The loss of the gameshow legends continue. I wouldn't kid, that's for sure, but still, I would've been glad if it had been a joke at this point.

Gene Wood was the main voice for Family Feud, prior to the Louie and Richard Karn versions. He was on Family Feud what Johnny Olson was via The Price is Right.

I've gotten hooked on FF all over again. I grew up watching Richard Dawson, so he was and always shall be the king of FF--smarm, skeeve, and all. But I admit, I love Richard Karn on FF, too; and I kinda gotta crush on the big ol' guy. He brings a freshness to the game, but the contestants seem dumber these days. Don't the families cull their own? And I feel for the grandmas who go on. They only get three seconds and then BZZZZ!

Ray Combs didn't do much for me. I had grown up and stopped watching pretty much by then. And the less said about Louie Anderson the better!

For the person who asked earlier, the current prize is $20,000.

Sometimes the contestants are so dumb, I just tune in for the Fast Money Round. It's my favorite part anyway.

Fast money is my favorite part as well. The cable company here is showing some stupid show in place of FF all week.
The other day was a catergory when you were to say words instead of cussing.
Some people guessed cuss words and a bleeping sound was heard. Some goobers actually guessed f___. I know because Richard said fudge instead. I don't know what they were thinking- it is words instead of cussing, not actual cussing.

I do think that both the change of the gameplay, plus Richard Karn's improvement as host are the two main reasons Family Feud has survived and avoided cancellation (unlike Hollywood Squares and Pyramid). I actually thought that the end of Louie Anderson's run would have been it for FF.

All the Karn version shows on my local channel are reruns from 2002. Are new episodes of this show still being done?

yup, there was most definitely Richard Karn Episodes from the 2003-4 season, when they reverted back to the "First to 300" scoring system.

This week is Firefighters Week. I didn't catch the date on the show yesterday, but I'm loving FDNY vs. Chicago. Is this a rerun or is it new?

My rank of FF hosts:
1. Richard Dawson (for sentimental reasons only)
2. Richard Karn (really should be first)
3. Ray Combs
4. Louie "Why?" Anderson

They just had an episode with the "For Love or Money" Bachelors and Bacherlorettes. All I can say is, Erin is definitely the hottest one.

I thought it was hilarious "Strategically" placing Erin as the team captain, and Paige all the way down the end. Tee hee.

Same here; heh! It's a shame the Lollipop Game never made it past the Dawson version (considering it's Richard's thing); that actually gave the anchor person reason to be on the show.

Suave, I'd say.

Richard Dawson was the man. He set the bar, and every host who's followed knows it. Sometimes they've tried to imitate his style, and it just comes off as awkward and unoriginal. For instance, it seemed okay for Dawson to put his arm around the shoulders of the contestants during the fast money round, but when Richard Karn does it, it just looks silly.

Another thing that bugs me is the excruciating amount of time Richard Karn spends commenting on nearly every response given. Ray was guilty of this too. I know Richard Dawson did it, but generally he was brief and funny. To me, Ray and RK interrupt the momentum of the game having so much to say about every. single. response. And often not being all that funny, either. And in Karn's case, the frequent pauses (in his speech pattern) compound my misery. They both just appear to be trying too hard.

One final grump about RK. During the fast money round (which is the only part I care about) he often (sometimes more than once per show) forgets to tell us what the number one answer was. I like to play along during fast money, and feel totally cheated when he forgets to tell me what was number one. Richard Dawson rarely, if ever, forgot. [/grump]

Despite what I've said about Richard Karn, I do think he's the second best host, but a distant second to Dawson.

ETA: Gosh, that was a really negative rant, but it sure was cathartic.

What really bugs me about the people on this show is that sometimes they dont truly think of what the general public would say but they would rather think of just stupid quick things so that it wont be their turn anymore. True, sometimes the true poll standings dont make sense but if they would give themselves two more seconds they'd prolly get it rite. like one day it was wat object goes up and down? it was the last one for the steal the deciding denominator and the guy says "escalator". now most people would think that escalators go in a slanted manner. but hey it must be just the cameras and the flirty weird and obnoxious host getting on these people's nerves.

Wow. I was just lurking around in here and read the last page of posts. Am I the only one who likes Ray Combs the best out of all the hosts?? I thought he was pretty funny. Sure he was annoying at times, like when he would put on ladies' shoes and do the rest of the show in them, but overall I thought he did a great job. He seemed genuine and always gave the number one answers during Fast Money.

I liked Richard Dawson but he slurred his speech too much and just became kinda squirky as he aged and still wanted to kiss on all the ladies. Perv. Richard Karn is just painful to watch for the reasons mentioned before: drags out the time until an answer is revealed and tries to hard.

