October 17 marks the 39th anniversary of the
debut of Hollywood Squares on NBC. The show
evolved out of two other shows: People Will
Talk (NBC daytime, 1963) and The Celebrity
Game (CBS primetime, summer 1964 and January-
September 1965; reruns on Sunday afternoons
in 1967-68).
People Will Talk involved two contestants
guessing how fifteen members of the studio
audience would answer a yes-or-no opinion
question, such as "Is it OK to kiss in public?"
The contestants would take turns picking one of
the fifteen, and if they guessed correctly they
won $25; $100 won the game.
Apparently not many people cared what a bunch
of strangers thought about anything, so when
NBC canceled the show producers Merrill Heatter
and Bob Quigley decided to experiment with fifteen
celebrities. Although it was too late to save
People Will Talk, they whittled the number of
stars to nine for Celebrity Game.
Merrill Heatter, in a book about game shows titled
Come On Down!, says that Celebrity Game did well
enough that he wanted to do another multistar game
show, and by free association he came up with the
idea of putting them in a life-size tic-tac-toe board.
Two changes made the show a hit (make it three). When
the original pilot was made for CBS, Bert Parks was host.
Fred Silverman, then running daytime programming at the
Eye network, chose The Face Is Familiar, which bombed.
Next customer: NBC, which wanted a new face as host.
Peter Marshall had had no emceeing experience but we
know how good he turned out to be. He had been a
straight man for comedian Tommy Noonan.
The second change was speeding up the show. Heatter
was watching one morning and counted only eleven questions.
The stars were hogging the camera; it didn't matter if it
was a true-false question, he said, they were on for two
minutes. So he decided there would be at least twenty-two
questions each show. That was a big help; I remember being
bored out of my mind the first time I saw Squares in '66.
The third--and best--change was making Paul Lynde the center
square. I could watch Squares just to hear his answers, such
as one that is perhaps the most famous:
MARSHALL: Why are motorcyclists partial to leather?
LYNDE: Because chiffon wrinkles.
With Wally Cox, Charley Weaver (and George Gobel after him),
and semi-regulars like Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Abby
Dalton, and Vincent Price, Squares was soon winning every
award in sight, and was even the number-one daytime show for
a time in 1972. The nighttime syndicated version was also a
hit (yet NBC ran it at night only once, January-September 1968).
Mark Goodson thought Squares was fraudulent, because the show
furnished the answers (and the jokes) to the celebrities. Heatter
rightly took offense; the contestants still had to judge whether
an answer was right or wrong, and they were on their own there.
I'd have to pick the original version as the best, followed by
the Tom Bergeron version and the John Davidson one, in that order.
I never saw The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour so I cannot
comment on it.
To Merrill Heatter, I will say, happy birthday to one of the
truly classic game shows.
<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by bpatrick on 10/17/05 08:18 PM.</FONT></P>
debut of Hollywood Squares on NBC. The show
evolved out of two other shows: People Will
Talk (NBC daytime, 1963) and The Celebrity
Game (CBS primetime, summer 1964 and January-
September 1965; reruns on Sunday afternoons
in 1967-68).
People Will Talk involved two contestants
guessing how fifteen members of the studio
audience would answer a yes-or-no opinion
question, such as "Is it OK to kiss in public?"
The contestants would take turns picking one of
the fifteen, and if they guessed correctly they
won $25; $100 won the game.
Apparently not many people cared what a bunch
of strangers thought about anything, so when
NBC canceled the show producers Merrill Heatter
and Bob Quigley decided to experiment with fifteen
celebrities. Although it was too late to save
People Will Talk, they whittled the number of
stars to nine for Celebrity Game.
Merrill Heatter, in a book about game shows titled
Come On Down!, says that Celebrity Game did well
enough that he wanted to do another multistar game
show, and by free association he came up with the
idea of putting them in a life-size tic-tac-toe board.
Two changes made the show a hit (make it three). When
the original pilot was made for CBS, Bert Parks was host.
Fred Silverman, then running daytime programming at the
Eye network, chose The Face Is Familiar, which bombed.
Next customer: NBC, which wanted a new face as host.
Peter Marshall had had no emceeing experience but we
know how good he turned out to be. He had been a
straight man for comedian Tommy Noonan.
The second change was speeding up the show. Heatter
was watching one morning and counted only eleven questions.
The stars were hogging the camera; it didn't matter if it
was a true-false question, he said, they were on for two
minutes. So he decided there would be at least twenty-two
questions each show. That was a big help; I remember being
bored out of my mind the first time I saw Squares in '66.
The third--and best--change was making Paul Lynde the center
square. I could watch Squares just to hear his answers, such
as one that is perhaps the most famous:
MARSHALL: Why are motorcyclists partial to leather?
LYNDE: Because chiffon wrinkles.
With Wally Cox, Charley Weaver (and George Gobel after him),
and semi-regulars like Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Abby
Dalton, and Vincent Price, Squares was soon winning every
award in sight, and was even the number-one daytime show for
a time in 1972. The nighttime syndicated version was also a
hit (yet NBC ran it at night only once, January-September 1968).
Mark Goodson thought Squares was fraudulent, because the show
furnished the answers (and the jokes) to the celebrities. Heatter
rightly took offense; the contestants still had to judge whether
an answer was right or wrong, and they were on their own there.
I'd have to pick the original version as the best, followed by
the Tom Bergeron version and the John Davidson one, in that order.
I never saw The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour so I cannot
comment on it.
To Merrill Heatter, I will say, happy birthday to one of the
truly classic game shows.
<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by bpatrick on 10/17/05 08:18 PM.</FONT></P>
