On January 11, 1988, "Ruck Zuck" debuted on the TELE5 network in Germany. The original host was Werner Schulze-Erdel. In January of 1992, Jochen Bendel (previously the announcer on the show) took over as host. Beginning April 19, 1993, Ruck Zuck moved, and began to air on the RTL2 station. And on January 20, 1998, Ruck Zuck changed networks for the last time, to tm3, which is where the show stayed until it's demise on October 20, 2000.

Ruck Zuck consisted of 2 teams of 5 players each, men versus women. The leader of the team (which changes after every round), is given a choice of 2 words to choose from. The other team gets the word that remains. The object of the game is to describe the word to the next person in line, and then to the next person and so on. The remaining players are wearing headphones that have music piped in them so they cannot hear what's going on until their turn comes. However, if at any time, a player describing the word, repeats a key word or phrase that was already used to describe the word, the game stops, and the scoring ends. And yet another addition, is that you have to get as many passses as you could within 40 seconds. For each successful transaction, the team recieves 1 point in the first three rounds, and 3 points per pass during the fourth round. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, and then goes on to play the bonus round for the big money.

In the event of a tie at the end of the fourth round, a tiebreaker game is played. The champion is shown a word. The captain can either play or pass the word. If they play, they must describe it all the way down the line in order to win. If they pass, the other team must do the same, otherwise, they lose.

In the bonus game, Jochen gave the team captain a word or phrase. The player gives Jochen the four most common words that they can think of associated with the word. (While this is going on, the remaining teammates are wearing the headphones so they cannot hear.) When that is all done, the players are brought out, and are given 20 seconds (five seconds per player) to say as many words as they can think of relating to the topic word, in hopes of saying the same words that the captain stated eariler. For every correct match in the first round, they win DM50. In the second round, its valued at DM100 per match. And on the third and final round, which is a total of up to DM2.400. However, in the last round, the team must say ALL of the 4 words that the captain said. The winners come back the next day, to of course attempt to win more! But where does the BIG money come into play? If a team can get to the bonus round six times, and if they get all 4 words in the last round, the team will win DM50.000! (Talk about pressure!)