Family Feud (1999)


Aired
Syndication, September 20, 1999 – Present
Run time
30 Minutes
Host
Louie Anderson 1999-2002 Richard Karn 2002-2006 John O'Hurley 2006-2010 Steve Harvey 2010-Present
Announcer
Burton Richardson 1999-2010 Joey Fatone 2010-2015 Rubin Ervin 2015-present
Origination
CBS Television City, Hollywood, California (1999-2000) NBC Studios, Burbank, California (2000-2003) Sunset Bronson Studios, Hollywood, California (2003-2010) Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida (2010-2011) Atlanta Civic Center, Atlanta, Georgia (2011-2015) Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta Georgia (2015-2018) LA Center Studios, Los Angeles, California (2018-Present)

This is chronicling the current version of the Feud.

Game format

Main Game

Face-Off

At the beginning of each round, two members of each family come up to the main podium and play a mini-round for control of the question called "Face-Off". The host announced how many answers are on the board (which are always in order based on popularity), and then read a survey question and the first player to buzz-in gets to answer. The player to give the number one answer or have his/her answer be higher than the other player's answer won control. In case of a tie (both answers with the same number of people who gave it) the player who answered first won control. If neither player gave an answer on the board, the players at the main podiums get a chance to answer for control.

For time reasons, during Louie Anderson's & (some of) Steve Harvey's tenure, if neither player's answer was on the board the question was thrown out, and a new one was played.

The player that won the Face-Off has a decision to either let his/her family play the question or pass the question to their opponents.

Main Question

The family that won the face-off earns control of the question. The controlling family's job is to reveal the remaining answers hidden on the board with each correct answer adding points to the bank above the board. The answer's value is determined by how many people who gave it. Each player on the controlling team in turn gave an answer and if the answer he/she gave is correct, it is flipped over and revealed. Revealing all the answers on the board won the round (this is classified as a "Clean Sweep"). Giving a wrong answer at any time earned a strike; getting three strikes (one in the final round from 1999-2003) caused the team to lose control of the question, giving the opposing family a chance to steal by giving one correct answer. A successful steal won the round, but an unsuccessful steal gave the round to the first family. The winners of the round took all the points in the bank plus (from 1999-2003) the value of the correct answer given by the stealing family.

Question Values

The first few questions had its values be worth the number showing. Later on in the game, the values of all the questions would be doubled (the double value round wasn't available from 1999 to 2003); and still later, the last question of the game would be tripled.

Winning

The first family to reach a set number of points won the game. For most of this version, the goal is 300 points. From 1999 to 2003 there was no goal; the team with the most points won the game, even though most families in this period reached the goal of 300 points. In addition, there was only one strike for the team in the triple round (round 4). This created a scenario in which a team could give an incorrect answer and still win if there were not enough points in the bank for the other team to win by a successful steal. Other times when an opposing family already had more points than the bank, if a controlling family gave an incorrect answer, the game would automatically end.

Sudden Death Question

Starting in 2003, a new Sudden Death tiebreaker was added if either families has failed to reach the goal of 300 points after four questions, the fifth and final question was played as Sudden Death. Similar to the Bullseye Round/Bankroll Game, the final two players played one final Face-Off and the first player to buzz-in with the number one answer earned triple value and won the game.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: When the Bullseye Round was re-instituted in 2009, the Sudden Death question was played after three questions meaning that the fourth players played this question

Bullseye Round (2.0)

For one season during John O'Hurley's tenure, Family Feud instituted a new Bullseye round. This was the round that affected the grand prize for either family if and when they make it to Fast Money. In this round, both families started with a bankroll of $15,000. Five questions were asked to each pair of family members in a Face-Off fashion, and only number one answers counted. The first player to buzz-in with the number one answer added money to their own Fast Money bank; this resulted in a possible win of $30,000.

Scoring

Here how they scored for each question:

Questions	Values
Question 1	$1,000
Question 2	$2,000
Question 3	$3,000
Question 4	$4,000
Question 5	$5,000

Additional Note:

For O'Hurley's Bullseye era, the number of questions along with its amounts (with the exception of the starting amounts) are very reminiscent to that of the Combs version in the second half of The Family Feud Challenge on CBS and in syndication from 1992 until 1994 when it was once known as The New Family Feud. Also nobody has won let alone reached the total amount of $30,000 during the 2009-10 season.

