Hollywood Squares

Hollwood Squares was a TV gameshow in the USA. The basic format of Hollywood Squares has been exported for game shows in different countries where it known by other names:
Tres en Raya
Il gioco dei 9
Celebrity Squares / New Celebrity Squares
Personality Squares / All-Star Squares
XXO: Fritz & Co.
Prat I Kvadrat (Talking Squared, as in Talking²)
Jogo da Velha
名人 Tic Tac Toe / 名人广场
XOX: Kare Akademisi

Essentially, Hollywood Squares is a variation of Tic-Tac-Toe played with a 3x3 grid of giant cubes in which celebrities sit. In a series of three rounds, one of two contestant uses their turn to pick a square, a trivia question is read and the celebrity answers it. The current contestant or their opponent gets the square depending on whether the contestant correctly guesses (or knowns) if the celebrity's answer is true or a bluff. But, a round winning square has to be obtained by a contestant by providing a correct guess. A wrong answer that would create a win for the opponent simple causes the square to remain neutral. Also, there are no draws, an contestant wins the game by default if they manage to get 5 squares. The winning only by a correct guess rule also applies to the fifth square. Anyone in the game could pass a question. Stars could pass to the contestant, who could pass it to their opponent (but the opponent then could not pass). Even the host could opt to toss out the current question he was asking and go to the next. The celebrities were not always directly associated with Hollywood, California, USA. Basically the main point of the show was for the celebrities to entertain people with jokes followed by their 'real' truthful answers or bluffs. It was kind of unique in TV history to have a game show that openly admitted being all about preplanned entertainment by actors yet still managed to hold a legitimate contest for the contestants. Previous scripted game shows had done so fraudulently or had failed to win over an audience who had been told the show was scripted. The celebrities on the TV show were told the questions in advance and offered optional jokes, answers and bluffs to deliver, or just random entertaining chatter ('Zingers' were popular). Efforts were made to tailor the suggestions to the star's talents. Questions about other celebrities usually went to someone who could impersonate the subject of the question. Often incredibly obscure questions were given to the celebrity who probably knew the answer even when they had opted not to hear the writer's suggestions. Roddy McDowall famously answered most questions about Shakespeare and rarely chose to bluff when he didn't know the answer. Many contestants would not believe the star could possible know for certain, or assumed they had not asked for the answer, or that were choosing to bluff despite knowing it (which the rules allowed them to do, they could even outright claim to know the answer and pass the question). So contestants often opted to disagreed with truthful answers. Such as the case when Gilbert Gottfried was asked about the most common bait used on Russian fishing vessels. His initial 'joke answer' was "Barbie doll heads" but then he insisted he knew for certain because he'd worked on Russian fishing vessels that the 'real answer' was, "Barbie doll heads". This was the correct answer and Gilbert Gottfried actually has worked on Russian fishing vessels. In several games he ended up sitting in the 'winning square' for each round, where the first contestant to successfully discern if he had the right answer or not would win. Increasingly obscure questions with increasingly bizarre answers and increasingly impossible insistences by Gottfried continued and each time audience laughed at the unbelievable material and the contestants refused to believe Gottfried was telling them the incredible truth. Each time the contested disagreed he'd comically yell, "YOU FOOL!" One episode culminated in 6 failures in a row by both contestants to win the square for the 3rd round before one of them finally correctly agreed with Gottfried. Other more carefully planned theatrics were employed to help the audience and contestants react as if the show was totally unscripted. Such as celebrities pretending to being shocked and offended by a question (that they actually knew was coming), pretending to misunderstand the question, walking off the set, losing their temper, breaking down, arguing or picking a fight with another contestant, unexpectedly passing a question, or doing something bizarre that seems at first to be an accident. In this sense, the celebrity's performances were mostly scripted, or at least prepared in advance; though the celebrities were not necessarily bound to use the suggested scripts and had not necessarily known what the other celebrities were planning. A single celebrity was sometimes singled out for a minor practical joke during the show in which the one or more of the other celebrities participated. Their reaction too being pranked was certain to be genuine unless they recognized it early. On one and only on occasion, two contestants conspired with the show's producers to prank the entire celebrity panel and host. Which worked beautifully because they were the only two people in the room that were above suspicion. One of the celebrities actually won two Emmy awards for their acting during their time on the show. Their was certainly a fair amount of ad libs. But celebrities would be replaced if their popularity waned with the viewing audience. Despite the extensive preparation, the contest for the contestants was perfectly legitimate, they were not told anything in advance and were given money and prizes based on their success. One contestant was always male and played the Xs and the other was a female who played the Os. The were referred to during the show as Mister X & Miss Circle. Most celebrities wanted the middle square where they would be selected the most.

The NES version, like the other electronic versions of H² available near the time it was published, uses fake celebrities, a fact that got Gametek sued after the initial computer version was released, by the show's creators, who had assumed real celebrities would appear in the games they had authorized. Presumably, they had invested a lot to maintain the right to use the celebrities likenesses and then collect a portion of the royalties they'd agreed to pay to the celebrities, only to have Gametek waste this money making option by their view. Or perhaps they thought the game wouldn't have the same appeal without the celebrities. But they must have resolved the dispute because the game was ported or converted with fake celebrities to several other platforms. Thus the videogame version becomes a basic trivia game with a lot less celebrity dependent entertainment. More recent videogames based on the show actually use photos or video clips of celebrities that have actually been on the show. The format of the show in it's NES incarnation is 3 rounds like the show, and then the winner picks 1 of 5 keys and 1 of 5 cars hoping that they match so they will win the car.

Comes in a box with a black theme or in a box with a blue theme. A basic premise of the show is that it is filmed in Hollywood; even though the real show has occasionally been temporarily filmed in other locations as .

The photo on the blue box version is not from the actual show but is of a temporary set that was constructed for the show's pilot episode. The show was significantly rethemed when the first permanent set was constructed and none of the subsequent sets have ever resemble the one pictured on the box. Most people don't recognize the set if they've seen the pilot episode, because the photo is in color and the pilot episode was filmed in black and white.

(Zerothis) - # 2008-08-13 08:32:39

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version of
Hollywood Squares (Apple II E)