| Hollywood Squares is a American television comedy and game
show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win money and prizes.
The "board" for the game is actually a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk
and facing the contestants. The celebrities are asked questions and the contestants judge the veracity of their answers in order
to win the game.
Although Hollywood Squares is a legitimate game show, at its best the game is simply the background for the show's
comedy. The show is scripted, in the sense that the panel of celebrities know the questions in advance and are provided with
answers, and suggestions for bluffs and jokes. Typically, a celebrity's first response to a question is a(n attempt at a)
humorous one. This is then followed by the true answer or bluff.
The show's recurring and most successful celebrities have always been the ones with comic timing.
Basic rules
Although there have been variations over the years in the rules and the prize-winning aspects of the game, certain aspects of
the game remained fairly consistent. Two contestants, a woman playing Os (noughts) and the man playing Xs
(crosses), take turns selecting a celebrity, following traditional tic-tac-toe strategies for which square to select. The chosen
celebrity is then asked a trivia question by the show's host. The celebrity answers the question, and a contestant win an
X or an O on the board by agreeing with the celebrity, or disagreeing if the celebrity is bluffing or wrong. If the
contestant is right, he or she gets the square; if wrong, the other contestant gets the square, unless that causes the opponent
to get three-in-a-row. In that case, the opponent has to win the square on his or her own.
Original version
The show's greatest success was during its original run. In its heyday in the early 1970s, it was the most popular daytime show in the country, and a platform for celebrities to promote their work
which seemed almost as popular as Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show.
The show got its beginning as a black-and-white pilot episode filmed for CBS in
1965. That pilot was hosted by Bert Parks, with the squares occupied by Cliff
Arquette in his "Charley Weaver" comic persona, Wally Cox, Rose Marie, Morey
Amsterdam, Abby Dalton, Jim Backus, Gisele
MacKenzie, Robert Q. Lewis, and Vera Miles. The first five of the initial panelists were to later appear on the first broadcasted show (October 17, 1966) and
become some of its initial regulars.
CBS shot a second pilot hosted by Sandy Baron, but choose not to follow-up with either host. A year later, NBC acquired the rights to the show, and chose Peter Marshall
as host, a job he held for fifteen years, until 1981.
Paul Lynde, in addition to his recurring role on Bewitched, had his greatest fame as the coveted "center square" throughout most of
the original show's run. But he was not the first person to take that position; Ernest Borgnine held that honor. However, in 1970 after two years on the show, Lynde became the regular center square. Lynde was the only panelist on
the show to win two daytime Emmy Awards, in 1975 and 1979. Other regulars
and semi-regulars over the years included Nannette Fabray, George Gobel, Vincent Price, Charo, Sandy Duncan, Karen Valentine, Roddy McDowall, and
Joan Rivers.
The daytime version of the show was replaced by NBC on June 20, 1980, by a short-lived talk show hosted by David Letterman. It ran for one more year in syndication before it was canceled for good.
Peter Marshall wrote about his experiences on the show in the 2002 book Backstage With The Original Hollywood Square [sic] (ISBN 1558539808).
The 1st theme song used in 1966-1969 is called "The Silly Song" by Jimmie Haskell. The 2nd theme song used in the 1969-1980
version is called "Bob & Merrill's Theme" by William Loose. The 3rd theme used from 1980-1981 was composed by Stan Worth.
Revivals
There have been several revivals, each with variations in the prize-winning rules but still based on the core premise. For
nine months starting in October 1983, Jon “Bowser” Bauman of Sha-Na-Na hosted a version packaged back-to-back
with Match Game. The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour (as it was
called) not only featured celebrties of the day, but also up-and-coming new stars (such as comedian Bruce Baum, John deLancie,
and Mary Page Keller) who would become famous years later.
John Davidson hosted a version
called The New Hollywood Squares, produced between 1986 and 1989 by Orion Television (which by then had acquired the
Filmways production
company). Shadoe Stevens was the announcer, and always occupied the
bottom-center square. Most seasons featured Joan Rivers as the center square.
James J. Bullock was
another regular. The lower left square would feature a "special guest star", usually a musical or comedy group, or sometimes even
a regular from the original Peter Marshall version.
In 1998, King World bought the format rights to the show from MGM
(successor-in-interest to Orion Pictures and Filmways, who produced the respective previous incarnations of the series) and
relaunched the final version of the show to date, hosted by Tom Bergeron.
It starred Whoopi Goldberg in the center square; Whoopi also
co-produced it for its first four years. The end game underwent numerous changes throughout the run of the Bergeron version. In
its fifth season it underwent an update after Henry Winkler and Michael Levitt took over as executive
producers, taking on the nickname H2 and switching to a rotating series of center square occupants. The
final series ended in September 2004.
Other versions
A UK version of the show, called Celebrity Squares and
hosted by Bob Monkhouse, appeared on ITV from 1975 to 1979; it was revived with the same host from 1993 to 1994, the 1993 series named
New Celebrity Squares.
Storybook Squares, a Saturday-morning children's version, was on for several months in 1969. It featured stars dressed as fairy tale and historical characters. It would later air occasionally in the 1970s during the run of the
original Marshall version.
Other celebrity panelists
Since the center square is the most strategic in tic-tac-toe, it is treated as the position of honor on the show. Besides
Paul Lynde, center square occupants in later versions have included:
The following is a partial list of other notable celebrity panelists:
Puppets have also appeared as panelists, including:
Reruns
- It was believed that NBC destroyed the whole Marshall version, but during a search for original master tapes of the soap opera Dark Shadows,
at least 100 network master tapes of the classic Hollywood Squares episodes (the exact figure is still disputed) were
discovered, thus the Marshall version would be seen for the first time in almost two-and-a-half decades (and to a whole new
generation of fans whose previous one grew up on the classic incarnation). This discovery was a surprise to game show fans, even
Peter Marshall himself. A majority of these episodes, which aired on GSN in 2002 and 2003,
were of the 1970s syndication run, while others were of the network nighttime version shown in the late 1960s.
- All of the Bauman version's episodes are assumed to be intact, but the Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour has never
been rerun on any network, primarily because of cross-ownership issues between MGM and
FremantleMedia (successor-in-interest to Goodson-Todman Productions).
However, in 2004, The World of Soap Themes web site featured a selected episode with soap opera stars during one
of its theme weeks.
- Episodes hosted by Davidson were rerun on the USA Network for a few years
after the show's cancellation.
- The Bergeron episodes continue to air on GSN.
External links
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