Oddball

"JAMIE: Hi, I'm Jamie Farr and were here to play Oddball! GENE: Let's meet the oddballs: From 227; Marla Gibbs. From Too Close for Comfort; Lydia Cornell, From Mama's Family; Vicki Lawrence, From Fall Guy; Nedra Volz. and the men: From Happy Days; Anson Williams, From Newhart; Tom Poston, From Falcon Crest, Daniel Greene and Dick Martin. and here's is the cheap oddball, Jamie Farr!"

Oddball was an unsold game show pilot that was part Match Game, part Password while it doubled the amount of celebrities and in kind decreased the amount of watchability.

Taped
February 1, 1986 for NBC

Packager
Mark Goodson Productions

Host
Jamie Farr

Panelists
Marla Gibbs

Lydia Cornell

Vicki Lawrence

Nedra Volz

Anson Williams

Tom Poston

Daniel Greene

Dick Martin

Announcer
Gene Wood

Main Game
The eight celebrities were segregated by gender and were augmented by one civilian contestant. The civilians went off stage as the eight celebrities wrote down a one-word clue to the 'password' in hopes that their civilian player would guess that 'password'. After all eight celebrities wrote down their words, they were then revealed to weed put any duplicates, with only the words that were unique being kept into play. Once that was done, the civilians were brought out of their isolation booths. One player would then see his/her teams' responses and would try to guess the word. If they were unable, the other player tried to guess the word using both those clues and the clues of his/her team. The first round was worth $100 while the second round was worth $200.

The third round was worth $400, ($100 more than the previous two rounds combined) This time, the part where the celebrities revealed whether or not they had duplicated each other was eliminated. Instead, the two players came out and alternated getting a clue from one of their teammates. If the clue was not a repeat nor illegal, the player could guess. The player guessing correctly won the round and moved on to the "One Shot Jackpot".

One Shot Jackpot
The "One Shot Jackpot" was a progressive jackpot (on the show worth $20,000, going up $5,000 per miss) and involved all eight celebrities. The contestants went back into isolation, and all eight contestants were given a chance to write a one word clue. The contestant came back out and picked players one at a time in attempt to guess the final word. The game was over when either a duplicate was revealed or the player guessed incorrectly, (hence the 'one shot'). In the pilot, the player despite getting eight unique clues could not guess "dribble".

Youtube Link
Oddball (2/1/86) - Intro to Pilot#1

Link
Oddball pilot @ The Game Show Pilot Light