Interesting Facts About Family Feud Only True Fans Will Know

From the perspective of an engaged audience member, Family Feud looks like an expertly run bit of family entertainment. From the perspective of an insider who works behind-the-scenes, however, the show is riddled with stresses, controversies, and hidden facts. Below are of our favorite ones.

The show’s producers have been around long enough to know that plenty of people are willing and able to fake being a family for a bit of fame and fortune. To avoid that, they have instituted strict rules that require contestants to provide proof that they’re family.

That’s not the only thing the two TV shows had in common. Family Feud took most of its inspiration from the final round of Match Game – the round where contestants filled in blanks to see if they had a matching answer.

During the show, Richard and Gretchen could barely contain their flirtations. It was obvious to family members, staff, and crew that some serious chemistry was going on. However, before the flirtations could grow into anything else, the show ended and the contestants had to leave.

He assumed she gave him the wrong number to deflect attention. In reality, she was getting some teeth removed. When she did pick up, Richard invited her to Los Angeles. They had dinner (Beef Wellington) and a few years later, they got married.

A slow day typically nets four episodes, and a fast day can net up to six episodes! How much work they get done depends on the contestants and how many jokes Steve Harvey tells.

When it comes to Family Feud, the signature phrase is “Survey Says!” When the host says those two words, all the contestants and audience members know it’s time to turn to the big screen. Hopefully, not to see a red X.

It starts before the taping with a big continental breakfast to make sure everyone’s well fed. After that, around lunchtime, food from Subway is brought in to make sure that contestants are able to pull through the grueling schedule without fainting or being hungry. 

It turns out that no one knows they’re being surveyed for Family Feud. Rather, a polling company named Applied Research-West calls up random people and asks them to answer 30 to 40 questions. Their answers are used on Family Feud, but the people are never told that. 

We know this because Cole Simmons, a one-time contestant, revealed to the press that it took nearly 3 months for his money to arrive. Not only that, the money was automatically split up among family members and was subject to income tax. 

However, producers have laid down some rules to make sure that doesn’t happen too often. If a family ends up winning $100,000, they can’t return to Family Feud for at least 10 years. 

The reasoning behind that number is that some of the questions on the show can be a bit adult in nature. There have been plenty of knowing smirks and sly remarks from both contestants and hosts over the years.

They aren’t huge cash bonuses, but it’s better than nothing. For example, for every point that the team earned during the show, they get $5. Unfortunately, those earnings are subject to the same 90-day waiting period. 

Dawson, the original host, didn’t plan on putting that signature move in. However, in 1976, a nervous woman was on the show and didn’t want to let her family down. To calm her, Dawson kissed her on the cheek – just like his mother did to him. 

It soon became Richard Dawson’s signature move, and each female contestant would ready themselves before Dawson came over. Some even tried to plant one on his lips. Although the host and contestants seemed fine with it, the crew found it creepy. 

Quite a few people wrote in to complain about Dawson’s kissing, so he decided to put it to an audience vote. In the end, a few hundred wanted a halt to the kissing, but a few thousand wanted it to continue. 

By that time, however, he had given up on the kisses. Although those who voted against it in the 80s were glad, others wanted to know why. It turns out Dawson made a promise to his daughter not to pass smooches with anyone but his wife. 

Richard Dawson, the host at the time, loved to make jokes while taping the show, and one of his favorite things to joke about was Richard Nixon. One of the show’s sponsors was unimpressed and threatened to leave. When the producer asked Dawson to tone it down, it didn’t end well. 

Instead, Dawson went on live television, called out the sponsor, and said they were free to go if they liked. Later on, when ABC – the company that owned Family Feud – tried to edit out the comments, Dawson said he’d quit if they did. The comments were left unedited. 

Over the years, that motivation has led to some pretty wild auditions. Families are eager to get air time and win some money, so they tend to be over-the-top during the auditions. Although helpful, it’s also important to be yourself. 

Neither did the next answer – “nana.” The team lost another point. When it was handed off to another contestant, she answered “nana” again. Harvey pointed out that it was the same answer. She thought again and then landed on “mommy.” The exhausting segment was cut from airing.

Richard tried to “act like a game show host” by having the film extras in the fake audience come up to the stage. However, scriptwriters and the film crew thought it was too much so they skipped over it. 

Anderson’s mark on the show was financial. Over the course of his four years as host, he persuaded the producers to up the ante on the prize money. Eventually, they agreed – it went from $10,000 to $20,000. Great job Louie!

To give him the benefit of the doubt, being a popular TV host is stressful. That being said, it still seems like Dawson was a bit of a hothead when it came to minor disruptions on set. 

Sometimes he would just go off on long stories or convoluted jokes that seemed to serve no purpose other than wasting time. All of this caused a lot of extra work for the editors, who had to snip it down to size to fit the scheduling slot. 

This happened to Richard Dawson after winning a Best Daytime Game Show Host Emmy in 1978. Multiple crew members and co-workers said he was insufferable after that. He even challenged the producer’s decisions because he felt all-powerful. 

