Hollywood Squares

From TeeVeePedia, the Internet TV Encyclopedia.

The Hollywood Squares was the 175th game show created by Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley in 1967. Surprisingly, unlike the first 174, the game was a success. Heatter and Quigley based the show around the children's game Tic-Tac-Toe.

The Premise

Nine celebrity has-beens (hence the name "Hollywood Squares") who have been in or around Hollywood the past 50 years were invited to come up onto a humongous tic-tac-toe board and play a round of guessing games with two average contestants (and one constantly befuddled host). There would be a "secret square" for each round; meaning, there would be a square who either held a deadly secret within them or had not come out of the closet yet.

Each winner won $.25 for each round, as the show was on a very tight budget.

The Hosts

Noted schizophrenic Peter Marshall was the host of the series from 1967 to 1981, mainly because no one had remembered to tell him to leave yet.

John Davidson was the host of the show's short-lived '80s fairy tale revamp, Storybook Squares.

Tom Bergeron, when not laughing at America's Funniest Home Videos, took time out to host from 1998 to 2004 along with Whoopi Goldberg, whom Bergeron fired from the show in 2002 due to lagging ratings.

Currently

No episode of the "Hollywood Squares" is believed to exist.