More than a decade after its last run ended, "Pyramid" saw new life as a syndicated entry hosted by one-time teen heartthrob Donny Osmond. The basic premise was identical to the 1973 classic word association game: Two teams of two (a contestant and a celebrity partner) each try to convey words and/or phrases in any one of six categories. This time, they had just 20 seconds to guess six words correctly. As before the cluegiver could do anything short of saying the word itself to get his/her partner to say the word; the word can be passed on (and scored if they thought of it later), but if the cluegiver blurts out the essence of the word, the word is thrown out and the contestant can't score on it. One of the categories hid a "Super Six" card, which gave the contestant a bonus prize if all six words were guessed. Three go-arounds were played (the celebrity giving the clues the first time, the contestant the next time through and a choice of cluegivers in the final round). The contestant in the lead after all six categories were played (with tie-breakers played if necessary) went to the Winner's Circle. There, the team had 60 seconds to successfully convey six categories (as in the classic game, with only a list allowed) to win $10,000; the contestant won $200 per guessed clue if they failed to scale the pyramid. A second round is then played, with each contestant paired with the other celebrity. If a contestant wins the $10,000 in the first game and returns to the Winner's Circle with the other celebrity, he/she can win $15,000 more by again successfully climbing the pyramid. All $25,000 winners in one episode (no returning champions here) returned for a $100,000 tournamet.

During the first season, original Pyramid host Dick Clark was a guest player along with game show queen Betty White during a week, called the "Dick Clark Challenge". It was the first time Dick was on the show since 1988 and the first time he was a Pyramid player since 1978. While Clark hosted the daytime version back then, he was a frequent player on the syndicated version of the '70s with Bill Cullen as host.