Hollywood Squares
1996-1981 version
Host: Peter Marshall
Announcer: Kenny Williams
Premise: Two contestants must agree or disagree with a panel of nine celebrities, in the one show that spawned the most other game shows.
Rules: To begin, the challenger selects a "square" with a celebrity inside. A question is read to the celebrity, and after the celebrity gives their answer, the player must agree or disagree with the answer. If the contestant is correct in their judgment, that player puts their mark (X or O) in the square. If the contestant was incorrect, the opponent got the square.
Exception: If the contestant lost a square that would give their opponent the win if he or she lost it, the square was not given on a missed question. "We can't give you the square, you have to earn it (and the win) by yourself."
Scoring: The winner of a game won $200, and $400 won the match. Whoever won the match took on another challenger. Whoever won five matches took home $2000, a new car, and whatever bonus prizes were won along the way.
Secret Square: The first full game of the day was the Secret Square game. One celebrity was randomly chosen, and if picked during the game, the contestant could win a prize jackpot by correctly agreeing or disagreeing (sans the jokes with the question) with the celebrity. The Secret Square jackpot had one prize put into it each day it was not won.
1986-1989 version
Host: John Davidson
Announcer: Shadoe Stevens
The game remained the same, but now each show was its own match, like the syndicated version from before. Each game won was worth $500, and the second game of the day was the "Secret Square" game, with a trip as the prize. The prize didn't roll over like before, it was one prize per day. Starting with season two, game three and any game after that was worth $1,000 for the winner. If time ran out, squares were worth either $200 or $100, depending on the time in the run. The high scorer of the day chose one key from five, a la "Split Second" and tried to start the car. If it did, the contestant left with all winnings; if not, that car was eliminated from the choices should the contestant win the next day.
1998-2004 version
Host: Tom Bergeron
Announcer: Shadoe Stevens, Jeffrey Tambor, John Moschitta, Jr.
1999 version:
Champions return for up to five days, Secret Square prizes carry over until someone wins. Alicia Paulk won the largest Secret Square Stash in the history of the show: $50,731 on May 17, 2000. She was defeated by John Lathan, the first person to win three cars on the show.
The Tournament of Champions
Starting in 1999, Hollywood Sqares held the Tournament of Champions in May. Two of the players would face off each day, and the Secret Square would be worth $2,500. The final question would be worth a cash amount from $5,000 to $15,000 in $1,000 steps. (In 2001, they just played Double/Nothing as normal). The catch is that of the players, the two top scorers played in the final, everyone else was out, even if they won their game. For the final, the two played two full days, with again the Secret Square worth $2,500, and scores carried over to the Friday Final. If there were eight contestants, the finals were just on Friday.
In 1999, the champ got $50,000 and a shot at $10,000 or $15,000. In 2000, the champ got $25,000 and a chance at cash or prizes up to a $40,000 Jaguar. In 2002, the champion simply played Double or Nothing one last time, and won a Mercedes as a bonus prize.
College Championship
Similar to the Tournament of Champions, but lasts for two weeks. Seven Quarter-Final matches are played, the four top winners play the Semis, the two winners play the finals, and the champion gets $25,000 and a car. ATGS poster Brandon Brooks won the 2002 championship with nearly $70,000 in cash and stuff. Go Brandon!
At the beginning, the bonus round consisted of picking a star, answering a question and winning whatever money amount was concealed. When the Double-or-Nothing bonus round was in play, whatever was won in the bonus round was added to the main game total to determine who moved on. In 2003, the safe in the bonus round contained a $25,000 Savings Bond, then $25,000 cash for the Semi-Finals. The winner of the tournament went straight down to the car, and after Tom had a little fun, eliminated all eight bad keys, leaving the one that started the Jeep.
In both tournaments, all players who don't win the championship keep whatever they could collect.