The Chaos and Joy of 1970s and 1980s Family Feud

Story by @GIJoeRepairShop

Before Steve Harvey brought a whole new generation to it, before Ray Combs brought it into the 1990s, Richard Dawson’s run as the original host of Family Feud will stand out as a chaotic and joyful first run of one of America’s most-loved television gameshows. Richard Dawson was not unknown to television viewers when Family Feud started in 1976. The half-British, half-American actor was one of the stars of the wildly-popular show “Hogan’s Heroes,” which ran from 1965 to 1971. Richard Dawson spent much of the early 1970s as a recurring panelist on “The Match Game.” Indeed, he never missed a show from 1973 to 1978. Between 1976 and 1978, Dawson was appearing on both shows at the same time. Feeling exhausted and burnt out, he left Match Game in 1978 to focus on his hosting duties as Family Feud became increasingly popular.

One feature of the show is that Richard would kiss every female contestant. He usually kissed them when he first met them, and then as much as possible throughout the show, as well! He insisted on kissing the female contestants on the lips, no matter their age, their attractiveness, or their willingness to kiss him back. This is the most kissing that some of us saw on television in those days. During the “Fast Money” round, he would inevitably put his arm around the female contestants, too. Richard Dawson ended up marrying a female contestant, Gretchen Johnson, after she appeared on the show in 1981. After the show, Dawson tracked down her contact information and asked her out on a date. The couple lived together for several years before marrying in 1991. They had one daughter and remained married until Dawson passed away from esophageal cancer in 2012.

Some of the chaos and humor of Family Feud came from trying to guess the answers that one hundred people would give to a particular survey question. Usually, contestants had time to think of a reasonable answer. However, in the Fast Money round, when time was of the essence, some contestants buckled under the pressure. In one famous example, Richard asked a man and his father the same question: “Name an animal with three letters in its name.” (“Dog” was the number one answer.) However, the first contestant answered “Frog.” When the father came out to answer the same set of questions, Richard informed him that his son had given a disastrous answer. He then ran through the same questions as before. However, this time, the contestant answered “alligator.” Richard asked him “You don’t use narcotics, do you, Bob?” To which, Bob answered, “No, but I will!” It turns out that he had misheard the question. He thought that Richard had said to name an animal with three of the same letters in its name.

Another famous answer came in response to the question “During what month of pregnancy does a woman begin to look pregnant?” Without thinking, the female contestant answered “September.” Everyone in the studio started laughing so much that they couldn’t continue with the game and had to pause for several minutes. They somehow get through the rest of the questions. When the next contestant came out, Richard was still laughing so much when he started reading the first question again, he physically stumbled and fell down behind the confused contestant, who had been in isolation during the previous set of answers. Ultimately, he had to use his handkerchief to wipe away his tears from all of the laughter and the game continued.

This is only a small taste of the joyous chaos that happened frequently in 1970s and 1980s game shows that make them so much fun to rewatch today.