Two teams, each consisting of a celebrity and contestant, attempt to convey mystery words and phrases within a common category, against a time limit, to win cash and prizes.

Game Show Network's The Pyramid, hosted by Mike Richards, who was an executive at format owner Sony Pictures Television, aired a single forty-episode season in 2012.

The game's central premise involves teams taking turns, with one player attempting to describe mystery words or phrases to their teammate against a time limit.

Starting with the 2016 version of the show, ties are broken by whichever team achieved their score in a faster amount of time.

Once the Winner's Circle is completed, a new round of gameplay begins with the celebrities switching teams and a new selection of categories.

Throughout the 1970s, a random category during the main game doubled as the "Big 7", meaning that the contestant originally received a prize if all seven words were guessed correctly.

During the $100,000 tournament weeks in the 1980s and 1990s, no bonus prizes were on the maingame board, but the perfect score tiebreaker award was still intact.

The Donny Osmond-hosted version had one bonus: "Super Six", which was featured in both games each day, and awarded an additional prize for guessing all six words in 20 seconds.

The team is credited with solving a category as long as the guesser says its key word (here, "clean") before time runs out.

Although it has not been stated in official rules, since Strahan has been hosting, the contestant gives the clues and the celebrity must guess the categories.

In the earliest episodes of the show, the host would ask the contestant whether or not they wanted to give or receive clues in the winner's circle.

[12] The remainder of the CBS episodes originated in New York City at the Ed Sullivan Theater, moving to ABC's Elysee Theatre after Pyramid switched networks.

From October 1 to November 9, 1979, the series briefly became Junior Partner Pyramid, which scrapped the usual celebrity-contestant pairings in favor of children playing the game with a parent or other adult relative.

Its last episode aired June 27, 1980, with Family Feud subsequently moving up a half-hour to take over the 12:00 noon (EST) slot formerly occupied by The $20,000 Pyramid.

[citation needed] On September 20, 1982, the series returned to the CBS daytime lineup as The $25,000 Pyramid, again with Clark as host.

[24][25][26][27] In August 2020, production for season five of The $100,000 Pyramid began in New York City with new safety protocols and guidelines introduced; these guidelines include measures such as crew and contestants having their temperatures tested, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) on-site, and social distancing measures.

[28] On January 6, 2022, ABC renewed The $100,000 Pyramid for a sixth season, and moved the show from New York City to Los Angeles.

[7] In late 1996, Sony Pictures Television (then-Columbia TriStar Television) produced a pilot for a new version of Pyramid, with Mark Wahlberg as host, which featured a format radically different from the earlier versions, including an increase of the number of celebrities to six, each of which would be assigned to a different main game subject.

It did not sell, but Sony tried again the following year, this time with Chuck Woolery at the helm and a format closer to the original, although the six-celebrity motif from the previous pilot remained.

[35] The show would remain off the air until 2002, when a syndicated series, simply titled Pyramid, successfully sold its pilot and was ordered for a full season.

Following CBS's cancellation of Guiding Light in April 2009, Pyramid was one of three potential series considered as a replacement for the veteran soap opera.

[36] CBS passed on Pyramid and opted to pick up Let's Make a Deal, hosted by Wayne Brady, as Guiding Light's replacement.

[42] On July 12, 2012, GSN announced The Pyramid had been picked up and would premiere on the network on September 3, with Mike Richards hosting the show.

The show's format was adapted from an unsold television pilot Stewart had filmed earlier titled Cash on the Line.

Alan Kalter and Steve O'Brien shared the primary announcer role until The $50,000 Pyramid ended production in 1981.

Substitutes included Fred Foy, John Causier, Dick Heatherton, Scott Vincent, and Ed Jordan.

Donny Osmond hosted a short-lived incarnation in 2007, which used a similar set and the same music package as the 2002 American version.

A German version titled Die Pyramide aired on ZDF from 1979 to 1994, and was hosted by Dieter Thomas Heck.

Developed and published by Box Office Software, it was originally released for Apple II and then ported to MS-DOS and Commodore 64.

[60] Sierra Attractions released a Microsoft Windows version of The $100,000 Pyramid in 2001,[61] which was followed by a DVD game from MGA Entertainment in 2006.