Hollywood Squares
by Billy Ingram

The Hollywood Squares

In 1974, Paul Lynde was voted the funniest man in America in a nationwide opinion poll. It was largely for his snappy answers as the center square on The Hollywood Squares.

Everyone believed that Lynde came up with these pithy comments off the cuff - in fact most of those quips were scripted. All the old people in the seventies loved Paul Lynde, but I doubt if anyone could have told you why.

Lynde was joined over the years by regulars Charley Weaver, Rose Marie, Wally Cox, George Gobel and John Davidson - guest-stars on the big Tic-Tac-Toe board included literally hundreds of TV and movie stars (the great and near-great).

There was a prime-time version of the show that served as the mid-season replacement for 'Accidental Family' on Friday nights after 'Star Trek' in January, 1968. The primetime version was dropped in the fall of 1968, but returned the next summer for a few weeks.

There was also a children's version of the show called Storybook Squares that ran from January to August, 1969 on Saturday mornings, with kids competing for fabulous toys and the stars dressed as storybook characters.

All but a dozen episodes of the entire daytime network run of Hollywood Squares were burned by the producers. They didn't think there would ever be a market for them. A short time later, the Game Show Network contacted them about rerunning the shows!

Fortunately, a long run of the 1970's syndicated nighttime version was unearthed and GSN began rerunning those in 1999.

Here's a rare audio clip - seven minutes of a 1970 daytime telecast. The quality is terrible, but that's all there is!

Charley Weaver: Of course not, Peter. I'm too busy growing strawberries!

EG: Soupy Sales as King Henry the VIII and Tom A. Edison, the late Bob Crane as Col. Hogan, Wally Cox as Paul Revere and Davy Crockett, Rose Marie as Pocahontas and Annie Oakley, Jim Backus as Mr. Magoo and Thurston Howell the III, Judy Carne as Little Miss Muffett, etc.

Two young contestants - a little Miss Circle and a little Mr. X - pick a star from the panel and that star is asked a question. The Storybook star had to try and give a correct answer to Sir Peter's question; the kids decided whether or not to agree or disagree with the star. The contestant who was able to get the most correct answers from the storybook stars in a row (similar to the game of Tic Tac Toe) won toy prizes and a trip for the family to a popular vacation spot.

The Storybook Squares also had a Secret Square segment.

The Storybook Squares only lasted one season on NBC TV's Saturday morning schedule. The concept returned years later as a special holiday edition of Hollywood Squares.