Concentration (game show)

Two contestants compete to reveal portions of a rebus puzzle, which they then attempt to solve. The rebus uses a variety of pictures and letters to phonetically communicate a person, place, thing, title, or idea. Plus signs connect sounds within the same word. For example, "French dressing" would be represented by the letter F and an illustration of a wrench ("F + wrench"), followed by an illustration of a dress and a person singing ("dress + sing"). The original version of the show featured rebus designs by Norm Blumenthal, while Classic Concentration had its rebuses designed by Steve Ryan.

The rebus is concealed behind a game board consisting of 30 trilons. As in the card game of the same name, the spaces conceal matching pairs of items. Most pairs are the names of prizes, while some are special instructions that alter gameplay. A contestant begins the game by selecting any two squares on the board. If both squares contain the name of the same prize, the contestant claims that prize and those squares are turned over to reveal a portion of the underlying rebus. After making a match, a contestant may choose to pick two more squares or attempt to solve the rebus. Failing to match passes control to the opposing contestant.

In addition to prizes, the board contains two "wild card" spaces, which may be matched to any prize or award a cash bonus if both are revealed in the same turn. Also present are two "take one gift" and six "forfeit one gift" spaces; if these are matched, then the contestant may respectively take a prize from, or pass a prize to, the opponent. Correctly solving the rebus awards any prizes accumulated, or $100 cash if no prizes are accumulated before solving.

Starting with the 1973 version, the winner of a match proceeds to a bonus round called Double Play. The contestant is given ten seconds to attempt solving two rebuses. Solving the first one awards $100 cash, while solving the second one awards a car.

Concentration was originally slated to debut on NBC on July 28, 1958, but its debut ended up being delayed until August 25, 1958.^[5][3] Concentration was first hosted by Hugh Downs, who was also the announcer for Tonight Starring Jack Paar and working as one of the NBC Radio Monitor staff.^[6] Concentration was broadcast at the time that Truth or Consequences had been aired; NBC moved Truth or Consequences to its afternoon schedule.^[6][7]

Concentration remains the longest-running game show on NBC and held the record for longest continuous daytime run on network television until it was eclipsed in March 1987 by the CBS daytime version of The Price Is Right (beginning September 4, 1972). Concentration is currently the sixth longest-running daytime/syndicated game show behind The Price Is Right and the syndicated versions of Wheel of Fortune (1983–present), Jeopardy! (1984–present), Family Feud (1999–present), and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (2002-2019).

Concentration was an NBC in-house production, apart from the earliest episodes. As a result of the 1950s quiz scandals, the network purchased the rights to Concentration and three other games (Twenty-One, Dough Re Mi and Tic-Tac-Dough) from producers Barry and Enright. NBC/Universal still holds exclusive rights to both the format and extant episodes of Concentration; however, due to Financial Interest and Syndication Rules, this version is owned by CBS Media Ventures.

The show was produced and broadcast live at 11:30 am Eastern on weekdays in black-and-white, and quickly became the most-watched daytime series in NBC's lineup. The announcer was Art James, who sometimes served as a substitute host and later became a game show host in his own right. The series was produced in NBC's Studio 3A which now houses NBC News and MSNBC.

In 1958 and 1961, the show had two brief runs in prime time: one hosted by Jack Barry, the other by Downs.

The series then moved to 11:00 am and slowly introduced color broadcasts. For a picture puzzle game whose rebuses were designed and painted in monochrome, this required some design changes: The colors of the numbered cards might otherwise interfere with the colors used on the rebus, a critical issue for contestants playing in the studio and for viewers who played along at home. During this period, the series was produced in NBC's Studio 6A. Hugh Downs, by this time also an anchor correspondent on NBC's Today Show, remained host, and the announcer became Jim Lucas, who also worked on NBC's local New York radio station, WNBC (AM). In September 1965, the show moved to 10:30 am where it would spend the remainder of its run on NBC. The show fully converted to color on November 7, 1966.^[8]

In January 1969, Downs stepped down to devote his entire attention to Today. Bob Clayton, who had succeeded Jim Lucas as announcer, took over the hosting duties; he was introduced as the new host at the program's 1968 Christmas episode, dressed as Santa Claus. NBC staffer Wayne Howell moved to the announcer's booth during Clayton's tenure as host. However, in March, advertiser pressure led NBC to set Clayton aside in favor of Ed McMahon; after viewer complaints and declining ratings, Clayton returned in September and remained host until the series ended on March 23, 1973. (On the Monday following Concentration's cancellation, Clayton became the announcer for The $10,000 Pyramid on CBS.)

Five months after NBC canceled Concentration, the network called upon Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions to produce a new edition of the series for syndication. This marked the first time Goodson-Todman was asked to produce a format owned by another production company; each of their previous productions were conceived by people on their own staff.

