Hollywood Squares
| Hollywood Squares | |
|---|---|
_titlecard.jpg) |
|
| Genre | Game show |
| Created by |
Merrill Heatter Bob Quigley |
| Presented by | Bert Parks (1965 - Unaired Pilot) Peter Marshall (1966–81) Jon Bauman (1983–84) John Davidson (1986–89) Tom Bergeron (1998–2004) Steve Harvey (2017–present) |
| Narrated by | Kenny Williams (1965–81) Gene Wood (1983–84) Shadoe Stevens (1986–89, 1998–2002) Jeffrey Tambor (2002–03) John Moschitta, Jr. (2003–04) George Gray (2017–present) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 26 |
| No. of episodes | 3,536 (NBC daytime) 46 (Saturday morning) 192 (Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour) 585 (Davidson) 1,050 (Bergeron) |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 22–24 minutes (all versions except Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour) 44–48 minutes (Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour) |
| Production company(s) |
Heatter-Quigley Productions (1966–81) Century Towers Productions (1986–89) Moffitt/Lee Productions (1998–2002) One-Ho Productions (1998–2002) Henry Winkler-Michael Levitt Productions (2002–04) Columbia TriStar Television (1998–2003) Sony Pictures Television (2003–04) |
| Distributor | Rhodes Productions (1971–79) Filmways Television (1979-81) Orion Television Syndication (1986–89) King World (1998–2004) |
| Release | |
| Original network |
NBC (1966–80, 1983–84) Syndicated (1971–81, 1986–89, 1998–2004) Fox (2017–present) |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) |
| Original release |
First Run October 17, 1966–June 20, 1980 (NBC Daytime) January 12, 1968–September 13, 1968 (NBC Primetime) January 4, 1969–August 30, 1969 (NBC Saturday morning) November 1, 1971–April 10, 1981 (syndication) Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour October 31, 1983–July 27, 1984 (NBC Daytime) Third Run September 15, 1986–June 16, 1989 (daily syndication) Fourth Run September 14, 1998 Fifth RunSeptember 11, 2017 – June 4, 2004 (daily syndication) present |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows |
Storybook Squares Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour Hip Hop Squares |
The Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The show piloted on NBC in 1965, and the regular series debuted in 1966 on the same network. The board for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants. The stars are asked questions by the host, and the contestants judge the truth of their answers to gain squares in the right pattern to win the game.
Although The Hollywood Squares was a legitimate game show, the game largely acted as the background for the show's comedy in the form of joke answers (called "zingers"), often given by the stars prior to their real answer. The show's writers usually supplied the jokes. In addition, the stars were given the questions' subjects and bluff (plausible but incorrect) answers prior to the show. The show was scripted in this sense, but the gameplay was not. In any case, as original host Peter Marshall would explain at the beginning of the Secret Square game, the celebrities were briefed prior to the show to help them with bluff answers, but they otherwise heard the actual questions for the first time as they were asked on air.
In 2013, TV Guide ranked it at No. 7 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.
Internationally, there are multiple versions under a variety of names (see International versions below).
Although there have been variations over the years in the rules of and the prizes in the game, certain aspects of the game have remained fairly consistent. Two contestants competed in every match, one playing X and the other O. With very rare exceptions, the matches were male vs. female with the male playing the X position and referred to informally as Mr. X, with the female playing the O position and referred to informally as Ms. Circle (the show referred to the O by its shape and not its alphabetical nature). One of the contestants was usually a returning champion.
Taking turns, each contestant selected a square. The star was asked a question and gave an answer, which was usually preceded by a zinger. The contestants had the choice of agreeing with the star's answer or disagreeing if they thought the star was bluffing. On rare occasions, a star would not know the correct answer to a question, but would be unable to come up with a plausible bluff. In such instances, the contestant would be offered the chance to answer the question and would earn or lose the square based on how they answered. Usually the contestants declined, in which case they incurred no penalty and the same star was asked another question.
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