Hot Potato may not have been the most original game show ever made, but it was a format that could have easily worked, if not for its terrible noon time slot. Fact is, this was a very easy game to play, and one of those rare fun TV game shows that you could participate with at home if you wanted to.

You start off with two teams of three contestants each. The teams all have something in common. (Either an occupation, unique trait, hair color, you get the picture.) Host Bill Cullen then asked a survey question to the teams. Each question had a number of answers to it. The object of the game was to give seven correct answers to the question. You won the round if your team was able to give the seventh correct answer, or if you were able to knock out the three players on the opposing team by passing control over to them, and having them answer incorrectly. Two out of three winning games won the championship for the day. The reward of $1000 would be split among the three contestants, and they would then go on to play the bonus round next.

However, to make the game a little more interesting, and to have more motivation to try to answer correctly, there was a "Seven-Straight Jackpot" availible. Starting at $500, and adding $500 more each game, the way it worked was that if a team managed to give all 7 correct answers in a row, without passing or giving an incorrect answer, you won that jackpot along with the $1000 you got for winning the game. The highest that this jackpot got to and won was $4500. I'm sure that was a nice bonus in itself!

In the bonus round, all of the questions that Bill asked were the same, however two different choices were given. For example, Bill might ask, "Which of these has a larger square footage: Rhode Island or Delaware?" The team could them choose to answer the question for $500, or pass the question. (If they passed, which they only could do one time, they HAD to answer the next question). This went on until they got up to $2000, in which the next question was worth the jackpot. The jackpot started at $5000. If you got to the bonus round before and didn't win it, but got to the bonus round again, an extra $5000 was added to the jackpot, until you either won the jackpot, or lost the ability to play the bonus round.

Again, this show was very far from original, but for many reasons, has kept its popularity among many game show fans. (That is until the rules changed in April of 1984 when the show went down the dreadful "Celebrity" route. You can learn more about this version of Hot Potato from the main page.