HOLLYWOOD'S TALKING
Broadcast history: CBS Daytime March 26, 1973 - June 22, 1973
Host: Geoff Edwards
Announcer: Johnny Jacobs
Three players competed. Various celebrities are videotaped talking about various subjects. The clues start vague, and get more and more descriptive as the game goes on. The first to buzz-in and name the subject wins money. If it happens in the first 1/3 of the video, they win $150. If they buzz-in and 2/3 of the video has played, they win $100. Anything after that is worth $50 to their score. If they buzz-in and are wrong, they sit out until the next subject. The first to roll up $200 wins the game.
In the bonus, the winner got 60 seconds to get as many subjects out of five correctly. The game was played in the same fashion as the front game, but they could answer as much as they wanted without penalty. Each right answer was worth their score in the main game and an additional $1,000 for getting all five. So a player who won $250 in the main game would get $250 for each right answer and a possibility of $2,250 total.NOTES
This was Geoff Edwards' first game show.
Jack Barry produced this show, and plugged it around the time of its premiere earlier in the day on "The Joker's Wild" which was at CBS in '73.
A disclaimer in the credits reads: "In order to give contestants a fair chance to identify the subjcets, occasionally, prepared material is provided to some celebrities."
"Hollywood's Talking" was a revamp of a 60's show with a similar premise called "Everybody's Talking." Early pilots for this show taped in January '73 went by the name "Hollwood Talkabout." The hosts were Roger Barkley on one pilot and the other Betty White. Betty's tested better, but she wasn't chosen for the series.
MY THOUGHTS
Ack. Geoff had a better time before this on the pilot for "Says Who?" two years prior. This is a rather dull game. The fun comes from the dumb guesses of the contestants and the jokes from the comedian types (Berle, Allen, etc.) which only appear near the end of each subject it seems. The prizes are pretty chintzy too, compared to TJW which was shoveling out cash and prizes around that time.
JAY SAYS...
Cast - 2.0
Game - 1.0
Bells and Whistles - 0.5
Prize - 0.5
Tilt - 0.0