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Beat the Clock

Beat the Clock is an American television game show that involves people trying to complete challenges to win prizes while faced with a time limit. The show was a creation of Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions.

For The McCoys song, see The McCoys. For the Sparks song, see Beat the Clock (song).

Beat the Clock

Game show

Bud Collyer
Jack Narz
Gene Wood
Monty Hall
Gary Kroeger
Paul Costabile

Bern Bennett
Dirk Fredericks
Gene Wood
Nick Hollinrake
Jack Narz
John Cramer

United States

5 (1969–1974)

22–26 minutes

Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions (1950–1961, 1969–1974, 1979–1980)
Clock Productions (1969–1974)
The Clock Company (1979–1980)
Fremantle (2002–2003, 2018–2019)
Paxson Entertainment
(2002–2003)
Tick Tock Productions, Ltd. (2002–2003)

CBS (1950–1958, 1979–1980)
ABC (1958–1961)
Syndication (1969–1970)
CTV (1970–1974)
PAX TV (2002–2003)
Universal Kids (2018–2019)

March 23, 1950 (1950-03-23) –
July 8, 2019 (2019-07-08)

The show began on radio as Time's A-Wastin' in 1948, hosted by Bud Collyer, and changed its name to Beat the Time on January 5, 1949. The show moved to television on the CBS nighttime schedule starting on March 23, 1950. On September 16, 1957, CBS premiered an afternoon version of the show as well, which ran for a year. The nighttime show was cancelled on February 16, 1958, and the afternoon program followed on September 12, 1958.[1]


Soon, the show moved to ABC's daytime schedule, and ran from October 13, 1958 to January 27, 1961. A brief revival aired on CBS from September 17, 1979 to February 1, 1980.[1]


In 2006, the show made up the third segment of Game$how Marathon, a seven-part summer series that aired on CBS, with Ricki Lake as host and Rich Fields as announcer.


The most recent revival aired on Universal Kids from February 6, 2018 to July 8, 2019.

$100 clock prizes included Michael C. Fina silverware sets, a collection of four Knapp-Monarch small kitchen appliances, or a upright, among others.

Hoover

$200 clock prizes included International-Harvester refrigerators, air conditioning units (usually in the summer), a range/oven, a James dishwasher, Speed Queen washers and dryers (they were only offered separately) and small Sylvania TVs. All of these prizes, except the Sylvania radio, were shown on "art cards" and not actually brought out on the show.

Tappan

The Jackpot Prize during Sylvania's tenure was always a Sylvania . Sometimes a hi-fi stereo/phonograph (with "famous surround sound") was included with the television, and it was noted that the Jackpot Prize was "worth more than $500". A notable (and often pointed out) feature of Sylvania's TVs at the time was the "halo light", which was an illuminated "frame" around the image which was supposed to have made watching the image easier on the eyes, similar to the "AmbiLight" feature on some modern television sets.

television set

Celebrity pairs played for designated rooting sections (a la , another Goodson-Todman game of the 1970s) of the audience which split the winnings. (Also, someone in "the winning rooting section" won a set of prizes, which were the "consolation prizes" in the non-celebrity part of the run.)

Tattletales

Both rooting sections could be seen on-camera.

Stunts in the first two rounds were only worth $250 for the rooting sections.

If the winning team completed the bonus stunt, $1,000 went to their rooting section while the remaining money went to their favorite charity (thus, the most money a celebrity team could win for their rooting section in a single day was $3,000 and a possible $9,000 to their charity).

Both star teams remained on the show for a week. The pairings stayed the same on four of the five days, with the teams changing colors (the red team on Monday and Thursday was the green team on Tuesday and Friday). On Wednesdays, the teams switched, although still one man and one woman per team.

In case of a tie going into the Bonus Shuffle, a coin toss determined who went first.

In the last two weeks of the run, after each head-to-head stunt, both teams got to perform the next stunt, with the losing team from the previous stunt going first. If both teams performed this stunt within the time limit, whoever did it faster got the $250.

The theme song was now an upbeat version of the first one used in its run (it was previously used going into and out of the commercials of the earlier episodes), and was performed live in the studio.

Minute to Win It

Beat the Clock (1950) at IMDb

Beat the Clock (1969) at IMDb

Beat the Clock (1979) at IMDb

Beat the Clock (2002) at IMDb

Beat the Clock (2018) at IMDb