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‘Hollywood Squares’ Remake Shows Inanity Of Our Celebrity Class

In the latest example of “everything old is new again,” CBS has relaunched another decades-old game show. Unfortunately, this one hasn’t aged well.

The new “Hollywood Squares” suffers in comparison to prior versions. The remake appears to have been designed by producers who decided to cross off a series of items on a Bingo card listing ingredients in a celebrity panel show. All told, the show comes off much less than the sum of its parts, looking both noisy and inauthentic — putting the “phony” in “cacophony.” 

Familiar Format

The show echoes prior versions of “Hollywood Squares” — the original NBC and syndicated versions, hosted by Peter Marshall (who died in August), and the syndicated versions hosted in the late 1980s and early 2000s, hosted by John Davidson and Tom Bergeron, respectively. Contestants play a game of tic-tac-toe featuring nine celebrity panelists and agree or disagree with celebrities’ often-bluffed answers. (Only the short-lived “Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour” in 1983-1984 did not brief celebrities on the questions’ subject matter before taping.) 

The Secret Square, in which a contestant who selects a certain unannounced celebrity can win a trip with a successful response, returns in this version of “Hollywood Squares.” The contestant who wins the most money — either games of tic-tac-toe or squares in the final game when time expires — goes on to a new bonus round for the (comparatively paltry) sum of $25,000. Players answer a true-false question about each of the nine celebrities, only one of whom has a card indicating the prize. If players get the question right about the star holding the prize card, they take home the jackpot.

The hour-long episode of “Hollywood Squares” features two half-hour shows, each with their own contestants and celebrities. While most celebrities rotate appearances from episode to episode, Drew Barrymore will retain the permanent role as the Center Square, with “CBS Morning Show” anchor and former NFL star Nate Burleson as host.

Tacky Staging

CBS postponed the show’s premiere by one week in deference to the ongoing wildfires in southern California. Variety noted that “it didn’t feel appropriate to showcase a lighthearted show featuring celebrities joking with each other at this moment due to the severity of the fires and the number of celebrities who have lost homes in the disaster.”

CBS should have done Hollywood and all of us a favor by postponing “Hollywood Squares” permanently. Over and above the continuing tragedy facing much of southern California, “a lighthearted show featuring celebrities joking with each other” doesn’t just feel inappropriate; it feels unnecessary, silly, and pointless.

For starters, the premiere featured a somewhat surprising level of raunch. Celebrities included a reference to Kim Kardashian’s sex tape, along with an extended discussion of a viral online meme from this past summer. While the show will eventually move to a 10 p.m. time slot (i.e., after the watershed), airing this type of material at 8 p.m. — when many school-aged children might be watching — seems tone-deaf at best.

Beyond the mature subject matter, the show spent much of its time devolving into the tacky. Barrymore handed out pieces of her hair extensions to a contestant, and Burleson repeatedly shouted, “Comin’ in hot!” in response to celebrity zingers — likely some producer’s idea to contrive a new catchphrase. Add in Barrymore’s cloyingly sweet personality (don’t enough Americans have diabetes already?), what sounded like a canned laugh track, and a peppy theme song playing almost constantly, and viewers had more than enough reasons to change the channel.

Celebrities Dont Get It

It was not lost on this observer that the show’s delayed premiere came on the same day that incoming President Donald Trump appointed Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone, and Mel Gibson as “special ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.” For one game show at least, its troubles went well beyond woke politics and virtue signaling to the content (really, the lack of content) of a program that has a great amount of noise and glitz for no real purpose.

In the end, “Hollywood Squares” would have benefited from a one-letter reduction in its title. With its vapid and superficial approach, the show reveals celebrities as trite, even boring: “Hollywood — Square.”

“Hollywood Squares” will air on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern/9 p.m. Central on CBS beginning Jan. 29 and is also available online and via Paramount Plus.


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