Child's Play (game Show)
Child's Play is an American television game show in which adult contestants tried to guess words based on definitions given by children. The Mark Goodson-produced series debuted on CBS from September 20, 1982 at 10:30 AM Eastern/9:30 AM Central (immediately following The New $25,000 Pyramid, which debuted on the same day). That time slot was held by Alice for a little over two years. Child's Play was never able to make ratings headway against either Wheel of Fortune or Sale of the Century, two hit game shows that NBC aired opposite it; CBS ended the series on September 16, 1983 and replaced it with Press Your Luck, which performed much better for CBS.
Perhaps the first inklings of the format appeared on a 1967 episode of Goodson-Todman's earlier series I've Got a Secret, on which guest Woody Allen read children's definitions of words for the panel to guess. Child's Play host Bill Cullen was a member of that series's panel.
Read more about Child's Play (game Show): Hosts and Announcers, Main Game, Bonus Round, Episode Status, Notable Contestants
Famous quotes containing the words child and/or play:
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
Which is as brief as I have known a play,
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
Which makes it tedious.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)