Scrabble (game show) off their case" for "detective"). Viewers could win a "Scrabble" T-shirt by submitting a word and clue and having them selected for use in the show's opening title sequence. The first round of every game was the Crossword round, in which two contestants competed to guess words as they were laid out on a computer-generated Scrabble board. Originally, two new contestants played each Crossword, with the winner advancing to the Scrabble Sprint to face the reigning champion (see below). On September 29, 1986, as part of a broader format change, episodes were re-structured to include two Crosswords. The first Crossword
Scrabble variants are formed. This variation is also used on "Scrabble Showdown". This game has the same size board and nearly the same scoring system as Scrabble. The major differences are the inclusion of twelve wild tiles marked with an asterisk that may represent one letter or any series of letters and special board squares that convert a regular letter tile into a wild tile (the tile in question is placed upside down on such a square). The nature of these changes shifts the emphasis of the game from playing short words to playing words of any length. For example, QUA*IST, could