The incredible success story of Ruck Zuck began in 1988 with Werner Schulze-Erdel on Tele 5. In 1992, Jochen Bendel took over the show and switched to RTL 2 in 1993. In 1996, TM3 won the game show for itself and just one year later, the 2,000th episode was broadcast.

In Ruck Zuck, one female and one male team, each consisting of five candidates, competed against each other. A term had to be paraphrased four times without repeating a key word in relation to the term being searched for. The candidates wore headphones and did not hear the term being paraphrased beforehand. If a keyword was repeated twice during the guessing round or the 40-second guessing time had expired, the score was stopped. The round was then over and the opposing team had their turn.

The team that scored the most points in the four preliminary rounds played in the Ruck Zuck final. In the final round, the game was no longer played for points, but for money. The team captain was separated from his teammates, who were also acoustically shielded from him by headphones. The captain now had to name four terms related to a given generic term.

Now it was time to see how well the team captain knew his team, as they had to guess these four terms within 20 seconds. A team could win a maximum of DM 2,400 per show. If a team reached the final six times, it had the chance to win DM 50,000.

The following specials were produced by Ruck Zuck: “Moderatoren Ruck Zuck” as an anniversary program for the 100th, 200th and 200th anniversary of the show. 1000. and 2000th program, “Kinder Ruck Zuck” for the 500th program.