Did you ever wonder why people playing Charades on sitcoms are always rushing through the puzzles so breathlessly, even though they don't have a clock or any timed competition? It's a fun game, but it's not intrinsically fast. In fact, the variant called acting charades was notoriously slow to prepare. In 1907, Dorothy Canfield complained about it at length:
The drawback to all charades and dressing up at a party is that they make away with so much valuable time of the players who are out of the room, and unsettle those who are left in. It should be the first duty of every one taking part in acting at parties to decide quickly on the subject or word, and to perform it quickly. Many and many a party has been spoiled by the slowness of the actors outside.A simpler variant of pantomiming parts of a single word had to be faster, and several descriptions of this variant ca. 1917 to 1928 do lack complexity--but also any particular reason for speed. There's still no clock, no direct competition on time, and no rush. So where did the modern elements of Charades come from: the breathless pace, the arbitrarily complex puzzles going well beyond a single word (eventually going beyond titles and proverbs too), and the standard signals for narrowing down the nature of the puzzle and working through its parts?
In 1937, Life magazine ran a short article about how the artist Neysa McMein had developed a fast game similar to Charades, but she just called it "The Game":
Here is how it goes. Guests are divided into two or more teams, each with a captain, each in a separate room. A neutral referee is placed in still another room. At a signal, the captains rush into the referee's room and are given the first of ten slogans, mottoes, titles or phrases such as "Over the hill to the poorhouse," "One swallow does not make a summer," "Look before you leap," "The foolish virgin," or "It's never too late to mend." Each captain then runs back to his room and acts out the phrase, answering only yes or no to questions. When one of his team guesses right, he runs back to the referee for the next phrase. First team through the ten phrases wins.
A biography of her life has more detail about the origins of "The Game," beginning at the bottom of page 177, partly based on Neysa McMein's husband's 1962 memoir in which he says she gave Charades "new life by making it highly competitive."
In 1946, Play the Game put Charades on TV in New York, where Neysa McMein lived and associated with a wide circle of friends (especially including the Algonquin Round Table). No episodes of the show survive, so it is very unclear why it is titled something like "the Game," rather than Charades, but in the May 6, 1963, episode of Stump the Stars, Ross Martin attempts to decode Beverly Garland's pantomime of the word "charader" by guessing, "The past tense of 'charade'? What it used to be? 'The Game'!" There's a fair chance everyone involved knew the game they were playing as "The Game," just as Neysa McMein did: that's what Goren's Hoyle's Encyclopedia of Games called it in 1961. But another article in Life magazine in 1946 had implied a large audience still didn't know the game of Charades in the fast-paced form Neysa McMein played it (or, for that matter, in a form that allowed sketching clues like Pictionary, which she also encouraged). Finally, in 1947, the TV show Pantomime Quiz (which became Stump the Stars) made a modern formulation of Charades extremely popular. Many episodes survive, and it's definitely the modern, fast-paced game that is also often depicted in fictional TV shows.
So my conclusion is all those sitcom characters rushing through Charades were probably modeled on the celebrities playing the game on TV panel shows from the late 1940s on, and the game they're playing is noticeably different from the Charades described in 1917-1928--i.e. something happened probably between 1928 and 1946. Neysa McMein's claim to have introduced a more modern fast-paced game in 1937 is disputed as an origin story by sources not named by Life magazine, but perhaps those sources had in mind the other well-known forms of Charades. What remains very interesting is the fact that she got her claim documented during the timeframe where we'd expect to find that a fast variant developed. Furthermore, no one disputes her many celebrity contacts and the social influence of the Algonquin Round Table in general--she was certainly in a position to spread new games widely.
If some other source for a timed version of Charades ever pops up, it'll cast doubt on her story. Meanwhile she has a pretty strong claim at least regarding how the pace of the game increased. That said, the bibliography below lists over a hundred different sources related to the history of Charades, pantomimes, word games, riddles involving puns, silent guessing games, proverb games, parlor theater, and so on--all of which probably contributed something to the modern game of Charades. Parlor games are essentially a kind of folklore, usually not attributable to just one person and just one point in time, but it's definitely neat to see this innovation attributed to Neysa McMein.