This was the case with the producer Howard Felsher and Richard Dawson. Felsher wasn’t happy with Richard’s behavior, and Richard wasn’t happy with having someone dislike his behavior – so he got Felsher banned from the set. Luckily, the boss Mark Goodson simply gave Felsher an off-set executive producer position. 

One of those was famed NFL quarterback Joe Namath. However, he got cold feet right before signing the contract. After that, the hosting job went to stand-up comedian Ray Combs who carried it for a total of six years.

Although their hopes were high, Dolly Parton declined the offer almost immediately, so we have no idea what the show could have been like. After that offer fell through, the producers decided to hire comedian Louie Anderson to host the new show. 

Dawson was persistent though, and eventually, he and the producers struck up a deal. Once he lost 50 pounds, he’d get to host the show once again. 

The producer who Dawson clashed with many years before agreed to help Richard get comfortable again as host. At first, this worked out well and Family Feud was picked up by 100 stations. After a year, though, Richard Dawson called it quits.

In a stroke of misjudgment, they told Combs before the season was over. This meant that Combs had very little desire to play a happy-go-lucky host, and some of his later episodes turned out nasty and mean as he made fun of the contestants. 

Ray tore into him by saying “I thought I was a loser until you walked up here.” After the show ended, Ray simply walked off-stage without saying goodbye to either the audience members or the contestants. 

Both his professional life and personal life were going downhill. He invested in a few comedy clubs, but they failed. Around that time, his wife filed for divorce. Both of these caused a decline in his mental health, so he was checked into a facility.

They brought him to a medical facility where he was put under close watch. However, the next day in the early morning, he committed suicide. Staff tried to revive him, but it was too late.

Although he had been earning around $1 million a year at the height of his fame, he squandered it after losing his fame. The failed comedy club ventures alone resulted in over $700,000 in debt. His wife eventually sold off treasured assets to pay it off. 

Comedian Louie Anderson served as host for four seasons (1999 – 2002). In his first year on set, he suggested calling up Richard Dawson to have him come on for a tribute. Dawson was having none of it – he categorically refused when the executive producer gave him a call.

That began to change, however, in 2010 when the show’s producers decided to hire Steve Harvey as the host. The viewership quickly grew until it reached a sort of apex in October 2016 when it was voted the most-watched show for six months.

The rapper Snoop Dogg was on one of the episodes. Host Steve Harvey asked him, “Fill in the blank. Pie in the…” Now, most people would probably say “sky.” However, Snoop Dogg isn’t like most people. Instead, he said “Horse.” His response ended up going viral.

It was back in 1976 when Richard Dawson was the host. He came onto the stage and asked, “Name a famous George.” Although it might sound anticlimactic, it was as good as any question. “George Washington” was the most popular answer.

He sent out messages and emails to crew members with a dozen or so rules that he’d like them to follow – mostly it’s about not disturbing him in his dressing room. 

Some comments have flown under the radar, but some have courted controversy – not enough to cause professional trouble, though. These jokes mixed with his strict rules show that Steve’s not always a happy-go-lucky guy.

This dramatic question allows one team of contestants to jump from low score to high score within seconds. However, it also allows a team with a high score to lose it all with a bad answer.

Steve Harvey was working on Little Big Shots, Steve Harvey’s Funderdome, as well as talk shows such as Steve and Steve on Watch. In launching his very own enterprise, Steve Harvey Global (SHG), would there be time for Family Feud?

In recent years, there have been complaints about Steve Harvey’s suggestive jokes. Part of Family Feud’s main form of humor comes from the hilarious, off the cuff, and suggestive guesses contestants make. While some innuendos may be over the top and cause fleeting complaints, is the show truly in danger of FCC regulation?

Harvey has helped expand the success of Family Feud by serving as the host of the celebrity version and also launching an African version of the show in 2020 under Steve Harvey Global. At least for the foreseeable future, it would appear that Harvey is here to stay. And the busy TV personality continues to expand his impressive resume with the launch of his new 2022 show, Judge Steve Harvey.

A more recent one is to add in some questions deliberately designed to make people laugh or, in certain cases, to feel uncomfortable. This tactic has boosted ratings but called into question how far this family-friendly show is willing to go. 

In 2009, the rules changed once again. With Steve Harvey as host, the ratings went up, and a new rule emerged. If a family won five games in a row, then they won a brand new car.

On one show, the sentence was “All men are dogs that need to be -.” Harvey didn’t like the question, so after the contestant correctly answered “neutered”, Harvey chimed in by saying “All men are dogs. That’s not true.”

The first was in 1978 when Bill Murray played the role of host Richard Dawson. Then, in 1991, Dana Carvey portrayed Ray Combs. Finally, in 2016, Kenan Thompson dressed up like Steve Harvey for a spoofy “political edition” of the show.

