The Newlywed Game - Rules of The Game

Rules of The Game

Only couples who had had their wedding within two years of making application were eligible to be contestants. As a result, many contestants were adults in their 20s and 30s, although senior citizens were also sometimes featured on the show as widows and widowers who recently remarried were also eligible under game rules.

For the first round, the wives were taken off the stage while the husbands were asked three questions. The wives were then brought back on stage and were asked for their answers for the same three questions. Once the wife gave her answer, the husband revealed the answer that he previously gave, which was written on a blue card. A match for that question was worth 5 points for the couple.

The roles were reversed in the second round, where the husbands were taken off the stage and the wives were asked four questions before the husbands were brought back on stage to give their answers. The first three questions in this round were worth 10 points each, and the final question was worth 25 points (Referred to by Bob Eubanks as a "25 point bonus question"). The maximum possible score for any couple was 70 points. The number of questions in the second round was reduced from three to two (excluding the final question) in 1987 and also in 1997.

Originally (in the first year of the first ABC version), the husbands went off-stage first while the wives had to predict what their husbands would say. The first four questions in this round were worth 5 points apiece. Then the wives went off-stage as the husbands were asked four 10-point questions and a 35-point bonus question, which usually decided the game. The maximum possible score was 95 points.

The couple with the highest score at the end of the second round won a prize that was "chosen just for you" (in actuality, the couples had requested a certain prize and competed with other couples that had requested the same prize). By 1987, this practice was eliminated.

The grand prize was never a car or cash, but it could include just about anything else: appliances, furniture, home entertainment systems, a trailer or motorcycles, trips (complete with luggage and camera), etc. In the 1997 remake, the grand prize was always a trip (dubbed "a second honeymoon").

Prior to taping the show, each couple was asked to predict the total points they would earn. In the event of a tie for first place, the tied such couples revealed a card showing this predicted score. The couple that had the closest guess without going over their actual total, won. If all the tied couples went over, the couple who had the closest guess won. An exact guess awarded an additional prize to the winners.

For the first half of the 1988–1989 season, the scoring system was changed: correct answers paid off in cash ($25 to start with, three questions each worth $25 in round one, followed by two each worth $50 in round two), and during the final question the couples could wager any part of their earnings up to that point. All couples kept any money won (maximum of $400), but only the winners took home the grand prize.

This scoring format was dropped, and the old one reinstated, when Paul Rodriguez took over as host in December 1988, although the number of couples competing was then reduced to three.