In 1642, Charles Sorel's La Maison des jeux described several pantomime games. Here's a transcription of pages 274-280 from volume 1:
And here's a translation:Pour nous eſleuer petit à petit à d'autres choſes, ie ſuis contrainct de vous placer icy les Ieux où il faut deuiner ce que l'on vous veut faire entendre, ſelon les ſignes que l'on vous fait ... Ie penſe que l'on ne ſe trompera point ſi l'on place le Ieu des Meſtiers à deuiner entre les Ieux d'Eſprit, encore que les enfans & les perſonnes de baſſe condition le pratiquent quelquefois, car l'on le rend plus beau ſelon que l'on eſt ingenieux à trouuer des Meſtiers peus communs, & à en bien former les actions, Il faut auſſi beaucoup de viuacité & de conoiſſance de nous les artifices mechaniques pour les deſchiffrer par vne vraye explication.
A l'imitation de ce Ieu, l'on en peut inuenter vn autre qui ſera celuy de Muet. Vn homme de la compagnie fort adroict à parler par ſignes, repreſentera quelque choſe à chacun, & punira ou recompenſera, ſelon que l'on l'aura bien ou mal expliqué.
Or l'on en fait vn autre preſque de pareille ſorte, mais ... ce n'eſt point vn Maistre de Ieu qui s'adreſſe à toutes les perſonnes de la compagnie : mais chacun s'adreſſe a ſon voyſin; Le premier dit ſa penſée à l'oreille de celuy qui eſt le plus proche, & apres il l'exprime par ſignes à celuy qui eſt de l'autre coſté, ſurquoy il faut qu'il diſe ce qu'il penſe que c'eſt, & qu'il y reſponde; Et en ſuite de cela celuy qui à parlé par ſignes, lui dit vne autre penſée à l'oreille, qu'il repreſente encore de meſme à ſon voyſin ou à ſa voyſine. Cela ſe fait de cette ſorte conſecutiuement, & ceux qui manquent bien à expliquer & à bien reſpondre ſont iugez dignes de punition.
To take us away little by little to other things, I am bound to place for you here the games where it is necessary to guess what someone is trying to tell you, according to the signs they make ... I think we would not be mistaken if we place the game of guessing Métiers among games of wit, even though children and people of low station sometimes practice it, because we render it more compelling according to how ingenious we are at finding uncommon Trades and forming their actions well. It also requires much liveliness and knowledge of all the mechanical arts to decipher them with an accurate explanation.On pages 382-385, after describing several games that involve proverbs, Sorel also describes the game of acting out proverbs with signs:In imitation of this game, we can invent another which would be that of the Mute. A man at the gathering, very skilled at speaking through signs, will represent something to each person, and will punish or reward according to whether we will have explained well or badly.
Now we make of this another of nearly similar kind, but ... it is not a Game Master who addresses all the people in the company, but each addresses their neighbor. The first tells their thought in the ear of the one who is closest, and then that person expresses it through signs to the one who is on the other side, whereupon it is necessary for that other person to say what he thinks it is and respond to it. And following this, the one who spoke through signs tells the person who has responded another thought in his ear, which he represents in the same manner to his neighbor. This is done consecutively in this way, and those who fail to explain well and respond well are judged worthy of punishment [i.e. they perform some forfeit task].
