This Week's Game Show TV Milestone

[AH3RD]

OCTOBER 17, 1966

“Ladies and gentlemen, today, one of these stars is sitting The Secret Square, and the contestant who picks it first could win a prize package worth over $2000...and now which star is it? (drumroll with brass note before each star's name) Nick Adams...Agnes Moorehead...Charley Weaver...Pamela Mason...Wally Cox...Rose Marie...Morey Amsterdam...Abby Dalton...or Ernest Borgnine...all in The Hollywood Squares!  And now, here's the master of The Hollywood Squares, Peter Marshall!”

That was announcer Kenny Williams’ opening spiel to the premiere telecast of The Hollywood Squares, Heatter-Quigley's tic-tac-toe game of the stars, which occurred on NBC in living color @ 11:30 a.m. EST, opposite The Dating Game on ABC and reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show on CBS. (The latter competitor was ironic since Dick Van Dyke Show regulars Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie were guests on that first week, and in fact were regulars for years.)

Ernest Borgnine was the first Square to occupy The Center Square on the first NBC week of Squares shows (October 17-21, 1966). Paul Lynde, the show's celebrated Center Square, first appeared with the cast during the second week (October 24, 1966 to October 28, 1966), and, after a couple of years as just a recurring guest, was added as a regular full-time in 1968. Rose Marie and announcer Kenny Williams are the only regulars to appear in the first and last episodes of The Hollywood Squares and the unsold 1965 pilot recorded @ CBS Television City hosted by Bert Parks.

Continued...

[AH3RD]

The immense popularity of The Hollywood Squares yielded a brief primetime edition on NBC, seen every Friday night @ 9:30 (EDT) between January 12 and September 13, 1968. Another primetime edition, this time in syndication, was launched in November 1971. The daytime version became the second longest-running game show in NBC Daytime history (right after 1958-73's Concentration!), lasting for 14 seasons and 3,536 episodes until June 20, 1980. Host Peter Marshall tried to assure viewers that \"we're going to have some fun!\" on the finale, but several jokes and comments (funny or not) seemed directed at The Peacock Network and Fred Silverman, at the time its head of programming.

Celebrities on the last NBC Daytime grid were Rose Marie, Tom Poston, Michelle Lee, Charlie Callas, Vincent Price, Leslie Uggams, George Gobel, Marty Allen, and Wayland Flowers & Madame (center square, since Paul Lynde had left the show by this point in a dispute, and, surprisingly enough, no direct mention of him was made on the final show!).  George Gobel was the last daytime Secret Square but no one picked him during that game.

Wayland and Madame were heavily criticized for taking up too much precious time on The Hollywood Squares' final show, at times even getting host Marshall's goat as he desperately attempted to hasten the show's pace for its duration since a new car was at stake; sadly, time ran out before the contestants got a chance, but Marshall made up for it by giving them a shot at the bonus prize. The finale's fading minutes found Peter Marshall bringing the stars and the production staff on camera to introduce them (including producers Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley), and made special references in his departing speech:

\"I want to thank all of the stars of the past, and people like Wally Cox and Charley Weaver, and folks like that that we miss terribly, but thank God for The George Gobels and...all the people who do our show. So, on behalf of the staff of Heatter-Quigley, and of all these people who work here at NBC---and they are the best!---we may be #3, but if we get another show like ours, they we can be #1 again!

\"So, on behalf of everybody, and on behalf of my wife Sally, and my 6 children and my 2 grandchildren, thank you! You have made us the hit that we have been! Thank you out there! You are the ones who have been responsible!\"

Concluded...

[AH3RD]

The Hollywood Squares was one of 3 game shows plucked from the NBC Daytime schedule to make room for David Letterman's ill-fated 90-minute daytime show (ironically, Letterman had earlier on appeared as one of The Squares!): the others were The New High Rollers, another Heatter-Quigley staple (its final program featured Alex Trebek appearing a mite tipsy!), and Chain Reaction. Its syndicated primetime version continued for one more year, with Paul Lynde returning to his old center square, expanding to five nights a week, and switching operations from NBC Studio 3 in Burbank to The Riveria Hotel in Las Vegas. (Another popular game show shares the honor with The Hollywood Squares of defecting to The Riveria Hotel: Let's Make A Deal, whose host, Monty Hall, was another one of The Squares!) Lynde would leave the show again, but return for a walk-on in the syndication finale. And George Gobel was once again the last ever center square.

A good game show, as it is proven, never dies (or stays dead for long); it just keeps coming back in different incarnations. The Hollywood Squares made living proof of that thrice, on NBC in 1983, as the ill-fated Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour, with the MG portion emceed (for the last time) by Gene Rayburn and the Squares portion hosted by Sha-Na-Na alumni Jon \"Bowzer\" Bauman; in 1986, as the syndicated New Hollywood Squares, hosted by old Hollywood Squares regular John Davidson and announced by Shadoe Stevens; and, of course, the current version, premiering once again in syndication in 1998, hosted by Tom Bergeron and formerly featuring Whoopi Goldberg as The Center Square (Ellen DeGeneres now performs in Goldberg's stead). But regardless of how many times it is resurrected, it is always the original 1966-81 version which shall remain fresh in the hearts of game show enthusiasts world wide...even though NBC did erase all but its final 2 years for reuse!

[pyrfan]

[quote name=\'AH3RD\' date=\'Oct 12 2003, 08:33 AM\']OCTOBER 17, 1966

“Ladies and gentlemen, today, one of these stars is sitting The Secret Square, and the contestant who picks it first could win a prize package worth over $2000...and now which star is it? (drumroll with brass note before each star's name) Nick Adams...Agnes Moorehead...Charley Weaver...Pamela Mason...Wally Cox...Rose Marie...Morey Amsterdam...Abby Dalton...or Ernest Borgnine...all in The Hollywood Squares!  And now, here's the master of The Hollywood Squares, Peter Marshall!”

That was announcer Kenny Williams’ opening spiel to the premiere telecast of The Hollywood Squares...[/quote]
Slight correction: Pamela Mason didn't appear on the first week, despite the fact that a number of otherwise reliable sources say she did, including  TEOTVG and the TV Guide ad for the premiere. The picture of the first taping in Peter Marshall's book has Sally Field, not Pamela, as a celeb. I have yet to find any other week or syndie episode that Pamela Mason appeared on. It's possible that she did a few days and was replaced by Sally (or vice versa), but I tend to doubt it because Peter never mentions anything about Pamela in his stories about the first week.


Brendan

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'AH3RD\' date=\'Oct 12 2003, 08:37 AM\'] The Riveria Hotel in Las Vegas. (Another popular game show shares the honor with The Hollywood Squares of defecting to The Riveria Hotel: Let's Make A Deal, whose host, Monty Hall, was another one of The Squares [/quote]
 LMAD did indeed do a season(1976-77 syndie) in Vegas, but at the LV Hilton, not the Riviera.