A charades game show produced by Mark Goodson and hosted by Tom Kennedy; it ran on CBS from June 4, 1984, to January 3, 1986.
Two teams consisting of a contestant and a celebrity partner competed to solve fill in the blank puzzles. One member of each team would attempt to pantomime five words or short phrases in 60 seconds to the other member. Then each word or phrase that had been correctly guessed would be revealed in the puzzle, and one team member would try to solve it. If their guess was incorrect, their counterpart from the other team could ask for another blank to be revealed; the two would go back and forth until the puzzle was finally solved.
The first two puzzles on each show were worth $100 each, and the second two were worth $250 each. Since it took $500 to win, the games often came down to a tiebreaker puzzle with no acting involved, just the two contestants calling out numbers of blanks they wanted filled in.
The winning contestant and their celebrity partner would play the bonus round, but their opponent might be back on the next episode. Soon after the show premiered, a rule was added that contestants had to lose twice to be kicked off the show.
The bonus round was a two-part affair. First, the contestant had 60 seconds to communicate 10 words to the celebrity for $100 per word correctly guessed. Then the contestant had 20 more seconds to communicate three more words; if the celebrity guessed all three, the dollar amount won in the first part would be multiplied by 10, for a possible total of $10,000.
Because "Body Language's" network time slot was 4:00 P.M. Eastern time, many East Coast CBS affiliates preempted it for syndicated talk shows or local news. Fortunately, it's rerun on Game Show Network. Between the giant white illuminated globes on the set, the casual outfits and hairdos seen on the contestants and the celebrities, and the frequent appearances by Jamie Farr (introduced as being "from AfterMASH'"), it may be the quintessential 1980s game show.