Ie ſçay bien que pluſieurs n'aiment pas que l'on les oblige à de longues narrations, ny a faire des diſcours de doctrine ſur quelque ſujet, pource que la contrainte leur deſplaiſt : mais ie leur donneray vne autre maniere d'expliquer les Prouerbes, laquelle ne leur ſera pas peut-eſtre ſi ennuyeuſe. Deux ou trois de l'aſſemblée peuuent repreſenter quelques Prouerbes par ſignes & les faire expliquer a quelqu'vn; Cela ſe raporte en quelque ſorte au Ieu du muet, & la principale particularité qui s'y trouue, c'eſt que cecy ne ſert qu'aux Prouerbes, & que l'on ſe peut aſſeurer que l'on en veut repreſenter quelqu'vn au lieu que nous auions tantoſt propoſé de repreſenter toute ſorte de queſtions par ſignes. De verité, il y a peu de prouerbes que l'on puiſſe repreſenter ainſi, & cela ſeroit difficille à expliquer, tellement que l'on y peut adjouſter la parole, mettant le diſcours & les geſtes en vſage pour en cõpoſer ce Ieu. Quand l'on voudra donc repreſenter quelques Prouerbes, la pluſpart des perſonnes de la compagnie s'eſtans retirez à vn bout de la ſalle, ioüeront vne eſpece de Comedie, ou de Farce auec des paroles & des actions telles qu'il leur plaira, & telles qu'elles conuiendront au ſujet. Que ſi l'on dit qu'il faut touſiours parler en cecy, il ne faut pas croire que cela ſoit ſi malayſé, que quand l'on parle tout ſeul, pource que l'on s'ayde l'vn l'autre, & que les vns parlent beaucoup & les autres fort peu, ſelon l'occaſion qui ſe preſentera, & ſelon le perſonnage qu'ils auront voulu prendre. Ce ſeront auſſi des diſcours libres & ſans eſtude, tels que l'on les fait aux propos familiers. Ie ne penſe pas que l'on puiſſe iamais trouuer vne plus agreable maniere de diuertiſſement, quand l'on y a l'humeur diſpoſée; car il n'y aura rien quen l'on ne faſſe venir au ſujet, pourveu qu'il y ait là quelques perſonnes d'eſprit qui gouuernent cecy auec inuention & iugement.The discussion of interpreting proverbs, paying for mistakes in their interpretation, and conversation games in general goes on quite a bit from there. But here's a translation of the section above:
I know well that many don't like being obliged to give long narrations or opinionated speeches on any subject, because the requirement displeases them. But I will give them another way of explaining proverbs, which will perhaps not be so tedious for them. Two or three members of the assembly can represent some proverbs through signs and have someone explain them. This relates somewhat to the game of the Mute, and the main difference found here is that this game is limited to proverbs, and we can be certain that we want to represent one of them, whereas we had earlier proposed representing all sorts of questions through signs. In truth, there are few proverbs that we can represent thus, and they would be difficult to interpret, so much so that one may add speech to it, using both discourse and gestures to compose this game. When one wishes to represent some proverbs, then, most of the people in the company having retired to one end of the hall, they will play a kind of comedy or farce with words and actions as they please, and as will suit the subject. But if someone says that one must still speak in this, they must not believe this is as difficult as when one speaks all alone, because we help one another, and some speak much and others very little, according to the occasion that presents itself and according to the character they wished to take on. These will also be free dialogues without rehearsal, such as one makes in familiar conversation. I don't think one could ever find a more agreeable manner of entertainment, when one has the humor disposed to it; for there will be nothing that we can't bring to the subject, provided there are some people of wit there who govern it with invention and judgment.In 1675, Richard Flecknoe's A Treatise on the Sports of Wit reported on a series of games he apparently played near Brussels with the Duchess of Lorraine, among others. He described one evening like this:
Of the Acting of Proverbs.He went on to describe two specific enactments and the proverbs they represented, and he also gave a list of proverbs unfamiliar in English but known to the people he had played games with.The next Nights sport, and that of many Nights after, was the Acting of Proverbs, a sport of so great variety, as you might often repeat it, and never twice the same again; where note, That as there are divers sorts of other sports, some which cause laughter without any Wit, others more studious then delightful as Ridles, Rebus's, and Anagrams; or half witted Paradoxes, as, A Chandler can least hide his own knavery, for all his works must come to light. And, a Shoomaker would make the best Constable, for he can put any Man in the Stocks, and take him out at last. So there are divers sorts of this, some acting Proverbs in Dancing; others in dumb shew and mimick gesture, and the like; which may be sports, but not sports of Wit, or but dumb wit at most; whereas, that of these Ladies, added words unto action: Of which, we shall give you an example or two, not doubting, but if the Ladies be delighted with it, there are wits enough to furnish them with more.
