Boggle was an American game show that was broadcast on The Family Channel

ABC Family

ABC Family, stylized as abc family, is an American television network, owned by ABC Family Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company...

 from March 7 to November 18, 1994. It was based on the board game of the same name

Boggle

Boggle is a word game designed by Allan Turoff and trademarked by Parker Brothers, a division of Hasbro. The game is played using a plastic grid of lettered dice, in which players attempt to find words in sequences of adjacent letters.-Rules:...

. Wink Martindale

Wink Martindale

Winston Conrad Martindale , known professionally as Wink Martindale, is an American disc jockey and television game show host.-Radio:...

 was the host, and Randy West

Randy West

Randy West is an American television personality who is best known for his work on game shows. He has been an announcer on American television game shows since 1990, with credits including Supermarket Sweep, Trivial Pursuit, Hollywood Showdown, and a substitute role on The Price Is Right.West's...

 was the announcer.

Wink Martindale and Bill Hillier created and produced four "interactive" games for FAM, Boggle being one of them. The other three were Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit (game show)

Trivial Pursuit is an American game show that ran on The Family Channel from June 7, 1993 to December 30, 1994, with reruns continuing until July 21, 1995. loosely based on the board game of the same name. It was hosted by Wink Martindale with Randy West announcing.-Format:The show was played in...

, Shuffle

Shuffle (game show)

Shuffle was an American game show that aired on The Family Channel. It ran from March 7 to June 10, 1994. Wink Martindale hosted, and Randy West announced....

, and Jumble

Jumble (game show)

Jumble was an American game show that was broadcast on The Family Channel, running from June 13 September 2 and from November 21 to December 30, 1994. It was based on the newspaper game of the same name...

. Wink hosted all four. Randy West was the announcer for all four of these shows as well.

Boggle had its Premiere on the same day as Shuffle. The two shows shared the same theme song and sound effects - the two even used the same set; after taping on Boggle was finished, the set pieces were redone and rearranged to make Shuffles set. The set pieces would be re-done a third time for Jumble.

Round 1

Four players competed. Each one has a 3x4 telephone keypad built in to their podium, which they would use to find words in a Boggle board. A typical Boggle board is illustrated to the right.

G	P	T
H	U	S
L	O	C
D	E	K

The words would be formed from adjacent letters, and cannot use the same letter more than once. Wink made sure to tell the contestants to ignore the letters on their telephone keypad and only focus on the ones on the board. Using the example board, a contestant could press 6, 8, 9, and # to spell S-O-C-K.

Wink would read a clue to a four or five letter word, and contestants would have 10 seconds to punch in the keys corresponding to the word. After three seconds, the first letter of the word would be revealed. Contestants would get points depending on how quickly they punched in the right answer, starting at 1,000 and counting down as time went on.

After five words, the player with the lowest score was eliminated.

Round 2

In Round 2, all the scores were reset to zero and the three remaining contestants would play a new Boggle board. The lowest scoring player after five more words was eliminated.

Round 3

In Round 3, the scores were reset to zero again and one final Boggle board was played. The contestant with the highest score after five more words won a trip (and a smaller prize to go with it). The second-place player won a smaller prize.

Interactive Component

After each round with the studio players concluded, home viewers could call a special 1-900 number and play a game of "Interactive Boggle". The cost to play was $4.98. It was played just like a round of the studio game, and home viewers answered by using their touch-tone telephone. The home viewer with the highest score would receive a small prize and the right to enter a weekly playoff. The playoff would be played exactly as before, and the ultimate winner would receive a trip.