Brand New Car Giveaway

Starting in the 2009 season (during O'Hurley's tenure), families have an opportunity to win a brand new car if a family manages to stay on for five shows as retiring undefeated champions. Currently, the gimmick is still carried over during Harvey's tenure (with the elimination of the Bullseye round) as host since 2010.

Here are the hosts and the years that had it:

Hosts	Years
O'Hurley era	2009-2010
Harvey era	2010-present

Additional Notes:

This does not effect the outcome of the Fast Money round whether a family wins or loses on their fifth and final appearance of the show.
This is also not carried over in the 2008 & 2015 editions of Celebrity Family Feud on NBC & ABC respectively as the money is played for charity (mainly $50,000 & $25,000 respectively).

Fast Money

The winning family went on to play Fast Money for a grand cash prize. The winning family chose which two players will play the game. The first family member stood at center stage while the second family member went off stage to a soundproof area. The first player has 20 seconds to answer five Family Feud questions. He/she has to give the most popular answer to each question. When he/she was done, the answers were reveled on a different board followed by the number of people who gave them. After all the answers were revealed and scored, the second player came out and took his/her turn. The second player had 25 seconds to answer the same five questions but with one exception: he/she cannot repeat any of the answers previously given by the first player or a double buzzer will sound, at which point the host says, "Try again." The contestant must give a different answer (the second player will also be charged for similar answers or an answer which fits into the same category as the first player's answer). When the second player was done, his/her answers were revealed and scored. The family wins $5 for each point made in the round, but if the two playing players reached 200 points or more, the family wins the grand cash prize.

Grand Cash Prizes

The grand cash prizes were different depending on the series:

Years	Hosts	Values
1999-2001	Anderson	$10,000
2001-2009, 2010-present	Anderson Karn O'Hurley Harvey	$20,000
2009-2010	O'Hurley	$30,000
2016	Harvey	$50,000

$10,000 (NOTE: This amount was also played in the Dawson ('76) & Combs Syndicated versions)
$20,000 (NOTE: started in Anderson's 3rd season in 2001, came back in Harvey's 1st season in 2010)
$30,000 (NOTE: This was played during O'Hurley's "Bullseye" era in 2009)
$50,000 (NOTE: This was played during Harvey's 1,000th appearance in 2016, this amount was also played in Roker's Celebrity Family Feud in 2008)

Personnel

Hosts: Louie Anderson (1999-2002); Richard Karn (2002-2006); John O'Hurley (2006-2010); Steve Harvey (2010-present)
Announcers: Burton Richardson (1999-2010); Joey Fatone (2010-2015); Rubin Ervin (2015-present)
Executive Producers: Michael Canter; Gabrielle Johnston
Music: Score Productions; John Lewis Parker

Trivia

Before Louie Anderson, famous country singer Dolly Parton was almost originally signed on to host the revival.

With the exception of Al Roker and Ricki Lake respectively, this version went through four different hosts.

With the exception of Rich Fields respectively, this version also went through three different announcers.

This was the second and final game show that both Burton Richardson and John O'Hurley worked together on from 2006 until 2010. Their first game show they worked together on was the short-lived 2000-2002 syndicated revival of To Tell the Truth.

Despite the different years between them (i.e. 2002-06 & 2006-10 respectively) Both Richard Karn and John O'Hurley are the only two host out of the four (minus Richard Dawson and Ray Combs respectively) from the franchise had the same four-year tenure hosting the show among them.

The 2002-05 Karn era Feud set was used in the unsold 2003 game show pilot called I'm With Stupid hosted by Graham Norton and was also used in the 2002 FOX special called TV's Funniest Game Shows Part 2 hosted by Richard Karn.

The "WOOSH!" sound effect for when an answer was revealed on the board in the main round was recycled from the short-lived 2001-2002 revival of Card Sharks when a button was pushed to reveal the next card in sequence. The sound was originally used in the O'Hurley version and has been carried over since then.

Harvey not only hosted the current syndicated version, but he also hosted the ABC reboot of Celebrity Family Feud in 2015.

Former host Louie Anderson competed on an episode of the rebooted ABC version of Celebrity Family Feud along with singer/actress Christina Milian as his opponent. This episode aired on July 23, 2017.