This was quickly changed with the panelist having to say the exact word in a contestant's talent in order for that word to be revealed on the board. During the very early episodes of the show, synonyms of words that were on the board were accepted by the judges (e.g.: A panelist revealing the word 'song' by saying the word 'carol' and another episode featured a panelist revealing the word 'box' by saying the word 'bag'). Prepositions and articles, such as 'of' and 'an,' are provided automatically. The game board shows which words of the phrase are guessed, along with blanks denoting words that the panel didn't solve.

The panel's job was figure out was the secret is. The words in the puzzle were hidden behind blanks.

The secret was hidden as a puzzle on a game board known as 'Billy the Answer Head' (in Summer's era) or the 'It' board (in the Sutphen era). The contestant came in with a secret which was always a talent, skill or achievement. A panel of four celebrities (mostly from Nickelodeon shows) faced one or two child contestants.

Figure 17 ep 1