Squares Game Answers Today

[Laurene Arrison]

HollywoodSquares (originally The Hollywood Squares) is an American game show[1][2][3][4] in which two contestants compete in a game of tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The show piloted on NBC in 1965 and the regular series debuted in 1966 on the same network. The board for the game is a 3 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants. The stars are asked questions by the host and the contestants judge the truth of their answers to gain squares in the right pattern to win the game.

Though Hollywood Squares was a legitimate game show, the game largely acted as the background for the show's comedy in the form of joke answers (commonly called "zingers" by the production staff),[5] often given by the stars prior to their real answer. The show's writers usually supplied the jokes. In addition, the stars were given the questions' subjects and bluff (plausible, but incorrect) answers prior to the show. The show was scripted in this sense, but the gameplay was not. In any case, as original host Peter Marshall explained at the beginning of the Secret Square game, the celebrities were briefed prior to the show to help them with bluff answers, but they heard the actual questions for the first time as they were asked on air.

In May 2024, it was announced that the show would be revived in 2025 on CBS, with Drew Barrymore serving as the center square.[6][7] When combined with two spinoffs of the franchise, the show has been produced for seven different decades.

In 2013, TV Guide ranked it at No. 7 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.[8] Internationally, there have been multiple versions produced under a variety of names (see International versions below).

Though there have been variations in the rules and prizes of the game, certain aspects have remained fairly consistent. Two contestants competed in every match, one playing X and the other O. Traditionally, the matches were male vs. female with the male playing the X position and referred to informally as Mr. X, with the female playing the O position and referred to informally as Ms. Circle. One of the contestants was usually a returning champion. In later iterations with a returning champion, the X spot is reserved for the returning champion and the O spot is the challenger.

Taking turns, each contestant selected a square. The star in that square was asked a question and gave an answer, which was usually preceded by a zinger. The contestants had the choice of agreeing with the star's answer or disagreeing if they thought the star was bluffing. On rare occasions, a star did not know the correct answer to a question and was unable to come up with a plausible bluff. In such instances, the contestant was offered the chance to answer the question and earned or lost the square based on how they answered. Usually, the contestants declined, in which case they incurred no penalty, and the same star was asked another question for that contestant to agree or disagree.

The objective was to complete a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line of three squares all earned for either X or O, or to earn as many squares as possible, as contestants could also win by capturing five squares (early in the Marshall run, a player was required to get enough squares to make it mathematically impossible for the opponent to get three in a row; it is possible to capture as many as six squares without blocking the opponent from getting a diagonal three in a row, which did occur in an early episode). Correctly agreeing or disagreeing with a star's answer captured the square. If the contestant failed to agree or disagree correctly, the square went to his/her opponent, unless this would have resulted in a win for the opponent, which was not allowed; in that case, the square remained unclaimed and the opponent got a chance to capture it themselves on his or her turn.

The nighttime versions featured the same two contestants playing for the entire half-hour with each completed game worth $300 (NBC prime time) or $250 (syndicated). On the syndicated version, if time ran out with a game still in progress (interrupted by a loud horn that the host called "the tacky buzzer"), each X or O on the board at that point was worth an additional $50 to the contestants, with each contestant guaranteed at least $100 in total winnings. The contestant with the most money at the end of the show won a bonus prize, which for the first seven years of the syndicated series was a car. From 1978 to 1980, the endgame described above was used with each prize worth at least $5,000 including a new car; cash prizes of $5,000 and $10,000 were also available. If the match ended in a tie, one final question was played with the star of one contestant's choosing; if the contestant agreed or disagreed correctly, he/she won the match; otherwise, the match went to the opponent. The nighttime syndicated version's episodes were self-contained, unlike the daytime version where games could straddle.