The new syndicated Concentration premiered on September 10, 1973, and ran for five years. Jack Narz was host, with Johnny Olson serving as announcer. This version of Concentration was produced at Metromedia Square in Hollywood, and aired primarily on NBC stations that had carried the original series. It was produced as a daily series but at the time, many game shows aired once per week in syndication and some stations airing Concentration aired it in this manner as well.

In 1985, Mark Goodson Productions sought permission from NBC to relaunch Concentration. The new series, which eventually became known as Classic Concentration, debuted on NBC on May 4, 1987. Production was now done at NBC Studios in Burbank, California. Alex Trebek (who concurrently was also hosting Jeopardy!) hosted, and Diana Taylor was the prize model. On July 22 of that year,^[9] Taylor was replaced with Mark Goodson's daughter, Marjorie Goodson-Cutt, who remained for the rest of the series. Gene Wood was the announcer, with Art James substituting for him on the July 9–31, 1991 episodes.^[10] The new Concentration ran once again at 10:30 am EST and remained in that slot for its entire run.^[11] Classic Concentration's final new episode aired on August 30, 1991, but reruns continued to air on NBC from October 28, 1991 until December 31, 1993, including a three-week period from September 2 to 20.^[12]

The Milton Bradley Company introduced the first commercial version of Concentration in 1958 and subsequently released 24 editions of the game until 1982. Owing to common superstition, these releases were numbered 1–12 and 14–25, skipping 13. It was tied with Password as the most prolific of Milton Bradley's home versions of popular game shows, and was produced well after the Jack Narz era ended in 1978 (albeit without ever including elements from that version).

Pressman Games published two editions of the Classic Concentration home game in 1988. More recently, Endless Games has released two versions of Concentration since 1998. The Endless versions were modeled similar to Classic Concentration home game with the rebuses designed by Steve Ryan, who created puzzles for Classic Concentration.

Two computer versions of Classic Concentration were released by Softie for MS-DOS systems, as well as the Apple II and Commodore 64. A Nintendo Entertainment System version was also released by GameTek. Tiger Electronics also marketed a hand-held version of the game in 1999 using the Narz-era theme and the 1960s–1978 logo. The computer versions largely play similar to the Trebek-hosted show, but lack the "TAKE!" cards.

In 1991, the book Classic Concentration: The Game, The Show, The Puzzles, written by the show's puzzle designer Steve Ryan (and plugged on the air), was released. The book features 152 puzzles that were used on the show; the first 48 puzzles are exposed in their entirety, whereas the remaining 104 are first presented partially revealed on one page, then fully revealed on the next, with all puzzle solutions featured in the back of the book. The book also features a detailed history of Concentration and an introduction by executive producer Mark Goodson.

A video slot machine based on the 1958–1973 version was released for American casinos by Bally Gaming Systems.

In 2007, Reflexive Arcade released a downloadable version of Concentration based on the Classic Concentration format and bonus round with newer puzzles and prizes. In 2008, Glu Mobile released a mobile version of Concentration based on the PC downloadable version, with the look of the original 1958–1973 series.

Some kinescope recordings of the 1958–1973 version are held at the Library of Congress. Shokus Video (a service specializing primarily in public domain offerings) offers a Hugh Downs-hosted tournament episode from 1967.^[13]

Buzzr currently airs episodes of Classic Concentration and the 1970s syndicated version of Concentration^[14] starting with episodes from 1976.^[15]

Concentration is one of only three Barry & Enright game shows known to have foreign adaptations, the others being Tic-Tac-Dough and Twenty-One.

More information Country, Title(s) ...

Complete table of foreign versions of Concentration

Country	Title(s)	Network(s)	Host(s)	Dates aired
Australia	Concentration	Nine Network	Philip Brady	1959–1967
		Seven Network	Lionel Williams	1970
	Match Mates	Nine Network	David Waters	1981–1982
	Concentration	Seven Network	Mike Hammond	1997
Colombia	Concéntrese	Primera Cadena/Cadena Uno Cadena 2/Canal A	Julio E. Sánchez Vanegas	1967–1969 1984–1986 1996–2000
Germany	Gewusst-Wo...	ARD	Guido Baumann	1959–1960
		ARD 2	Karl-Heinz Bender	1961
Italy	Caccia al numero	Secondo Programma	Mike Bongiorno	1962
	Bis	Canale 5		1981–1990
New Zealand	Concentration	TV2	Nick Adrian Jim Jameson	1975–1976
United Kingdom	Concentration	ITV	Barry McQueen Chris Howland David Gell	1959–1960
			Nick Jackson Bob Carolgees	1988–1990
Vietnam	Trúc xanh
		HTV7	Đỗ Thụy	2003–2007

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