Three Little Words (TV series)
Three Little Words is a British game show that aired on ITV from 4 July 1967 to 1985. The show was created by Roy Ward Dickson, who invented many game shows.
| Three Little Words | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Game show |
| Created by | Roy Ward Dickson |
| Presented by | John Edmunds Don Moss Alan Taylor Ray Alan |
| Starring | Linda Hayden Sue Anne Snook Barbie Hayes |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes (inc. adverts) |
| Production companies | TWW (1967) HTV (1975–85) |
| Distributor | ITV Studios |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV |
| Picture format | 4:3 |
| Original release | 4 July 1967 – 1985 |
Gameplay
A word association game, the aim was to get your partner to say a particular word by giving them single word clues.
For example, one partner might offer the clue "headgear" to describe the word "hat".
20 points were given for a word solved on the first clue, 15 points scored for a word solved in two clues and 10 points were awarded for a word solved on the third attempt. After three clues, the opponents had a shot at the word for 5 points.
After a certain number of words, the team with the highest score became the champions and won money. Teams could win up to 6 times before being forced to retire.
Ken and Christine Rowland were the only couple to receive full marks having given the correct answers after each first clue word. However, some of their clues, e.g. "Schneider" to produce the answer "trophy", clearly worried Ray Alan and they were not invited back like other winners.
Some contestants would make it a bit harder for their opponents, by inserting references that would only mean something to them, for example, one would say some girl's name and the other would reply "Nurse" and get it right (someone they know with that name is a nurse) or give three personal references that the other partner got wrong, leaving the opposing team to figure out the right answer from just three personal names - the answer being some kind of occupation (relatives and friends of the first couple with those names being in that job). One thing that contestants were not allowed to do was to give 'sounds like' words as clues - the word concerned would be disallowed if they did so.