JULY 4, 1988
America celebrated Her 212th birthday.
Also, CBS dusted off the old Goodson-Todman favorite, Family Feud, and returned it to the air with a vengeance--and with a new set and a new host, Ray Combs. On this first new episode of Family Feud in 3 years, Combs wished America a "Happy Birthday!," and added that "I'm real excited about bein' on CBS and hostin' this show. Uh, I have been studying all of the great CBS shows, I think I'm prepared, so, if you're ready, let's have the first item up for bids!" In this first game, The Drozdowski Family (Norm, Beth, Jennifer, Frank and Tom) took on The Holtrust Family (Steve, Pam [she is such a babe!], Ed, Julie and Mark) The first question on this new Feud was "Who is the most macho man in movies today?", for which the most popular answer was "Sylvester Stallone" (Frank Drozdowski got it). The Holtrusts won this first game with $444, and capped an extra $5000 in the Fast Money round.
Not a bad day's work on the first show!
A new syndicated primetime edition was premiered an immediate 2 months after the CBS Daytime debut. In its 5-year sojourn on CBS, Family Feud would be expanded to 60 minutes with the addition of The Bullseye Round to it and renamed The Family Feud Challenge on June 29, 1992 (The Bullseye Round was added to the syndie version that fall, when it was renamed The New Family Feud), then it went into reruns on March 29, 1993 and was canned on September 10, 1993 when it was decided that CBS give back the hour to their local affiliates. The syndie edition kicked around for a year after that; after which, Combs was replaced by original Family Feud host Richard Dawson! (It was almost like the 10th season of the original Family Feud with Dick Dawson that never happened.)
