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From the days where no one would
buy it, to the current era, "Hollywood Squares"
has undergone many evolutions, the latest of
which some pundits are calling a "desperation
makeover." But historically, what improvements,
if any, have come from these changes?
Chico Alexander
daytime editor
"Circle gets the Square!"
"Which one of our stars is in the Secret
Square?"
"The object of the game is to get three stars in
a row, either across, up and down, or
diagonally. You have to determine if the answers
given are correct or just making a bluff; that's
how you get the Square"
Some things about the "Hollywood Squares"
never change. Then again, some things do. The
history of the game can be traced into three
eras, heralded by three different hosts (Peter
Marshall, John Davidson, and Tom Bergeron) and
three different eras. The common bond tying
those eras has always been the main game of
tic-tac-toe, whihc, though static, has undergone
several aesthetic changes for any number of
reasons.
Laying the Groundwork
To trace the chart of changes that the show
has made, there has to be a foundation. For
Hollywood Squares, it was the mid 1960s. After
the failures of "People Will Talk" and "The
Celebrity Game", Merrill Heatter of Heatter-Quigley
Productions (which packaged the two shows) was
captivated with the idea of a game similar to
the right-or-wrong format of "Celebrity Game"
but with a slightly different angle. His idea of
putting celebrities in a giant tic-tac-toe board
brought him and partner Bob Quigley into the
office of then CBS chief Fred Silverman. During
his tenure at CBS, the network saw much
successes, including "Sonny and Cher" and the
"New Price is Right," both in the 1970s.
Silverman commissioned the pilot in 1966 with
nine celebrities and longtime Miss America emcee
Bert Parks as host.
"Silverman had a slot to fill and a choice to
make between Squares and [Bill Cullen's] "The
Face is Familiar." He chose Face," says Dixon
Hayes, webmaster of the Classic Hollywood
Squares website. Selling Squares was not going
to be easy. "When the option expired
Heatter and Quigley shopped the show to ABC and
NBC and were turned down cold. But NBC at least
agreed to take a second look, and bought it,"
notes Hayes. One thing they didn't like was
Parks as host. Hayes notes in his analysis of
the original pilot that Parks was quite
overdramatic, and in the comic atmosphere of
Squares, it was dramatically out of place. "It
might have worked on a more dramatic game show
like 'Stop the Music' but here, Parks just
sounds obnoxious, like each contestant was on
the verge of being crowned Miss America."
The network began searching for a new host.
The search ended, of course, with Peter
Marshall, who, in comparison, was simple and
more amicable. "Marshall also simply said 'Right
or wrong?' to prompt the contestants, and even
that was gone by 1970. His emphasis was to keep
the game moving, smoothly." The first change was
in place, with not an average viewer wise to it.
But, the change would prove in NBC's favor, as
both daytime and nighttime editions score high
marks since its inception in 1966. The daytime
edition, which ran until 1980 on NBC, would keep
its daytime slot of 10:30 for the first ten
years of its run.
Despite the successes, there were still
problems with the stars limiting the game with
their ongoing antics. Jefferson Graham, writer
of "Come On Down! The Game Show Book," said that
Heatter noticed the show moved too slowly,
because the celebrities just wouldn't shut up.
Heatter enacted a gag order, limiting a game to
a minimum of 22 questions.
Hollywood High Rise and
Fast Fall
By 1970, Hollywood Squares had reached the
top of their game, with the game becoming number
one in daytime games, several bits of
merchandise (two records of Zingers, four home
games, and a tic-tac-toe patterened pendant).
Its stars were also stars of the show. Some
panelists on the primetime version migrated to
the daytime version, and in 1975, the show was
temporarily expanded to an hour.
Ten years following the premiere, the show
was plagued with several factors against it.
First of all, ratings were dropping, prompting
NBC to move it to opposite growing "Price is
Right", a move which would prompt yet another
change, this time to afternoons. Second, the
show's main attraction, center Square Paul Lynde,
left in a dispute around this time. In 1980,
getting beaten by ABC affiliates with local
shows, NBC finally pulled the plug on Squares in
June 1980, although the nightly syndicated shows
would move to Las Vegas for another year before
low station clearances forced the show to go
into stasis until 1983, where it was part of an
arranged marriage between it and Match Game in
1983. Several rule flaws and a lack of
participation on the show's part led to an early
demise.
The Next Chapter
1986 brought in a new era for the show. The
Squares were back, as "The New Hollywood
Squares". Some of the stars from the earlier two
runs, namely Dom DeLuise and Joan Rivers among
others. John Davidson, who sat in the upper left
later in the original run, was brought back as
host. Century Towers Productions produced the
show with Orion Television distributing. Aside
from escalating money values, this version had
three notable changes. The first was that this
version went on the road for several weeks,
doing remote shots in New York and Florida. The
second was the lifting of the gag order that had
been in place since the 1970s. Third was the
change of the end game in which a player could
win one of five cars. The original had a bomus
won outright by a player. While it did well in
its day, Merrill Heatter, who did not have
anything to do with this version, called it "a
circus." It graciously bowed out in 1989.
"I Love Hollywood"
KingWorld and Sony, the distributor and
producer of longtime staples "Jeopardy!" and
"Wheel of Fortune", decided to make a new
version, teaming up with Whoopi Goldberg's
production company, One Ho Productions and
recruiting Tom Bergeron as host. Looking for a
new venture in TV, Whoopi was tapped as the
Center Square.
That version launched in September of 1998
and took off quickly afterwards, having greater
successes than the 1983 and 1986 in the second
season. The main game rules did not change for
the first season, but as the second season
progressed, a final question for a bonus and
returning champions were added. However, the
show started to wane as year three went on,
notably during the fourth year. Changes were
made to try and recapture the popular interest,
among them, a radically new bonus round totally
unlike the main game. Critically panned and not
really well-received, it was dropped in 2002,
along with several other changes.
No more making Whoopi
However, In a case of history repeating itself,
Whoopi, the center attraction of the show, left
in a contract dispute in 2002. The effect
snowballed, as Bruce Vilanch, the show's head
writer, Caroline Rhea, who takes over for Rosie
O'Donnell this fall, and the production team of
John Moffitt and Pat Tourk Lee also left. Enter
the production team of Henry Winkler and Michael
Levitt, who oversaw a major overhaul in set, end
game (resurrecting the keys-to-the-car end game
of the 80s), and onscreen talent and execution.
The question that awaits an answer now is
will changes like these be for the better? Fans
of the show have mixed reactions about the
changes implemented thus far this fall. "I think
it was either modernization of the show, a last
ditch effort to save the show, or a total
revamping of the show," says game show analyst
Mike Klauss, webmaster for a popular game show
site. There are some methods to the madness, but
history portends a different take, as television
writer Tom Heald offers. "It's a sustainable
show at the moment," Heald says. "It's about the
quality of the JM J. Bullock, Joan Rivers years.
The writing's pretty decent, a little bit less
guest specific, as in 'this is a Wally Cox'
question. Whether H2 will be able to play the
piano, of course, depends on if it could before
the accident."
Bottom line: only time knows for sure. What
is known for certain is that "Hollywood Squares"
is contractually obligated to run through to
2004. Whether it has the staying power to last
beyond that is still a point to which many fans
agree or disagree. On the web: Dixon Hayes'
ClassicSquares.com |
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