Many celebrities became recognized as regulars on the show. Some regulars were frequently asked questions pertaining to a certain topic or category. For instance, Paul Lynde was frequently asked questions related to history or relationships, to which he would first respond with a clever zinger to get a laugh (usually a wrong answer but funny joke/punch line) before providing his answer. Cliff Arquette (in character as "Charley Weaver"), a history buff, excelled at American history questions; Rich Little almost always received questions about other celebrities, which allowed him to do an impression of that individual; Wally Cox was also given a lot of celebrity questions for which he usually gave the wrong answer; Roddy McDowall usually gave correct answers about the plays of Shakespeare; Rose Marie often received questions on dating and relationships, playing off her lovelorn comic persona; and Demond Wilson often responded with mock anger to questions that were carefully worded to play upon African-American stereotypes.

Other regulars and semi-regulars over the years included Nanette Fabray, Kaye Ballard, Morey Amsterdam, Florence Henderson, Buddy Hackett, Marty Allen, Wayland Flowers and Madame, Barbara Eden, George Gobel, Vincent Price, Weird Al Yankovic, Charo, Sandy Duncan, Carol Wayne, Jonathan Winters, Foster Brooks, The Lennon Sisters, Garrett Morris, Karen Valentine, John Davidson and Joan Rivers.

The Secret Square game is played as the first game on a given broadcast (or the first complete game, if a show began with a game already in progress) during the daytime series. In this game, a randomly selected Secret Square is shown only to the home audience by the shot of the television camera. A contestant who picked that square during the game won a bonus prize package if they correctly agreed or disagreed with the star. Secret Square prize packages added cash on the daytime edition, which started at around $1,000 for the 1966 episodes; the base amount increased in the later years from 1967 to 1980, by which time a new Secret Square package was worth around $3,500 to $4,500. The package grew daily until won. The question for the star was sealed in a special envelope and was almost always multiple-choice.

For the 1968 NBC primetime series, the first two games were the Secret Square games. One Secret Square offered a trip and the other Secret Square offered a car or occasionally a boat. If not won, the prize offered in the first round carried over to the second round, with a second prize added. If not won in the second round, the Secret Square prize package went unclaimed.

In an interview with E!'s True Hollywood Story on March 30, 2003 (episode 7.21), Marshall lauded the concept, but lamented that by the time each of the characters was introduced, very little of the show's half-hour format was left for actual gameplay.[14]

In 1983, several years after Orion Pictures acquired Hollywood Squares rights owner Filmways, NBC decided to attempt a revival of the series. What resulted was an effort produced by Mark Goodson Productions that combined the Hollywood Squares program, under license from Orion, with a revival of the Goodson-produced Match Game. The 60-minute program was dubbed The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour and debuted on October 31, 1983, at 3 p.m. Eastern, replacing the Peter Marshall-hosted series Fantasy. Jon Bauman (appearing as himself without his "Bowzer" persona from Sha Na Na) hosted the Hollywood Squares portion of the show. The only regular panelist on this version was Gene Rayburn, who reprised his role as host of Match Game; he always occupied the lower left square during Hollywood Squares, which Bauman also occupied during Match Game segments. Most of the semi-regulars were previously better known for Match Game (only on two weeks of episodes did a regular from the previous Hollywood Squares, George Gobel, appear on the panel). The announcer for this version was Gene Wood but was also sub-announced by either Rich Jefferies or Johnny Olson.

Hollywood Squares was always played as the second (middle) segment of the show, and featured the winner of the Match Game match played in the first half of the program playing O and the show's returning champion playing X, regardless of the player's genders (all other versions had women playing O and men playing X with exceptions, as noted above). This version of Hollywood Squares saw several different variations on the gameplay. First, the panelists were not given bluff answers or briefed. Second, the questions followed either a multiple-choice or true/false format. Third, for each square a contestant claimed $25 was added to his/her score with each game win starting at $100 for the first and increasing by that amount for subsequent games until time ran out and a winner was declared. In contrast to the original version of the show, players could win games by default if the opposing player incorrectly agreed/disagreed with a celebrity whose square gave the other player a completed row or five-square win. On all other versions of Squares, the player had to earn the winning celebrity's square on their own. The winner played the Super Match from Match Game for a cash prize.

3a8082e126