Former morning show and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? host Meredith Vieira brings us yet another (syndicated) entry into the ubiquitous genre of word association-based game shows with celebrity partners. Essentially, it's Password crossed with the "Bid-A-Note" round from Name That Tune—clue-givers challenge each other to communicate the answers to their teammates using as few clues as possible.
In the first round, a member of each team (a civilian and two celebrities) bids on how many words they think they need to describe five specific words to their teammates in 45 seconds. The winner of the bid then has to do so—with success awarding 250 points for their team, and failure giving the points to the other team. Each member of the team gets a turn as the bidder slash clue giver.
The second and final round is limited to 20 words, and is played only by the civilian contestants. But now, they get a chance to choose their fate: for each of their five words, the players get to take turns picking from sets of three (the first pick of each set alternates, beginning with the contestant behind after round 1), with each word designated as being easy, medium, or hard—worth 250, 500, and 1,000 points each respectively (plus a 1,000-point bonus if the celebrities successfully get all five words). The contestant with the most points after this round gets a chance to play a bonus round for $10,000.
The third season mixed things up a bit; the teams became two civilians and one celebrity. They also instituted a returning champion format; before, a contestant's appearance was one-and-done.
Based on the board game of the same name by Winning Moves, 25 Words or Less premiered over the summer of 2018 in a three-week test run on Fox's owned-and-operated stations, before being syndicated nationally for the 2019-20 season. It is notably one of the first shows produced by Fox's new syndication division Fox First Run (created in the wake of the sale of 20th Century Fox to Disney).
Game Show Tropes in use:
- Bonus Round: The Money Round. 10 words, 60 seconds, 25 words or less. If you win, you get $10,000. If you lose, you still get a decent consolation prize. In the first two seasons it was always a vacation, the third season mixes it up with a wider variety of prizes.
- Bonus Space: Starting in season 4, two of the words in Round 2 are bonus words, each of which when guessed correctly gives the team a $250 cash bonus.
- Consolation Prize: Cash is not thrown around much on this show: the loser in the main game gets a small consolation prizes, and losing the bonus round nets a larger prize.
- Game Show Host: Meredith Vieira.
- The Announcer: Mark Istook during the 2018 test run, Jamie Anderson for the national run.
This series provides examples of:
- Deadpan Snarker: Jamie Anderson. Just listen to all his introductions.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Ten of the fifteen test run episodes aired nationally during the spring of 2020, presumably to fill out the season when the COVID-19 pandemic ended production early. In addition to a different announcer, those episodes had slightly different rules. Round 1 consisted of four bidding rounds instead of three. The first two were worth 250, the last two were worth 500, and the team got to pick who gave the clues for the fourth go-round. The winning team also got to pick which member would be the clue giver during the bonus round; in the series proper, it was always the contestant.
- The first season in general has become this, being the only one to use a traditional game show set instead of the COVID-friendly pod setup that debuted in season 2.
- Epic Fail: One of the test run episodes saw a contestant who appeared to forget why the show was called 25 Words Or Less, giving such lengthy descriptions
they wiped themselves out on the second word. Their team finished the episode with zero points. - Golden Snitch: The "hard" words in round 2 could easily be one if the clue giver knows the right thing to say, given that they're all worth 1,000 points each.
- Home Participation Sweepstakes: Using the show's website or social media accounts, viewers at home can register to become a "SuperFan" to win prizes on a show. This rule was introduced in the second season.
- Product Placement: A week of shows in the first week of October 2019 featured WWE performers as the guests to promote the premiere of WWE SmackDown on Fox (the show's distributor) that Friday.
- Transatlantic Equivalent: A Spanish version, called 25 palabras (25 Words), aired from December 2022 to September 2023 on Telecinco, with more variable rounds and Christian Gálvez at the helm. The grand prize was a Progressive Jackpot which started at 250,000 euros. It also featured viewers at home playing against the studio players for 5,000 euros each show, to be added to the pot if the home viewer lost.
