time (originally when a letter was chosen a new was replaced, then later to save time once a letter was chosen the other goes back into shuffle). When the contestant knew the word, he/she stopped the clock by hitting a plunger to give an answer. If correct, the player moved on to the next word. If incorrect, a ten-second penalty is imposed, and the word continued unless all but one letter is revealed. Once a player hits a plunger, he/she must give an answer right away. If all letters except the last letter are revealed and the player does not know the word, he/she can allow five seconds to run off the clock without hitting the plunger to avoid the ten-second penalty, but he/she must play a make-up word.

Once all three words is guessed from the crossword winner, the champion then had to guess three words of his own in less than the time established from the first player (with the clock counting down). If the champion guessed all three words before the clock hits double-zero, then he/she wins $1,500 (triple value of the pot in early days). Otherwise the crossword winner won $1,500 and became the new champion.

Eventually, both contestants played the same set of words. To do this, the champion would head off stage where he/she was unable to see and hear the challenger.

If a champion won five Scrabble Sprints in a row, that player had his/her winnings increased to a flat $20,000. For ten-time champions, the winnings increased to a flat-$40,000 and is retired undefeated. Prior to that, the $20,000 was a bonus on top of the money won; five-time champions had won about $28,500 and ten-time champions would win a minimum of $55,500.

In 1986, the rules changed to which two crosswords and sprint rounds were played in a half-hour's time. The winner of the first crossword game established a time, playing four words. After the second crossword game, the winner of that game played the same four words (with the clock counting down towards 0.0), and whomever had the faster time won $1,000 and a chance to win bonus money in the "Bonus Sprint". The fastest sprint round time was 11.1 seconds, the longest was over 100 seconds, at which point the timer reset to zero.


Bonus Sprint
The "Bonus Sprint" was played like the Scrabble Sprint round, but the winner had to guess two words correctly within ten seconds to win the Bonus Sprint Jackpot which began at $5,000 and increased $1,000 every day until it was hit. An incorrect answer ended the game automatically, but the champion returned the next day (up to five days maximum).

When the series returned in 1993, the bonus sprint jackpot began at $1,000 and increased by either $500 or $1,000 whenever a player landed on a pink or blue square in the crossword game and guessed the word immediately. That change proved to be very unpopular and may have contributed to the demise of the 1993 version.


Other facts
Over a dozen sound effects were used on "Scrabble". Among them were:

Buzzer A and Buzzer B -- player buzzers used to either guess the word or ring in during Speedword. Both buzzers had different sounds, but one sound was used in the 1993 version. 
Swoosh -- a sound used when the doors open to reveal the electronic Scrabble Board. 
Clue revealer -- used when host Chuck Woolery is reading the clue in both the crossword game and the Scrabble Sprint Round. 
Outliner -- used to outline a word in play (usually in red). 
High ding -- used to reveal a letter from a tile or from a word in the Scrabble Sprint 
Letter searcher -- a electronic sound to indicate that the letter (going back and forth across the screen) is searching for the correct position of the word. 
Letter found -- a sound to indicate a letter was in the word. 
Stopper sound -- sort of like the Wheel of Fortune Bankrupt, meaning a letter was not in the word. 
Last letter alert -- a gong-like sound indicating that all letters except for the last letter have been used. 
Speedword alert -- a electronic sound formerly from Battlestars to indicate that speedword rules are in effect when all three stoppers are used or the crossword game is tied at 2-2. This sound was first used around 1985. 
Right answer bell -- the NBC game show bell indicated a word was guessed correctly, or a pink or blue square was revealed, meaning the player can win bonus money with a correct answer. 
Incorrect answer buzzer -- the NBC claxon buzzer, meaning the word was guessed incorrectly, or time ran out in the Scrabble Sprint. This sound was used on other game shows like Card Sharks and Hit Man. 
Plunger sound -- a series of bells indicating the player is stopping the Scrabble Sprint clock to guess the word. 
Scrabble Sprint Clock -- A sound indicated the sprint clock is running and will not stop until time runs out or if the plunger is hit. 
Time's running out bell -- five bells were used, indicating time was running short in the crossword game, and the rest of the game is to be played using speedword rules. 
Later in the run, as was the case when viewers sent in poems on Card Sharks, words and clues were sent in from viewers on Scrabble, and if a clue and word was read, the viewer who sent the word in won a Scrabble T-Shirt.


Episode status
All episodes are believed to exist, and FremantleMedia currently owns the rights to the series. Repeats of Scrabble aired on cable's USA Network from September 16, 1991 to October 13, 1995.

Another version of Scrabble was in the works in between the 1984-90 and 1993 runs, hosted by Los Angeles personality Steve Edwards. That version never made it to the air. Yet another version of Scrabble was planned exclusively for the Game Show Network, but with rules more towards the board game rather than the 1980s version, and with no involvement from Chuck Woolery.