1998–2004
In 1997, King World Productions bought the worldwide format rights to Hollywood Squares from MGM, successor-in-interest to the series' previous production companies Orion and Filmways. Shortly after this, work began on a revival and Whoopi Goldberg was signed on to be a producer. Goldberg, John Moffitt, and Pat Tourk Lee served as the co-executive producers for the series. King World tapped Columbia TriStar Television, who also produced the King World-distributed Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, to be its co-producer for Hollywood Squares while serving as distributor. The show was taped at Studio 33, the Bob Barker Studio, at CBS Television City.
On September 14, 1998, the revival debuted with Tom Bergeron as its host. In addition to her production duties, Whoopi Goldberg served as the permanent center square, with Bruce Vilanch, Gilbert Gottfried, Martin Mull, and Caroline Rhea as regular panelists and Brad Garrett, Jeffrey Tambor, George Wallace, and various others as semi-regular panelists. Shadoe Stevens returned to announce, although he was not given a square on the panel as he had been when John Davidson was host. Changes were made following the 2001–02 season; Goldberg, along with Moffitt and Lee, left the series. In addition to those departures, regular panelist Caroline Rhea also left the program in order to host her short-lived successor program to The Rosie O'Donnell Show and Bruce Vilanch, who was also one of the show's writers, left with Goldberg (who had hired him) and made several infrequent appearances throughout the rest of the series.
With Goldberg, Moffitt, and Lee gone, Henry Winkler and Michael Levitt became the show's executive producers and remained in those positions until the end of the series, with Winkler occasionally serving as a panelist. Frequent panelist Jeffrey Tambor took over for Stevens as announcer for the 2002–03 season, with John Moschitta, Jr. replacing him for the final season. For the 2002–03 season a rotating guest center square arrangement was employed, with Ellen DeGeneres, Alec Baldwin, and various others serving in that capacity. The show returned to a permanent center square arrangement for the 2003–04 season with regular panelist Martin Mull taking the square.
For most of the first five seasons of this Hollywood Squares series, as well as for theme weeks in the sixth season, the first and second games were worth $1,000 to the winner. The third game was worth $2,000, and every subsequent game until time ran out was worth $4,000. If a player did not win anything in the main game, $500 was given to them as a consolation prize. In the early episodes of the first season, if a player could not win with five squares on the board, their opponent automatically got the remaining square and the five-square win. In addition, players only played for half the money; $500 was won for each of the first two games, with $1,000 for the third and $2,000 for all subsequent games and $250 was given as a consolation prize for failing to win a game. In addition, the consolation prize amount also was used for each contestant's square in the event that time ran out during a game, and was counted towards their cash total to determine the day's champion.
The tiebreaker was the same as the previous versions except that the player who has won the most games, most squares overall or won the last game played (whichever came first) had the option to play the question or pass it to his/her opponent, with a miss by either player giving their opponent the win by default.
For the first season of this Hollywood Squares series, two new players competed on each episode. Beginning in the second season, the returning champion rule was reinstated; a player could stay on for a maximum of five days (or, in the final season, matches). The final season saw Hollywood Squares return to the best two-of-three format that had last been seen on the NBC network daytime series; each game was worth $1,000, the first to win two advanced to the bonus round, and players were no longer given cash as a consolation prize for failing to win a game. The format changed resulted in episodes no longer being self-contained as they had been and instead having games that straddled episodes.
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