About

Survey says: fifty years of families guessing how America thinks.

Family Feud premiered July 12, 1976. Mark Goodson, the producer behind The Price Is Right, Match Game, and a bounty of other classic game shows, put two families on a stage to guess the most popular answers to questions posed to 100 people surveyed. Our first match was the Moseleys vs. the Abramowitzes. The first question was “Name a famous George.” The board went to George Washington with 74 points. Fast Money paid $890. Within a year we were the #1 daytime game show and had an Emmy.

Richard Dawson (1976–85, then one more season in 1994–95) made the show feel like a party that had wandered onto television. He kissed contestants, needled the answers, and later married one of the women who played, Gretchen Johnson, whose family won in 1981. Behind him, executive producers Howard Felsher and Chester Feldman kept the original machine running. After nine years Dawson left. After a three-year break he came back for a final season with his son Gary Dawson as executive producer.

Ray Combs (1988–94), a comic who’d earned a standing ovation on Carson’s Tonight Show, hosted our CBS revival and the hour-long Family Feud Challenge era, when Bullseye set Fast Money’s bank at $5,000. Felsher and Feldman were still running the floor. Gene Wood’s voice stayed with us through most of those years, the same announcer who’d been there since Dawson.

Louie Anderson (1999–2002) brought the next revival, first under executive producer Michael Canter, then Gaby Johnston. After 9/11, Anderson put the NYFD against the NYPD on a charity episode that raised $75,000.

Richard Karn (2002–06), best known as Al Borland from Home Improvement, became the next host of Family Feud. Johnston was executive producer. During that run, Karn also appeared in The Strokes’ “Someday” video, staged as a fake episode of Family Feud.

John O’Hurley (2006–10) hosted next, after his memorable turn as J. Peterman on Seinfeld. Johnston was still executive producer.

Al Roker hosted the first Celebrity Family Feud on NBC in 2008 (Ice-T, the Rivers women, The Office, Kim Kardashian, Ed McMahon), again with Johnston as executive producer.

Then Steve Harvey took over in 2010. Johnston was still EP, with Jennifer Mullin and Kevin Williams also credited in that first Steve Harvey season. He is our longest-running host. Under Steve Harvey the show stopped being only a game show. It became a comedy with a scoreboard.

Joey Fatone announced the early Steve Harvey years. Rubin Ervin followed shortly thereafter as announcer. Rubin’s unmatched energy and talent have contributed significantly to the show’s legacy and the 50th anniversary this year. As warm-up, he still gets the studio audience pumped before every taping, and he continues as the on-air voice of Celebrity Family Feud.

Celebrity Family Feud returned to ABC in 2015 with Steve Harvey and has been on ever since, with celebrity players including Snoop Dogg, Kelly Clarkson, Shaquille O’Neal, Jennifer Hudson, Earth, Wind & Fire, NFL conference teams, Steve Harvey’s own family, and many more, all playing for charity.

Gaby Johnston came up through the Goodson shop: contestant coordinator in the Dawson years, associate producer under Combs, then EP from the early 2000s through Karn, O’Hurley, and the Steve Harvey era. She was instrumental in bringing Steve Harvey to the podium.

Today the syndicated show and primetime Celebrity Family Feud are run by showrunner Myeshia Mizuno, who stepped into the chair in 2024. She’d already built Judge Steve Harvey with him, after years producing unscripted and court shows including Judge Judy, Lauren Lake’s Paternity Court, and the Supermarket Sweep revival.

Fifty years later, the Feud is still going strong! In its 50th year, Steve Harvey—now with 3,000 episodes and counting, is back at the podium. And this time, some legendary families are returning for another shot at the board and more money!