STORYBOOK SQUARES

 

STORYBOOK SQUARES
(NBC, January 4-April 19, 1969)
 
Heatter-Quigley Productions

 

MAIN CAST:
Peter Marshall – Host
Kenny Williams – The Guardian of the Gate

 

Hollywood Squares (also The Hollywood Squares) was a long-running game show created by Heatter-Quigley Productions. Two contestants competed against each other for cash and prizes in a game of tic-tac-toe. The twist? The game board was populated by celebrities.

The show’s game board was comprised of a large 9-compartment grid in which celebrities from various entertainment media sat. Contestants would pick out a celebrity and the host would then ask them a trivia question, and it was up to the contestant to figure out if the answer they gave was correct or not. Guessing that correctly meant the contestant secured that square with either an “X” or an “O”. A wrong answer awarded it to their opponent (except if that would lead to an automatic win, in some versions of the rules). The game was won by lining up 3 X’s or O’s in a row in any direction, or by capturing the most number of squares if all the rows were blocked.

The celebrity grid, comprised of Rich Little, Rose Marie, John Davidson, Sandy Duncan, Paul Lynde, Totie Fields, Charley Weaver, Leslie Uggams and George Gobel.

The show, however, was basically a backdrop for the comedy in the form of jokes—or “zingers”—delivered by the celebrities before they answered. The writing staff supplied the jokes when needed, and the celebrities were clued into the questions’ subjects (but not the actual questions) prior to the show to help develop those zingers as well as plausible bluff answers.

After two pilots were filmed, NBC acquired the show and debuted it on October 17, 1966. Two years later, it gained a nighttime version, as well as a syndicated version in 1971. Peter Marshall was hired as host; his taking the job only to prevent Dan Rowan from getting it. Marshall had worked as a writer for Rowan along with his partner, Tommy Noonan, and took issue with the lack of respect he showed Noonan during his terminal illness. Kenny Williams, a Heatter-Quigley regular, served as the announcer. Although the celebrities were cast on a rotating basis, many became known as regulars on the show and appeared often. Among these regulars were Cliff Arquette (as his alter-ego “Charley Weaver”), Rich Little, Wally Cox, Roddy McDowall, Rose Marie (playing to her lovelorn persona), and Demond Wilson. Most notable was Paul Lynde, who was known for delivering outrageous and innuendo-laden jokes. Not only did he earn a permanent spot in the all-important center square, but he nabbed three daytime Emmy Award nominations for his tenure as well.

Kenny Williams introducing Peter Marshall.

In 1969, Heatter-Quigley decided to try a spin-off geared towards a younger audience, having previously dabbled in children’s game shows with Video Village Jr. and Shenanigans. Dubbed Storybook Squares, the set behind the players was designed with a medieval theme and featured children as contestants; always a boy, playing “X”, and a girl, playing “O”. Williams appeared on camera as “The Guardian of the Gate” in full costume, acting as a town crier by introducing the show and host Marshall with a bell. Marshall would then introduce that episode’s panelists, who emerged from a castle gate that appeared after Williams closed the “storybook” the show’s name was emblazoned on.

Promotional image of Ted Cassidy as Tarzan.

While the grid remained the same as the parent version, the big change was that the panelists would appear adorned in costumes representing historical figures, fictional characters, or roles they had played previously. Among them were Arquette still as Charley Weaver; Jim Backus reprising his characters Mr. Magoo and Thurston Howell III from Gilligan’s Island; Arte Johnson reprising Wolfgang the Nazi from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (billed as the “Very Interesting Soldier”); Soupy Sales as King Henry VIII and Thomas Edison; Leslie Uggams as Snow White; Stu Gilliam as the wizard Merlin; Ted Cassidy as Tarzan, which was also played by Marty Allen when he wasn’t being Cupid; Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney as Romeo and Juliet and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Roy Rogers and Dale Evans; Nanette Fabray as The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe; Bob Crane reprising Colonel Hogan from Hogan’s Heroes; Marie as Pocahontas and Annie Oakley; Cox as Paul Revere and Davy Crockett; Carolyn Jones reprising Morticia Addams from The Addams Family; Abby Dalton as Little Miss Muffet; and Barbara Eden reprising Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie. Each panelist would do a quick routine as they were introduced, often interacting with Marshall.

Paul Lynde and Jerry Mahoney as Romeo and Juliet.

Storybook Squares debuted on NBC on January 4, 1969. Rather than cash and prizes, the contestants played strictly for prizes for as many games as time permitted. A “Secret Square” was in play for the first two rounds of the episode, similar to the 1968 primetime version. A random celebrity was labelled as the “Secret Square” and awarded a prize for the contestant that correctly agreed or disagreed with them. If the prize was missed in the first round, it was carried over into the second. At the end of each episode, the contestants were brought over to the stage entrance to meet the panelists as they walked off during the credits. Unfortunately, the concept ended up being short-lived as it would end its run on April 19^th. Of the spinoff, Marshall would say in a 2003 interview for E! True Hollywood Story that while the concept was good, the character introductions took too much time away from actual gameplay. Heatter-Quigley would revisit the concept during the 1976-77 season of Squares for special episodes of the daytime series. The set was redesigned to expand the medieval theme around the panel grid as well. This time around, a boy would play with his father and grandfather against a girl and her mother and grandmother, alternating between each family member per round. $50 was awarded for each captured square, $300 for each game, and the most money at the end of play won a large prize.

The original Hollywood Squares ended its run in 1981 after moving to Las Vegas from California for the final year. NBC, however, would attempt several revivals not long after. In 1983, they combined Hollywood Squares with Match Game to form the short-lived Match Game Hollywood Squares Hour, with Jon Bauman of Sha Na Na serving as the host of the Squares segment and long-time Match Game host Gene Rayburn presiding over the rest. It returned on its own again in 1986 until 1989, hosted by semi-regular original panelist John Davidson and announced by Shadoe Stevens, who himself became a regular panelist occupying the bottom center square. Joan Rivers was that version’s permanent center square starting in the second year. The next revival came in 1998-2004 with Tom Bergeron as host, and executive producer Whoopi Goldberg as the center square until 2002. Stevens returned to announce for the first couple of seasons. In 2023, BET had greenlit a new revival of the series called Celebrity Squares and CBS their own for 2025. There were also several spin-off versions: Hip Hop Squares was a music-based version aired on VH1 and MTV2 in 2012 and 2017; The West Virginia Squares in 2014 was a one-off limited stage production that had questions that dealt with the history of the state; Nashville Squares was a country music-themed version in 2019; and Hollywood Museum Squares served as a fundraiser for the organization in 2021.