Talk About

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For the motorola two-way radio, see Talkabout

Talk About is a game show produced in Canada for CBC, which bears some similarities to the board game Outburst. Originally produced for CBC, it was later picked up for American television syndication, airing from September 18, 1989 to March 16, 1990, with repeats later airing on the USA Network from June 28-December 30, 1993. Taped at studio 40 of CBC Vancouver, the show was hosted by Wayne Cox, with local radio personality Dean Hill as announcer.

Gameplay

Two teams of two people played. The returning champions play first select one of two topics after the other team was placed in isolation so they could not hear anything. Hidden on the gameboard were 10 preselected keywords related to the topic. Each member of the team was given 20 seconds to "talk about" the selected topic in an attempt to say as many of the keywords as possible. Each keyword spoken would be revealed on the board and was worth one point for the talking team.

If the talking team said all 10 words, they received a $500 bonus in addition to the 10 points. Otherwise, their opponents were brought out of isolation and shown all of the keywords not said by the talking team. If they could correctly guess the topic from those keywords, they stole the points from the talking team.

Teams alternated talking until one team won the game by scoring 15 points. The winning team won $100 and advanced to the bonus round. Five-game champions received a "Grand Game" jackpot, which started at around $5,000 in prizes, and increased by about $1,000 each week until won.

Bonus game

The winning team chose one of two bonus prizes to play for. The team would choose one of two topics, and one of the two players would go into an isolation booth. As before, the first player would have 20 seconds to name as many of the subject's keywords as s/he could. Each one said was revealed on the board and was worth $100. If the player uncovered all 10 words, the team automatically received $2,000 and the bonus prize. Otherwise, the player had to choose between keeping the money won, or gambling it for double the money. The person in the booth would have to turn around while the decision was made.

If the first player chose to gamble, the second player was removed from isolation and given as many seconds as the number of keywords uncovered by the first player to say any one of the remaining words that the first player did not say. If the second player was successful, the team doubled the money won and received the bonus prize; if unsuccessful, the team received nothing.

Foreign versions

A UK version of the show hosted by Andrew O'Connor ran for three years on ITV from 1990-1993. The only difference was in the bonus round, where each word was worth 20 pounds, and at the end, the player had two options: "doubling", by having their partner say any unsaid word in 10 seconds, or "double-doubling" (4 times the pounds) by having them say a specific word within a time limit of 1 second per word already said.

A Swedish version called Prata på! ran briefly on TV4 in the mid-1990s. In the bonus round, each word was worth SEK 500, and the "doubling" option required the partner to say any one of the unsaid words within a time limit of one second per word already said.

Home version

A home version of the game was produced by Pressman Toy Corp.

References