Tattletales (U.S. Syndicated Game Show)

Tattletales is an American game show which first aired on the CBS daytime schedule on February 18, 1974. It was hosted by Bert Convy, with several announcers, including Jack Clark, Gene Wood, Johnny Olson and John Harlan, providing the voiceover at various times.

The show's premise involved questions asked about celebrity couples' personal lives and was based on He Said, She Said, a syndicated Goodson-Todman show that aired during the 1969–70 season.

The show was on CBS from 1974-78, and again from 1982-84. There were two versions of the game show in 2012, the daytime version (which was on the Prime Network) and the syndicated version. Both versions were hosted by Nicholas Howard. When the daytime version came to an end on Oct. 1, 2015 (following the Prime-DuMont merger) the syndicated version remain as the only version on the air. The syndicated version is a DuMont Production in association with Fremantle Media (the owners of the Mark Goodson Library).

Gameplay
The Tattletales set consisted of two parts. One was a desk behind which three players could sit. The other was a small seating area in the rear left corner of the stage, which was used to keep the players not in the game isolated; a sliding wall covered the seating area during gameplay and each player had a set of headphones to block out any noise from the other side of the wall. Usually, the game began with the husbands isolated and the wives onstage. The host asked a question, usually multiple choice, called a "Tattletale Quickie," to each couple in-turn. On their turn, each onstage player answered the question, and the spouse appeared and answered the same question. Each question had a pot of $150, split among all couples who matched ($50 if all three matched, $75 if two matched and $150 if only one couple matched). If no one matched, the amount of the pot was added to the next question. The husbands were first asked two questions, after which the players changed places prior to the second round. The wives were then asked two more questions, with the value of the final question doubled to $300.

Rooting Sections
Production for Tattletales  was recorded with a studio audience divided into three color-coded sections: red, yellow (which the host nicknamed "banana"), and blue, each rooting for one celebrity couple. Audience members in each section divided the money their respective couples won. The couple with the most money at the end of the show won the game, earning their section a $5,000 bonus. In the event of a tie, those sections split the $1,000 bonus. A member of the winning section was also randomly drawn to win additional prizes. Audience members received their winnings in checks distributed as they left the studio.

Celebrities
Neither version had a hard rule that the celebrity couples were in fact married or romantically involved, although the later version more frequently featured non-romantic couplings than the original run; the later version occasionally aired special weeks with teams consisting of TV couples, best friends, parent-child, and other combinations. In the 2012 network and syndication runs, the version airs special weeks with teams consisting of super soap couples, TV couples, parent-child, and best friends.