I won't even bother mentioning Louie Anderson. He was that bad.....

De-lurking, too, to add my two cents. When talking about Richard Dawson as host, you have to remember the era. Because of all the cultural influences the English had on America in the 60's, it was still cool to be English in the mid 70's, in an Austin Powers sort of way. Dawson really played that up, both on Match Game and FF. As that influence ended, Dawson's popularity did too, and he began to butt heads with TPTB on FF, and that eventually led to his replacement. Except for Hogan's Heroes, he was never very successful at anything other than game shows, so when that ended, he really didn't have anything else to fall back on. He married a former FF contestant, had another child very late in life, and kind of dropped out of sight until 1994 (I think) when he came back to FF as host. Again, he tried to play the cool Englishman, but it didn't work. He was gone from the show in a year.

I just found out that my family was on FF in the late 70s (how they kept this from me, I'll never know!). But anyway, does anyone know where I might could find old clips or pictures online? This is something I would love to see.

Try The GameShow Network's website. There are forums under "Buzz". Someone there might be able to help. They might even be able to tell you when the show will air on the network.

Thanks, zookeeny! I'll have to ask someone what last name they used and a firmer date and go look!

Does anyone know if there is a place where you can find some of the surveys that have been done on the show?
I am hosting a FF night for work, and am lazy. :-)

If you don't mind 15 year old survey from Nintendo's Family Feud...
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/nes/file/family_feud.txt

Also, Louis Anderson was terrible. The only time I ever found him funny was when Peter asked if he was Big Fat Paulie on Family Guy and then kicked him in the groin.

There's a fairly recent (Al Borland era) home edition that you can probably track down on the cheap. I'm fairly sure we got it for like ten bucks out of a bin at Media Play when we had a Feud party last year. The trick was transcribing the questions from the DVD, which took forever.

Also, I was taken aback when no one could provide a proper answer to "we surveyed a hundred people on the following: What would Brian Boitano do if he were here right now?"

Wow, did someone really ask that!? Gah.

My favorite FF moment.

Q: (during Fast Money) Name a fruit that's yellow.
A: .. Orange!

From the episode I saw yesterday --

Q: Name a real or fictional animal with big ears.

A: Kermit the Frog

When were those Richard Karn shows filmed? Are they current? Are they still filming new epis?

Doesn't suprise me. Once the question was bird that flies and they answered turkey. I love how even though they say the stupidest answers the families cheer on: "good answer, good answer"/

Yes, they are... and apparently, next year, John O'Hurley is taking over the show.

Thanks, amnewsboy. I like John O'Hurley OK, but I kind of wonder what Richard Karn will do after this. Sigh . . .

All Suburbia and I did in the morning when I went to her house the first time was watch FF. I hadn't seen it in years. Seems that as the years have gone on, they've get bigger and bigger idiots for contestants. Poor Richard Karn, I like him, especially compared to Louie Anderson.

They show it four times a day here, and I can't tell which, if any, are current, or how old the reruns are. It's a little spooky, actually.

When the Game Show Network shows the re-runs of the 1970's Richard Dawson version of FF, I cannot help but be beyond amused with the contestants because of their really loud 70's polyester get-ups and wild feathered/permed hair. My God, did we really look that bad back then???

Karn was affable, but I didn't think he was a great host. His catchphrases about "first blood" and doubling the points were very repetitive and not that exciting, and I usually wasn't a big fan of his little puns whenever they went to a commercial break; some of them were good, but most weren't. By far the biggest problem, though, was that it seemed like every time someone passed in the fast money round, he would screw up when he had to go back to the question they skipped, which, in such a fast-paced round, ruins the entire thing -- and it really seemed like it happened every time! Like I said, he seemed nice, but the host of a game show has to be able to keep track of what's going on and speak clearly. I don't expect Trebek-esque precision (or Trebek-esque stuck-up personality!), but, getting it right most of the time is a job requirement.

O'Hurley's persona doesn't seem at first like a great fit for a show that has traditionally been "folksy", but I'm curious to see how it works.

Yes, Benedictine. Yes, we did.

Q: Name a fact about John Lennon.

A: He's still alive.

Oy.

Poor, nervous contestant--rattled enough to confuse John with Elvis!

As for myself, I think that ALL of the hosts were good in their own right--including Louie Anderson.

In fact, Louie reminded me of a cuddly, little teddy bear!

I wanted to pull him right out of the tv and hug him to see if he squeaked like a rubber duckie!

Well, I wouldn't have initially thought of a sassy Brit as the perfect fit for the "Whitman Sampler" set, but...

So I caught a bit of a bonus round today, and found out that, among 100 random people, six will apparently think that there are tigers in Africa (unless they take safaris in Asia now and I didn't know).

