Nearly sixty years later, the two guest stars, Don Murray and Anna Maria Alberghetti are still with us! Sadly, all the rest on this fun show (I was 11 going on 12 when this episode aired) are gone now. I still have the almost always humorous "stumper" cards from the Stump the Stars home game. They listed the stars who performed them and how many seconds it took for their teammates to guess the stumper. Unfortunately, for this to work today, you have to know the "tricks of the trade" to help speed along the guessing, how to express past tense, plural or proper name, for example. Most people, if they play charades at all, use the titles of famous movies, songs or books, as was often the case on the early version of this show, "Pantomime Quiz" from the late 40's and early 50's. Too easy. If "West Side Story" is the thing to guess, once you get "West" how many other choices are there if you know you're going for a film title? But if you've got to act out "Grandpa's face don't look the same since his beard went down the bathtub drain," it ain't so easy, Pardners.
Well, the rules are simple: act out the stumper sent in by a viewer without using speech, just pantomime. All gestures, facial expressions and body language allowed. Each member of a team does one stumper. There is a time limit of 120 seconds for each performer. The team that uses the fewer seconds to solve four stumpers wins and, ha, ha, gets paid exactly the same as the team that lost. After all, they were all celebrities, often coming on the show to tout some new movie or TV series they were in. However, to speed up the guessing, there were dozens of agreed upon signals. After all, how would you act out "the"? For example, you touched your index finger to your nose (on the nose!) to stop your team from guessing that word because they had gotten it right. You crossed one arm over your chest and pointed behind you to indicate that your team should change the verb to the past tense (what's behind you is in the past). Making a "t" with the fingers of one hand touching the palm of the other meant that you were looking for a small word that started with "t" and probably "th-," likely _the_ , _this_ , _them_ etc. If you bought the home game, you got a sheet with all the accepted short-cut hand gestures, so that you weren't stuck trying to act out "-ed" if your team already had guessed "land" correctly and you wanted "landed." You gave the accepted past tense signal and they added the -ed and you moved to the next word in the stumper. Stokey was usually a stickler for getting every word exactly correct before stopping the clock and congratulating the person who performed the stumper. Right now, I just checked, someone, not me, and not anyone I know, is selling a copy of the home game published in 1959 on eBay and the signal sheet is illustrated. If you have a group of people who like parlor games, this is really fun at a party and more fun than guessing the names of books or movies. Of course, it is not electronic and has no bells and whistles. You provide the entertainment and the enjoyment yourselves.
This show is addictive, what a delight
This is a show that should be brought back.
I loved Sebastian Cabot. 😻 💋
Nearly sixty years later, the two guest stars, Don Murray and Anna Maria Alberghetti are still with us! Sadly, all the rest on this fun show (I was 11 going on 12 when this episode aired) are gone now. I still have the almost always humorous "stumper" cards from the Stump the Stars home game. They listed the stars who performed them and how many seconds it took for their teammates to guess the stumper. Unfortunately, for this to work today, you have to know the "tricks of the trade" to help speed along the guessing, how to express past tense, plural or proper name, for example. Most people, if they play charades at all, use the titles of famous movies, songs or books, as was often the case on the early version of this show, "Pantomime Quiz" from the late 40's and early 50's. Too easy. If "West Side Story" is the thing to guess, once you get "West" how many other choices are there if you know you're going for a film title? But if you've got to act out "Grandpa's face don't look the same since his beard went down the bathtub drain," it ain't so easy, Pardners.
Don Murray passed recently and I think Anna Maria not too long ago.
We had that polaroid camera and Tappan range at our house. Didn't win them. Bought them.
Ross Martin is so good at this game
So was Richard Long. That’s why they ended up batting cleanup against each other.
If that was me trying to do the word occasion, I would have started off doing the OK sign with my fingers
Great show
Need the rules
Well, the rules are simple: act out the stumper sent in by a viewer without using speech, just pantomime. All gestures, facial expressions and body language allowed. Each member of a team does one stumper. There is a time limit of 120 seconds for each performer. The team that uses the fewer seconds to solve four stumpers wins and, ha, ha, gets paid exactly the same as the team that lost. After all, they were all celebrities, often coming on the show to tout some new movie or TV series they were in.
However, to speed up the guessing, there were dozens of agreed upon signals. After all, how would you act out "the"? For example, you touched your index finger to your nose (on the nose!) to stop your team from guessing that word because they had gotten it right. You crossed one arm over your chest and pointed behind you to indicate that your team should change the verb to the past tense (what's behind you is in the past). Making a "t" with the fingers of one hand touching the palm of the other meant that you were looking for a small word that started with "t" and probably "th-," likely _the_ , _this_ , _them_ etc.
If you bought the home game, you got a sheet with all the accepted short-cut hand gestures, so that you weren't stuck trying to act out "-ed" if your team already had guessed "land" correctly and you wanted "landed." You gave the accepted past tense signal and they added the -ed and you moved to the next word in the stumper. Stokey was usually a stickler for getting every word exactly correct before stopping the clock and congratulating the person who performed the stumper.
Right now, I just checked, someone, not me, and not anyone I know, is selling a copy of the home game published in 1959 on eBay and the signal sheet is illustrated. If you have a group of people who like parlor games, this is really fun at a party and more fun than guessing the names of books or movies. Of course, it is not electronic and has no bells and whistles. You provide the entertainment and the enjoyment yourselves.
WHAT ARE THE RULES AND ANNOUNCER
The basic rule is you can’t talk. You must get them to guess the words by actions only.
The announcer is Bill Baldwin
This uses up a lot of calories. :)
Were they married?
Don Murray and Anna Maria Alberghetti were not married..
Don Murray and Sebastion Cabot were married.
Checking IMDb - at the time this episode aired all players had spouses except Anna Maria Alberghetti. She married Claudio Guzman in September 1964.