Contestants compete to answer trivia questions about popular culture and recent history to win prizes.

In "Time Machine," contestants competed to answer questions about popular culture and recent (usually post-World War II) history. A series of rounds, each with different contestants, could see the contestants answer questions about newsmaking events, identifying events from a specific decade and sports and entertainment. The winners from each of those rounds competed against a returning champion in a Q&A-type quiz. The winner of that round played a bonus round. Two different bonus games were used during the show's run. Early in the series, host Davidson read a list of items all tied to a specific year (e.g., "West Side Story," Chevrolet Impala Super Sport introduced, "I Fall to Pieces" by Patsy Cline, Peace Corps started and Roger Maris' 61st home run); if the contestant correctly identified the year (in this case, 1961), he/she won a bonus prize. Later in the run, a specific year was given (e.g., 1959) and up to four questions relating to whether a certain event happened before or after that year were read (e.g., Vietnam War started, correct answer, before); four correct answers won the player a new car, while an incorrect answer before then stopped the game.—Brian Rathjen <[email protected]>