For what it's worth, there were probably a lot more pantomime games that involved guessing or interpretation. Just as one example, Crambo is a very, very old guessing game that involves rhymes, and at some point, a silent variant emerged. This will not be a comprehensive survey of all pantomime games but rather a representative selection of many games and entertainments more or less connected with Charades.
The Scene was supposed an Inn where divers Friends met, as by chance, and recounted their several adventures on the way; some more dangerous, others more pleasant; every one making a several Novella, and all together a delightful Variety. Amongst the rest two persons arrived so disguised, that they seemed strangers both to themselves and all the rest, who recounting their adventures, were soon known to be a pair of Noble Lovers, who on the eve of their Nuptials, were severally made Captives by strange adventures; and by as strange, delivered from Captivity again, to their incredible joy, and little less of all the Company, as they declared by their Congratulations, Embracements; and all the signs of joy and gladness, which are usually shewn on such occasions.So the game of Acting Proverbs could obviously be elaborate and theatrical, even though it illustrates just a short but thought-provoking sentence or two. Much like proverbs, literary charades are short and thought-provoking--sometimes enigmatic and sometimes involving clever wordplay, and at some point probably in the very early 1800s, someone in France realized that charades could be acted out in more or less the same manner as proverbs.
In 1813, Théophile Marion Dumersan and Charles-Augustin de Bassompierre Sewrin staged a one-act vaudeville comedy in which the characters put on a game of Acting Charades: Les Charades en action. Much as in a game of Acting Proverbs, the game's players-within-the-play staged a game where they acted out brief scenes for an audience to interpret, but unlike a game of Acting Proverbs, what they portrayed was not a proverb but rather a literary charade. In the charade-within-the-play, the characters pantomime the first syllable of a word, then they pantomime the second syllable of a word, and finally they pantomime the whole word, which the audience then solves in the manner of a literary charade.
However, the game of Acting Charades portrayed in the play was not the first game of Acting Charades. A review of the play published Esprits des Journaux appeared in December 1813, explaining a lot about it:
On a eu pendant quelque temps la manie des charades en action : dans le grand monde, elles avaient remplacé les parades, les lectures et les proverbes. Bientôt la bourgeoisie s'en était emparée, et les avait substituées aux petits jeux; mais aujourd'hui elles sont dédaignées, même au Marais : le même objet ne peut conserver long-temps la vogue.Or, in translation:L'auteur de la pièce nouvelle est donc arrivé un peu tard pour s'égayer aux dépens de cette manie; mais le tableau qu'il fait d'une réunion bourgeoise qui veut singer la haute société, a de la vérité et du naturel; on pourrait même désirer que la vérité fût moins nue; un peu d'ornement ne gâterait rien, et le commérage de ces bonnes gens aurait besoin d'être relevé par quelques traits qui en fissent mieux ressortir le ridicule.
