TattleTales

"(From Television City in Hollywood) Everyone in this arena has a money stake in one of our famous couples. (Rooting section #1/ The Red Section has their money on (insert couple), rooting section #2/ The Yellow Section is backing (insert couple) & rooting section #3/ The Blue Section has their money on (insert couple).) (Places Please!) As we play the game of celebrity gossip... TATTLETALES! And now, here's the star of TattleTales, BERT CONVY!"

Celebrity couples tell about their lives together as well as some of their hobbies, their lifestyles, and maybe reveal some dirty little secrets. While they were doing it, they were playing for money for their respective rooting section ( red, yellow (banana) & blue ).

Gameplay
The game was played in two halves: in each half, one half of the couples (all of the same sex) wore headphones and sat in an enclosed room on the left of the set and were being viewed by television monitors while the other half sat behind the playing desk in front of the audience. The show went through two formats.

1st Format
Bert read a question to the spouses sitting at the desk. A spouse would then buzz-in to answer that question and give a one-word or two-word clue to the answer that he/she thought the mate would recognize. The isolated mates' monitors would then be turned on and Bert would then repeat the question followed by the clue. The mate would then buzz-in (using a buzzer of his/her own) if he/she thought his/her spouse gave that clue and gave his/her answer. If it matched the spouse's answer, the couple won money for their rooting section according to how long the clue is (one-word clue $100, two-word clue $50). Two questions of that type were asked.

After those two questions, Bert then read a mini multiple choice question called the "Tattletale Quickie". Each spouse in turn answered the question. Then after each spouse gave an answer, the isolated mates gave their own answers and if they matched, they won $100 for their rooting section.

2nd Format
Later in the run, the format was changed to have all "Tattletale Quickies" for the entire show. Because of the new format, they didn't need to call them "Tattletale Quickies" anymore. Also the scoring format changed; each question had a pot of $150 with the money split between two or all three couples if they get it right. If all three match they score $50, if two of the couples matched they score $75, but if only one couple matched that couple won the entire pot. If no couple made a match, the money was carried over into the next question. Four questions (sometimes more in case of extra time) were asked with the roles reversed after the first two, and the final question was worth double or $300 to the only couple who matched, $150 for two couples, and $100 for all three.

Money for Rooting Sections
In all versions, all three "rooting sections" (one-third of the studio audience, divided into the colors of red, yellow (sometimes nicknamed "banana"), and blue) divided the money their respective couples won for them. The couple with the most money at the end of the show won the game, earning their rooting section a bonus of $1,000. If the game ended in a tie between two or among all three couples, the bonus was split ($500 for two rooting sections, $334 for all three).

Cash prizes on game shows are typically awarded to contestants in the form of a check, mailed weeks after a show has been taped. Because of the impracticality (e.g., postal costs) of doing this for an entire studio audience, Tattletales kept a check-cutting machine in the studio and distributed the money to the audience members on their way out immediately after the show.

Music
1974 - Edd Kalehoff

Two unused think cues from this version were recycled into Match Game.

1982 - Jonathan Segal & Gary Anderson for Score Productions

Inventors
Mark Goodson & Bill Todman - based off a previous show, He Said She Said.

Studio
CBS Television City, Hollywood, California

Did You Know...
that Hasbro was originally going to release a Tattletales board game in 1978, but somehow they reconsidered it when the show got cancelled in the same year?

Links
The unofficial Tattletales Page (Archived)

The Tattletales home game that wasn't