Games - Family Feud

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	Games - Family Feud

Family Feud is a popular television game show that pits two families against each other in a contest to name the most popular responses to a survey-type question posed of 100 people. The format, which originated in the United States, has been exported to many countries.

Broadcast / show history

The Richard Dawson / ABC era

The longest running and most popular version of Family Feud, a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production, was hosted by Richard Dawson. The daytime version debuted on ABC on July 12, 1976. A nighttime syndicated version debuted in September 1977; it originally aired as a weekly series before expanding to two nights a week in January 1979 and to five nights a week in September 1980. Goodson originated the idea for Feud from one of his other hit game shows, CBS's Match Game
. The first half of the "Super Match" round of Match Game included a studio audience survey where audience members gave their answers to a fill-in-the-blank phrase. The top three responses to that phrase were concealed on the board, and the contestant won more money by choosing a more popular answer. Family Feud was spun off from this survey concept. Dawson, the first host of Feud was a regular panelist on Match Game.

The first pilot in 1975 was exactly the same in gameplay format as the version that came to air. The set was done in the same colors and style as the final version, but it was much smaller and closer together.

Family Feud was the highest-rated daytime game show for two seasons (1977-78 and 1978-79) until CBS's The Price is Right surpassed it. It was also the highest-rated syndicated game show from 1978 until 1984, when Wheel of Fortune
took over the top spot. In May 1978, during the height of the show's popularity, ABC aired the first in a series of All-Star Family Feud prime time specials where teams of celebrities -— often the cast members of a television show — played the game to raise money for various charities. The show won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Game Show in 1977, while Dawson won the Daytime Emmy for Best Host or Hostess in a Game Show in 1978. Richard Dawson's hosting style was very unusual: for example, he almost always kissed the female players, and gave some of the women and their children lollipops from a special "lollipop tree" at the end of each family podium.

Dawson also did not let soberness or good taste stand in the way of his hosting. A number of times contestants could not understand the question due to Dawson's slurred speech. Dawson also did not let race relations deter his jokes. In one show an African American contestant picked a black lollipop, the winning color, and Dawson held the lollipop up to the contestant's skin and asked the crowd if the contestant had an advantage. On another show, an Asian family was not ready to answer a question when Dawson asked, so he yelled gibberish Chinese at the family until they turned around and answered. This personable style made him very popular as a game show host, but makes old versions of the show somewhat inappropriate by contemporary standards.

The last ABC daytime episode aired on June 14, 1985, with Dawson delivering an emotional farewell speech at the end of the show. The syndicated nighttime edition of Feud continued for three months afterwards, before wrapping up in September after eight years. (Viacom, the show's syndicator, offered reruns to stations, including WOR-TV in New York, for one year after that, packaged as The Best of Family Feud. Due to WOR's status as a superstation, those markets where a local station did not pick up the reruns still got the show.) In its nine-year existence, 2,311 network daytime shows, 976 syndicated evening half-hour shows, and 17 ABC primetime hour-long specials (1978-1984) had been produced, with $1,557,150 given away to charity on 170 celebrity specials on the daytime and nighttime shows, and $14,833,000 won by contestants.

===The Ray Combs / CBS era=== On July 4, 1988, CBS brought the show back with a new host, Ray Combs. A new syndicated primetime edition premiered two months later. CBS expanded the show from 30 minutes to one hour with the addition of a "Bullseye" round to the show and renamed it The New Family Feud Challenge on June 29, 1992. (The "Bullseye" round was added to the syndicated version that fall, when it was renamed The New Family Feud.) On Family Feud Challenge, two new families competed in the first half of the show, with the winner playing the returning champions in the second half. The CBS version went into reruns on March 29, 1993 and was canceled on September 10 of that year, when CBS decided to give back the hour to their local affiliates.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Family Feud ]

Games - Family Feud

Broadcast / show history

The Richard Dawson / ABC era

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