They're starting to show promos for the upcoming season with O'Hurley (which I believe premieres next week). Anyone else think that the new set is absolutely hideous? From what I've seen, it's overly blue and not very inviting. It also looks like the audience now surrounds the play area. Are they trying to turn this into Millionaire?

I liked O'Hurley fine on To Tell the Truth, but I do wonder how well he'll fit on Family Feud. It'll be interesting to see if, like Karn and Anderson early during their runs, he forgets to reveal the number one answers after Fast Money. That always annoyed the heck out of me, so if he remembers to do so, I think he'll be on to a good start.

You can check out some show clips on YouTube. I really like the set...the throwback-yet-modern tribute to the Dawson-era design. But the director doesn't adjust his camera angle to accomodate the family's score being back up on the big board...not on their podium. I kinda like seeing the audience...though if I were IN the audience, those seats would suck! I just wish they'd have updated the theme music. You could hum the original Dawson/Combs theme...the Anderson/Karn theme has no melody...it's just noise.
And O'Hurley kicks Karn's ass! Really funny!

Oh, Lord, yesterday's episode: "Something to make a bathtub more sexy" or something like that was the question. I believe the contestant's answer was meant to refer to KY jelly (anyway) but I'm not sure how he managed to mess that up and say "401(k) jelly." WTF?!

I was awed by that gaffe.

The new host flirts with the males quite openly. He also prances from one side of the stage to the other. He is the most fruity fey guy I've seen on a TV show not intended to be going for a gay stereotype theme. I know nothing about him prior to his appearance on FF but he is certainly not what I expected when I heard they were replacing Karn. He seems intended to appeal to a different generation than Karn, as well.

So I tend to catch FF right before Jeopardy! and I was loving Richard Karn as the host because he doesn't seem like a typical game show host, he's too human for it and that's what I enjoyed about him. He seemed like a neighbor or something. So I miss his hosting. John O'Hurley is so fake and that's a good quality for a game show host but I won't be going out of my way to watch the show now.

Three times I've seen J'OH's hands quivering when he holds the cards during final game. The set is so horrible and why is it that the audience is all around the set? Damn, I miss Richard Karn.

I really don't like this new set. We can't see how many points each team has. Thats the part I miss most.

As for John O'Hurley...I like Richard Karn much better. JOH's voice sounds so very plastic. Plus, JOH is awfully weird. Whats up with that sprinting over to the other team after 3 strikes? Oy.

I think JOH moves too fast as far as the "show me" goes. Somebody gives a ridiculous answer...theres no pause like he realizes its a pretty dumb answer. He just says right away..."show me such and such". I don't like that very much. And he reads the damn question over and over again. Does he love his voice that much or what? Honestly, the contestants don't have that bad of a memory.

And what in the hell is up with the audience around the set? I hate that.

I also don't like the new set for all the reasons mentioned. Plus, I think it looks Vegas-y. And I miss Karn, as well. He was a better question reader during fast money, that's for sure. I've heard O'Hurley mess up the fast money questions at least three times so far. And then he speed reads through them once he gets back on track to pick up lost time.

I enjoyed Karn a lot and also won't be going out of my way to watch the show anymore.

Hey, gang. Let's remember that EVERY host goes through a rough patch the first few tapings. Hell, even Allen Ludden was a bit rocky the first few episodes of Password Plus.
JOH will do just fine...IMO he's already better than Karn...and a snappier dresser! I just wish the director would watch some of the old Dawson shows on GSN so he knows how to show the score after each round.

Yeah, I'm willing to cut O'Hurley a little slack because right off, we've got the "Getting used to simply being different from the last" thing to get past. Of course it'll feel a little off with a new guy right away. But I can't get over the set redesign. Just ... huh? What's with the circular audience, and the people all behind the board and stuff? It's weird, and distracting. First Jeopardy's new podiums, now this--what are they doing?!

Today I saw people in the audience holding up signs like "Number 1 Answer". I really don't know if I can watch anymore after that.

I don't mind John O'Hurley too much, but his "flinching" at the buzzer going off when an answer is repeated during fast money severely bugs. it's so obviously overacted that it is painful. The stupid signs in the audience are ridiculous too.

Nothing to see here...apparently my scan of previous posts wasn't careful enough...

Yeah, I brought that up about 10 posts ago, in September.

I think the dumbest answer was on a recent episode. The question was "Name something about Godzilla" and an idiot responded, "He's a big gorilla?" That's King Kong, you fucking moron!

Oh my God, that was beyond stupid! Yeah, Godzilla, King Kong, big movie monster icons. But how on earth could you confuse them????? God, that woman was not particularly intelligent, was she?

Why their teammates keep chanting "Good answer! Good answer!" even when it's a damn stupid answer is another mystery.