Bumper Stumpers was a game show idea that seldom had been done before. Taking those abbreviations that make up those cool vanity license plates and having to decipher them I always thought was cool and original. Plus, it was one of those game shows that you could easily join in, and play along with at home as well, which is what a good game show should be like at times.

The show consisted of two teams, of two players on each team. (Either friends or family, husband and wife kind of teams). The main object of the game, was to solve the "Super Stumper", which was a vanity plate consisting of 7 letters, that needed to be deciphered. In order to have the letters revealed (in which the first letter was always a freebie), the contestants had to solve a "jump-in" puzzle. The way this was played, is that two vanity plates were given to the contestants, as well as the home viewer.

The host would then ask the players, which of the two plates would belong to a certain person. For example, lets say that the left plate of a jump-in game stated "SK8BDR", and the right plate said "FLTLNE". The host might say, "Which of these two plates, the left or the right, is a registered nurses nightmare?" The contestants would buzz in, and the one that buzzed in it first said which one it was. If they were right, the other player on the team got 10 seconds to decipher the plate. If s/he were wrong, the opposing team had the same opportunity. If the team didn't get it right, the other team also had a chance. Incidently, the two plates that I gave you above say "Skateboarder" and "Flatline". SK8BDR is "SK8" meing "Skate", amd "BDR" being "Boarder". FLTLNE is "FLT" for the "Flat", and "LNE" for "Line". Sounds difficult in text, but a simple concept.

If the team was able to get the plate interpreted in that time, they got a chance to reveal a single letter of the "Super Stumper" plate. They could chose any letter location they wanted. For example, if the Super Stumper started off like 2M-Y--N and the team said they wanted number 5 revealed, the plate could then read 2M-YM-N. They would also be told that the plate belongs to Elizabeth Taylor, or perhaps Zsa Zsa Gabor. If the team was able to discover that the plate says "Too Many Men" (written as 2MNYMEN, which is the number "two", MNY being "many", and "men" being "men"), in 5 seconds, the team won a round. It took 2 rounds of solving a Super Stumper to win the maingame, and then they went on to play the bonus round.

The bonus round changed many times during the time period that the show was on the air, so I have created an entire seperate page about all of them.