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 (2015-2017, 2020-2021) LA Center Studios, Los Angeles, California (2017-2018) Universal Studios, Los Angeles, California (2018-2019) CBS Studio Center, Studio City California (2019-2020) Trilith Studios, Fayetteville, Georgia (2021-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 Anderson era and sometimes in Harvey era, 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, otherwise a failed 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, except for their Family Circle Tournament in 2002); and still later, the last question of the game would be tripled.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: In February 2002, the "double" value round debut in the final Family Circle Tournament during Anderson's third and final season. The very first question as of which had the top six answers on the board for it was "Name a job only women used to have that you might see a man doing today".

And just in case your wondering, here are the answers to that said question.

Anderson Era Double Round Answers Reaveled

Winning[]

The first family to reach a set number of points won the game. From 2003 onwards, 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[]

Beginning in 2003 during Karn's second season, when neither family reached the goal of 300 points after four questions, the fifth and final question was played as the new Sudden Death tiebreaker. 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 used in 2009-10 during O'Hurley's fourth & final season, the Sudden Death question was played after three questions meaning that the fourth players played this question only.

Bullseye Round[]

For O'Hurley's fourth and final season from 2009-10, Feud briefly rebooted the 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 as five questions were asked to each pair of family members in a Face-Off fashion and only the number one answer counted. The first player to buzz-in with the number one answer added money to their own Fast Money bank; the first question was worth $1,000 with each subsequent question worth $1,000 more up to $5,000 for the fifth, a maximum of $30,000, which was never achieved.

Brand New Car Giveaway[]

Beginning in 2009 during O'Hurley's fourth and final season, families have an opportunity to win a brand new car if a family manages to stay on for five shows as undefeated champions. It has been carried over ever since.

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 revealed 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 duplicate (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. If either one or both players managed to score 200 points (or more) successfully, The family wins the grand cash prize. However, if the second player failed to reach 200 points, they family wins $5 for each point earned.

Grand Cash Prizes[]

The grand cash prizes were different depending on the series:

$10,000 (1999-2001)
$20,000 (2001-2009, 2010-present)
Up to $30,000 (2009-2010)
$50,000 (NOTE: Steve Harvey's 1,000th episode in early 2016)

Tournament of Champions[]

The first occurred in 2002 with the Family Circle Tournament of Champions with eight winning families returning in a single-elimination tournament. The jackpot started at $50,000 and went up to $20,000 for each time Fast Money was won, up to a possible $170,000. For this particular tournament only, if FM was not won, $5 per point was added to the jackpot. Each game was played to 300 points except for the finals, which requires just only 500 points to win the game and the jackpot. The winning team for this tournament won a trip to Charleston, South Carolina and tickets to the Family Circle Cup women's tennis tournament in nearby Daniel Island, in addition to the money, which was $112,230. The runners-up for this tournament won a trip to Jamaica. Also, for the finals only, the double round was used, despite the fact they were still using the "three single and one-strike triple round" format.

This version, however, did not do tournaments on an occasional basis until May 2005. Again, eight families were brought back, but this time, they consisted of either family who previously lost their first game for the tournament that was held in May 2005 and May 2006, or previously winning families, but not necessarily focusing on the higher winning families of the past tournament held in February 2006. The differences at this point for the tournament were that the jackpot started with nothing except for the February 2006 Tournament of Champions which began at $10,000 and went up to $20,000 for each time Fast Money was won, up to a possible $130,000. Losses in Fast Money did not add anything to the jackpot, and the championship game was played to 400 points and used the 4 singles-double-triple round format (with Sudden Death if applicable). Trips were sometimes awarded to the jackpot-winning family, including Hawaii during the February 2006 tournament and Mexico during the May 2006 tournament. Again, no Fast Money was played in the finals.

The tournament format did not return until 2013, where the jackpot started at $40,000 and could get as high as $160,000 and was sponsored by Publishers Clearing House (or PCH). The Fast Money Round was won six times in a row and had it build up to $160,000. As before, no Fast Money was played in the finals and the first team to reach 400 points won the jackpot of $160,000 while the runners-up received $20,000.

Trivia[]

In the final Tournament of Champions episode (during the Anderson era) from 2002, the fourth answer was never revealed to the question "Name a drink a waitress might serve you from a pitcher".

Anderson Era Tournaent of Champions Triple Round Board with Unrevealed 4th Answer

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

Anderson once asked the late original Feud host Richard Dawson to make a special cameo appearance on the premiere of his version of the show in order to give him his "blessing". However, he later declined and wanted no further involvement with the show at all. Dawson died on June 2, 2012 from complications of esophageal cancer, he also died on the same day (although different years between them) as his successor/replacement Ray Combs.

When the Anderson era began taping, the intro was slightly different (mostly graphical timing, but also Richardson introducing Anderson as "host").

In Anderson's first-taped episode along with his second, Anderson entered in front of the board rather than behind it.

In Anderson's first-taped episode his light-blue question cards with the '99 logo behind them weren't on a clipboard, but since episode 2 it started using the clipboard.

Originally, the strikes were displayed at the bottom of the screen. Sometimes after the above changes, the strikes moved to the center. In both cases and carrying over to the later versions, the strike count was center-aligned at all times. Plus, a wrong answer on a face-off was indicated by the buzzer only.

When the show began taping. The family names were in very small typeface inside a complete oval, with intros by Richardson that tended to include a "punny" comment that usually rhymed with the families name. Sometime after the above change, the families name typeface was enlarged. In both cases, the families names were displayed on small TV monitors above each team that were extremely difficult to see with wide-show views of the set. Prior to Fast Money, the celebration of the winning family was replayed on their monitor before it flipped back over with the "clang" from the front game.

In episode 2, the scoreboard from the main game can be seen in Fast Money. although, since the first-taped episode and the rest of Anderson's run, the scoreboard is usually blurred out during Fast Money.

The Anderson era was the only version to feature eggcrate display with a blue color figure.

The Anderson version was the first show to use a split screen at the end in order to promote their now-defunct online game at Uproar.com by Anderson, To Tell the Truth (2000) was the second.

This was the only version to use the Mark Goodson Productions name & logo but not the spiel at the end of each episode, To Tell the Truth (2000) was the second.

Richardson had been an announcer on both 1999-2010 Feud & the 2000-02 syndicated version of Truth at the time.

In 2001, following the devasting 9/11 attacks of the twin towers in New York, the show taped a special week with the NYPD and FDNY where all winnings went towards relief efforts; the pot started at $75,000 as all the money came from Anderson himself.

The Mark Goodson Productions and Pearson Television logos were both dropped since 2002 when Karn became host at the time.

Louie Anderson had the most shortest tenure of all-time (three seasons to be exact).

On the syndicated game show Funny You Should Ask (hosted by Jon Kelly), Louie Anderson stated that he hosted the show for 525 episodes.

This is the only version of The Feud to have its face-off podium being removed when Fast Money comes in play.

Richardson was the only black announcer being used for three white host (i.e. Anderson, Karn & O'Hurley respectively).

The Tribune Entertainment logo was used on the early years of the John O'Hurley era until 2007.

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 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. six years ago, their first game show they worked together on was the short-lived 2000-2002 syndicated reboot 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 from the franchise that 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 "WHOOSH!" 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 Summer 2008 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, the late 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.

Both O'Hurley & Harvey's versions do not have the logo in the opening intros although in Harvey's first season in 2010-11, the logo was seen when it was taped at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.

Taping wise, this version went through ten studio changes. The current version was taped at Georgia World Congress Center twice in 2015 and 2021.