Trow identified 'the important moment in the history of television' as the moment when Dawson asked his contestants 'to guess what a poll of 100 people had guessed would be the height of the average American woman. In his classic 1981 cultural analysis 'Within the Context of No Context,' George W.S. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called him 'the fastest, brightest and most beguilingly caustic interlocutor since the late great Groucho bantered and parried on 'You Bet Your Life.'' The show was so popular it was released as both daytime and syndicated evening versions.Īnd it was quickly validated by 'Saturday Night Live,' with Bill Murray in a satirical homage to Dawson as a leering, nasty figure who even slapped one contestant (John Belushi) for getting too fresh. He won a daytime Emmy Award in 1978 as best game show host. The show, which initially ran from 1976 to 1985, pitted a pair of families against each other as they tried to guess the most popular answers to poll questions such as 'What do people give up when they go on a diet?'ĭawson made his hearty, soaring pronouncement of the phrase 'Survey says.' a national catchphrase among the show's fans. The British-born entertainer, who died Saturday at age 79 from complications related to esophageal cancer at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, earlier had made his mark in the unlikely 1960s sitcom hit 'Hogan's Heroes,' which mined laughs from a Nazi POW camp whose prisoners hoodwink their captors and run the place themselves.īut it is as the kissing, wisecracking quizmaster of 'Feud' that he will be remembered. NEW YORK - Richard Dawson brought a saucy, unabashedly touchy-feely style to TV game shows as host of 'Family Feud.'

Family feud set 1987