Skewing the squares

A thread on Matt Ottinger's board commented on how celebs could skew Hollywood Squares (and its descendant Hip Hop Squares) by leading a civvie contestant they disliked to the wrong answer. As posters on the board note, it's still up to the civvies to make the decisions. So such skewing isn't really the kind of cheating which would bring down the wrath of Standard and Practices.

A poster quotes Peter Marshall on the games Paul Lynde would play with contestants he didn't care for:

[If Paul Lynde] ever took a dislike to a contestant, that guy might as well have gone home. He'd do everything he could to make that person lose. He'd practically come right out and say his answer was correct and force the contestant to agree. Of course, his answer would be wrong. Then, during the commercial, he'd say, "Got you, didn't I?"

Hollywood Squares always rubbed me the wrong way with all the scripting of the celebs. I also don't get warm and fuzzies from how celebrities could screw over disliked civvies with such mind games.

But what the hey, the civvies knew what they were getting into, and they always had the final say on the celebs' answers. If a civvie got faked out by a celebrity for whatever reason, it was just part of the game.