Les charades ne sont pas le seul amusement que l'on se permette chez Mme. de Gerbonet. Pendant l'absence de son mari, elle a voulu avoir une maison, donner de brillantes soirées : chez elle, les uns jouent au boston, les autres essaient de gagner de l'argent à la bouillotte; on fait même de la musique, et quelle musique ! Mlle. Palmyre, sa nièce, chante de l'italien, quoiqu'elle ne sache pas un mot de cette langue, et qu'elle ignore même les élémens de la prononciation; elle danse la gavotte avec M. de Saint-Gilles, jeune élégant, qui, craignant de s'enrhumer, s'enveloppe dans son garrick, au milieu du salon. Ce M. de Saint-Gilles est un homme universel; c'est lui qui dirige tous les plaisirs de la maison. La gavotte avait peu amusé la société; et en effet, si l'on en excepte les grands parens, qui s'extasient, ces danses exclusives paraissent toujours un peu longues. M. de Saint-Gilles propose de jouer des charades en action, se met à la tête des acteurs, et représente l'Enlèvement de Proserpine; Mme. Gerbonet fait Cérès, sa nièce Proserpine, il remplit le personnage de Pluton; deux pots de fleurs, posés sur un chaise, imitent, à s'y méprendre, les riantes campagnes de la Sicile. Pendant que l'on cherche à deviner le mot de la charade, Pluton enlève tout de bon Proserpine, s'échappe avec elle de la maison; ce qui rappelle un peu le Tableau des Sabines.
Une servante picarde, chargée de faire le service du salon, de distribuer les verres de sirop, d'eau sucrée, et qui se mêle de temps en temps à la conservation, vient révéler tout le mystère. Chacun est consterné : Mme. Gerbonet pousse les hauts cris; mais bientôt M. Gerbonet ramène Mlle. Palmyre. Revenu de ses voyages, il avait tout concerté avec M. de Saint-Gilles, afin de donner une leçon à sa femme, et de lui montrer le danger des charades en action. Ce dénouement peu convenable, que l'auteur a eu la prétention de rendre moral, a excité quelques murmures.
La pièce ne brille ni par la conduite, ni par les couplets, mais elle est amusante. Le grand nombre de personnages, la bizarrerie des costumes, l'espèce de brouhaha continuel qui règne sur la scène, divertissent le spectateur. Mme. Gerbonet et sa société se piquent de suivre la mode, et la suivent en effet, non comme les gens du monde, qui la soumenttent et la modifient, mais avec une religieuse exactitude. Aussi leurs costumes, copiés sur les caricatures de Martinet, sont-ils fort plaisans.
La pièce est de M. Dumersan.
For some time we had a mania for Acting Charades: in high society, they once replaced parades, readings and proverbs. Soon the bourgeoisie seized upon them and substituted them for parlor games; but today they are disdained, even in the Marais: the same object cannot long maintain its vogue.The author of the new play has thus arrived a bit late to make fun of this mania; but the tableau he makes of a bourgeois gathering that wants to mimic high society has truth and naturalness; one could even wish that the truth were less naked; a little ornamentation would spoil nothing, and the gossip of these good people would need to be enhanced in some aspects that would better bring out the ridiculous.
Charades are not the only amusement permitted at Madame de Gerbonet's house. During her husband's absence, she wanted to have a house and give brilliant soirées: at her place, some play Boston, others try to win money at Bouillotte; they even make music, and what music! Mademoiselle Palmyre, her niece, sings in Italian, though she doesn't know a word of that language, and she doesn't even know its elements of pronunciation; she dances the gavotte with Monsieur de Saint-Gilles, an elegant young man, who, fearing he might catch cold, wraps himself in his overcoat in the middle of the salon. This Monsieur de Saint-Gilles is an everyman; it is he who directs all the pleasures of the house. The gavotte had little amused the company; and indeed, except for the grandparents who go into raptures, these dances always seem a bit long. Monsieur de Saint-Gilles proposes playing acting charades, puts himself in charge of the actors, and portrays The Abduction of Proserpina; Madame Gerbonet plays Ceres, her niece Proserpina, and he fills the role of Pluto; two flower pots, placed on a chair, imitate, to perfection, the smiling countryside of Sicily. While they are trying to guess the word of the charade, Pluto truly abducts Proserpina and escapes with her from the house; which recalls somewhat the Tableau of the Sabines.