Luckily, an interview of Late Night With Seth Myers shed light on that a bit. Harvey said a contestant answered “grandma in a birthday suit” when asked about the last thing a robber might expect. When asked about a word beginning with pork, one contestant answered “pork-cupine.”

Richard Dawson had another way of dealing with outrageous answers. He would either say “good reply” with a sarcastic grin or pretend that a wild answer made perfect sense. 

In fact, the entire segment gets tossed. Rather than airing the mishap, a new question is put on the board and the round begins again. The contestants (and everyone else) pretend that the no-answer segment didn’t exist.

When the show stopped, however, things changed. Due to his difficult-to-work-with reputation, very few producers were eager to hire him once Family Feud ended. He still managed to live a decent personal life, but his professional career was pretty much over. 

How do you split up a car into five pieces? Luckily, they don’t try. Instead, the car is gifted (as a whole) to the family and they decide on driving privileges. Or the cash value of the car is split up among the family members.

This was a strategic decision made by the producers. As a primetime TV show, it makes sense for Family Feud to try to appeal to as many viewers as possible. One way to do this is to have those playing the game reflect those who’re watching it at home.

Anderson chose not to shoot a pilot. Instead, he recreated the game show in his own home. The execs loved it, offered him the hosting gig, and paid him a salary of $1.5 million.

Although Anderson made a good impression on the TV execs who hired him, he wasn’t a big hit with the audiences at home. Anderson thought (and publicly said) the show was doomed way back in the early 2000s. That prediction turned out wrong – it has been 20 years and the show is still running strong.

Both Steve Harvey and the audience burst out in laughter. The adult-themed answer was enough to entertain those at the live event, but it wasn’t enough to score his team points. When the famous “survey says!” catchphrase was uttered, “my wife” didn’t appear on the board.

It’s true that the show is briefly rehearsed before the live event, but that’s mostly to ensure that the contestants are comfortable with all the cameras. All Steve Harvey’s jokes and asides are unscripted. Considering he was a comedian long before a game show host, the humor comes naturally.

These include Family Feud Africa (hosted by Steve Harvey), Family Feud Australia (which began in the late 70s), and 100 Mexicanos Dijeron (translated as “100 Mexicans Said”). The Russian version allows friends, bands, and co-workers to compete against each other as well as the traditional family contestants.

If you don’t, then it’s incredibly disheartening. Contestant Anna Sass found this out the hard way on a 2014 episode. Sass needed 18 points (or, one mildly popular answer) to win $20,000. Instead, she didn’t get a single point.

Also, the questions are designed to make host Steve Harvey give a noteworthy reaction – usually dropping his head in disbelief. Another benefit of the raunchier comments is that many of them go viral on YouTube and other social media networks.

He began his career as a comedian in the early 1980s. He performed stand-up comedy and hosted Showtime at the Apollo and The Steve Harvey Show. Harvey has brought on his own controversy outside the show…

It was reported however that Steve was seen drinking profusely and enjoying himself around the roulette tables. It was a pretty devastating moment for the woman who thought she had won and had to be de-crowned.

Steve Harvey said:  “You like Asian men?…I don’t even like Chinese food, boy,” Harvey quips to the audience (via Variety). “It don’t stay with you no time. I don’t eat what I can’t pronounce.” Yikes.

The show issued a statement on the matter, but Steve acted confused saying “I ain’t been laughing that much over the past few days. They’re kinda beating me up on the internet right now for no reason. But, you know, that’s life, ain’t it?”

He continued: “It was not my intention and the humor was not meant with any malice or disrespect whatsoever.”

Many chose to distance themselves from him, but Steve Harvey did not feel the need to do so, much to people’s surprise, saying “When I’m your friend, I’m your friend.”

He continued, “You don’t need none of this on you. You’re doing good. Whatever happens to me, happens to me, but don’t you get none of this on you.’ That’s an amazing thing for a guy to say.”

His first wife was a woman named Marcia Harvey, who he was married to from 1981 to 1994. His second wife was to a woman named Mary Lee Harvey, who he was married to from 1996 to 2005.

Their names are Lori Harvey, Wynton Harvey, Jason Harvey, Morgan Harvey, Brandi Harvey, Karli Harvey, Broderick Harvey Jr.

His grandchildren include Joey, Rose, Ezra, Noah, Elle, Marley, and Benjamin “BJ.” What a brood!

She is dating actor Michael B. Jordan, and works for LA Model Management.

Steve Harvey is also the host for Celebrity Family Feud. Some of the biggest stars in Hollywood have been on the show such as Kim Kardashian, Fran Drescher, and JoJo Siwa.

Steve Harvey is worth a whopping 200 million dollars. He’s amassed this insane amount through working as a comedian and actor.

Steve Harvey began his philanthropic work in the year 2000, putting together book drives and technology upgrades in LA area schools.

According to BET: “Steve Harvey began his philanthropic work in the year 2000, putting together book drives and technology upgrades in LA area schools.”

He was in the business for decades prior to receiving the high honor of gaining a star. Today, more than 2,700 stars exist along the walkway.