On a team's turn, one member stood behind a podium while the other was shown a series of five words or phrases, one at a time, and had to get their partner to guess as many of them as possible in 60 seconds.

[1] The clue-giver was not allowed to speak or use any props, including their own clothing, but had to use gestures to communicate the target words/phrases; any violation of this rule forfeited the rest of the team's time.

If, after time ran out, the original clue-giver revealed a word that had not been guessed, the opposing team received the first chance at the puzzle.

Starting on September 3, 1985, and continuing for the rest of the run, any contestant who got their celebrity partner to guess all five words during the second round won a $500 bonus, which did not affect the scores.

On September 24, 1984, the rules were changed to allow a contestant who are defending champions to stay on the show until they either have two losses in the main game or have been in the sweepstakes six times.

The teens played the standard game; any winnings up to $2,500 were awarded in cash, while anything over that amount went into a savings bond that matured on the player's 18th birthday.

Although its sole network competition on ABC, The Edge of Night, was nearing the end of a long run, the show struggled nonetheless because many CBS affiliates had for years preempted the network feed at that time in favor of syndicated programming, which likely brought in larger advertising revenues.

Although some stations tape-delayed the show for broadcast the next morning, Body Language still managed only a fraction of the audience that daytime games such as The Price Is Right and The $25,000 Pyramid did.

Body Language was then replaced on January 6 by a revival of Goodson's Card Sharks,[2] which occupied the 10:30 am timeslot, forcing a move of Press Your Luck to 4:00 pm at the same time; CBS would return the 4:00 pm timeslot to its affiliates[3] after Press Your Luck aired its last episode on September 26, 1986.