| Host | |
| Jerry Fogel | |
| Announcer | |
| Johnny Gilbert | |
| Word Authority | |
| Tony Winkle (The Language Arts Editor of The Lippincott Publishing Company) | |
| Taped | |
  | |
| Packager/Distributor (planned) | |
| Funco Corporation | |
"FOGEL: Give me a three-letter word beginning with a "T" and ending with an "E".
KIDS: THE!!!
FOGEL: How about a four-letter word beginning with "W" and ending with "D".
KIDS: WORD!!!
FOGEL: And a seven-letter word beginning with "M" and ending with "E".
KIDS: MACHINE!!!
GILBERT: It's THE WORD MACHINE! Today, two contestants all the way from Elliot Elementary School in Richfield, Minnesota will be challenging two contestants from Sherman Oaks Elementary School in Sherman Oaks, California in the game that combines wits and knowledge with spectacular prizes. And now, here is the star of The Word Machine, Jerry Fogel!"
The Word Machine was an attempt at making a kid's version of Beat the Odds.
Gameplay[]
Two teams of child contestants representing two schools (with each team representing one of the schools; more specifically in this pilot Elliot Elementary School and Sherman Oaks Elementary School respectively) faced a giant flashy machine. Near the bottom, was an eggcrate readout which shuffled letters on the sides and numbers and math symbols in the middle. The host started the machine while the team in control stopped it. When the machine stopped, two letters appeared plus a number or symbol.
If a number appeared, then the team in control had to give a word using that many letters or more (with a minimum of three) that begins and ends with the letters showing. Doing so scored a point, but not doing so lost control.
If a minus sign appeared, that triggered a "Whammy" and the team lost all their points and their turn. To prevent this from happening, after giving a legal word, the team in control was asked to freeze on their current score and pass control to their opponents, at which point landing on a minus only sent the team back to their frozen score.
If a plus sign appeared, the team in control played a Sprint Word Round, for scholarship money for their school and prizes for themselves. In the Sprint Word round, a long word was given and as quickly as they can, the team must come up with words using letters in the word and they have to be at least three letters long. Each time they gave a word, they must spell it out for the word authority (i.e. Tony Winkle) to understand. Each legal word was worth $10 in "Scholar Dollars" and awarded bonus prizes to the team.
The first team to reach 10 points won the game and prizes for their school and themselves.
Trivia[]
Before he became the announcer on The Word Machine, Johnny Gilbert was previously the host of Beat the Odds from 1968 until 1969.
Inventor[]
Bill Derman, based on his prior show Beat the Odds.