Category Archive

Hollywood Squares was a noon-time addiction some 7-8 years ago, in the good old days when I used to go home for lunch.

The Hollywood Squares was an American television comedy and game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win money and prizes. The ‘board’ for the game is actually a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by an entertainer (or “star”) seated at a desk and facing the contestants. The stars are asked questions and the contestants judge the veracity of their answers in order to win the game.

Although The Hollywood Squares was a legitimate game show, the game largely acted as the background for the show’s comedy in the form of the ‘zingers’, or joke answers, often given by the stars prior to their ‘real’ answer. The show’s writers usually supplied the zingers; in addition, the stars were given question subjects and plausible incorrect (bluff) answers prior to the show. (The show was scripted in this sense, but the gameplay was not, as a contestant’s success was based upon knowing whether the celebrity’s ‘real’ answer was correct.) From Wikipedia

In those days, the show was hosted by Tom Bergeron. Whoopi Goldberg, the show’s co-producer, was the permanent centre square, and regulars included Rosie O’Donnell, Gilbert Gottfried and Bruce Vilanch. The banter, the inside jokes, the one-liners and repartees, and occasionally, the cross-fire…absolute manna for lunch.

Hollywood Square Sampler (From Season 1, 1966-81, hosted by Peter Marshall)

Peter Marshall: According to Movie Life magazine, Ann-Margaret would like to start having babies soon, but her husband wants her to wait a while. Why?
Paul Lynde: He’s out of town.

Peter Marshall: When a couple has a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
Charley Weaver: I’ll lend him the car. The rest is up to him.

Peter Marshall: James Stewart did it over twenty years ago when he was forty-one years old. Now he says it was “one of the best things I ever did.” What was it?
Marty Allen: Rhonda Fleming.

Peter Marshall: If you’re going to make a parachute jump, you should be at least how high?
Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Peter Marshall: Do female frogs croak?
Paul Lynde: If you hold their little heads under water.

Peter Marshall: In what state was Abraham Lincoln born?
Paul Lynde: Naked and screaming like the rest of us.

Peter Marshall: Paul, can you get an elephant drunk?
Paul Lynde: Yes, but he still won’t go up your apartment.

Peter Marshall: Charley, you’ve just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during your first year?
Charley Weaver: Of course not, Peter. I’m too busy growing strawberries!

Peter Marshall: True or false: A pea can last as long as 5,000 years.
George Gobel: Sometimes it sure seems that way…

Peter Marshall: If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
Paul Lynde: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark.

Peter Marshall: Charley, what do you call a pig that weighs more than 150 pounds?
Charley Weaver: A divorcee.

Peter Marshall: Imagine you are a child in your mother’s womb, can you detect light?
Paul Lynde: Only during ballet practice.

Happy? Now go hire the DVD, catch the re-run, buy the book,
or copy-paste the jokes to everybody in your address book.