A servant from Picardy, charged with serving the salon and distributing glasses of syrup and sweetened water, and who from time to time mixes into the conversation, comes to reveal the whole mystery. Everyone is dismayed: Madame Gerbonet lets out loud cries; but soon Monsieur Gerbonet brings Mademoiselle Palmyre back. Returned from his travels, he had arranged everything with Monsieur de Saint-Gilles in order to give his wife a lesson and to show her the danger of acting charades. This improper dénouement, which the author had the pretension to render moral, excited some whispers.
The play shines neither through its plot, nor through its couplets, but it is amusing. The large number of characters, the bizarreness of the costumes, the sort of continual brouhaha that reigns on the stage, entertain the spectator. Madame Gerbonet and her society pride themselves on following fashion, and they follow it indeed, not like people of the world, who subjugate it and modify it, but with religious exactitude. Also their costumes, copied from Martinet's caricatures, are quite amusing.
The play is by Monsieur Dumersan.
Soon after, two parlor game manuals in 1817 and 1818 also explained the game of "Charades en action" / Acting Charades. Then, in 1823, Anne-Marie de Beaufort d'Hautpoul published two volumes of scripted Acting Charades for groups to perform and decipher. Later sources in English often suggest Acting Charades originated in France, and that's probably true, although it's unclear to me what impact these particular sources had in English (for example, I haven't compared Anne-Marie de Beaufort d'Hautpoul's charades with other acting charades published in English, but direct translations without attribution are common in a parlor game context--their impact might be traceable too).
In any case, parlor theatricals--brief plays staged at home as parlor entertainments, much like parlor games--were a pretty large phenomenon, and Acting Charades in particular left a significant mark, appearing in novels like Vanity Fair and Jane Eyre and getting popularized among celebrities by authors like George Sand and H.G. Wells. Contemporary sources frequently intermingle the description of Acting Charades with Acting Proverbs and also especially Tableaux Vivants, which themselves often illustrated proverbs. Meanwhile, other pantomime games like Dumb Crambo continued to be important as well. Karl Marx was evidently a big fan:
It might have struck an unprejudiced person as a little incongruous that after the Dogberry-ites had concluded their serious reading they should finish up the evening with games and such pastimes as charades and dumb-crambo, chiefly--as it would seem from his extreme enjoyment of them--for the delectation of Dr. Marx. As an audience he was delightful, never criticising, always entering into the spirit of any fun that was going, laughing when anything struck him as particularly comic, until the tears ran down his cheeks--the oldest in years, but in spirit as young as any of us. And his friend, the faithful Frederic Engels, was equally spontaneous
So here is a somewhat undifferentiated bibliography and/or timeline that lumps all kinds of pantomime games and parlor theatricals together, but with a special focus on examples of Acting Charades, which often had scripts we can examine and perhaps connect to each other. Games that aren't Acting Charades appear here sporadically mostly as an indication they're around and could still be influential:
Although Canfield and Stanley complained about the actors' slowness in selecting a word and planning its portrayal, nothing about the game intrinsically encouraged the actors to be quick with their portrayals. Nothing encouraged audiences to be especially quick about their solutions either. Was Neysa McMein's 1937 variant of the game the first to add a timed element? At what point did portraying words syllable by syllable become a special case of the game rather than the general case? Who developed the signals present in the game by the time it appeared on TV? I'm still not certain about any of this, but it sure looks like this 200-year-old game evolved a great deal in probably a very short timeframe leading up to its appearance on TV. Neysa McMein's account of her involvement is a fit for that overall picture, but there are plenty of questions I don't know the answers to.
In any case, these early to mid-20th Century sources seem to capture the game at a moment when many small adjustments or mildly differing alternatives were in development, and at some point, the fact that a charade had been a 3-part puzzle about a single word--whether as a poem, as a scripted play, or as a pantomime--was overshadowed by a game known only for maximally quick pantomimes, usually of whole words but with occasional syllable-by-syllable breakdowns as residual evidence of what had formerly been the whole game.