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John O’Hurley hosted Family Feud from 2006 to 2010
During those years, O’Hurley, 71, was the first host to experience the migration toward raunchier questions being posted
O’Hurley explains why the change in the show’s tone, as well as other changes, made it clear it was his time to walk away
John O’Hurley has special memories of his time hosting Family Feud.
While the beloved game show officially premiered on July 12, 1976, O’Hurley took over as host from 2006 to 2010, before current host Steve Harvey came in. During a previous appearance on The Game Show Starring Bradley Clarke in 2021, the actor, 71, opened up about his experience at the show’s helm and explained why he ultimately decided to step away.
“It was a tough decision, but they were moving the show from shooting in L.A. to shooting down at Universal, down in Florida, and I wasn’t really pleased about that because it was tough enough to coordinate the filming of the show with all the other demands that I had, not the least of which was the fact that I was doing quite a bit of Broadway at the time,” O’Hurley explained.
“It was very difficult for me to coordinate the two because I had 14 weekends a year that I had to commit to The Family Feud,” he continued. “Now, if I had to travel to Florida every time I wanted to do one of those weekends, well, now I’m adding in travel days, another 30 days away from home just for travel, in addition to the two days that it would take to shoot it.”
O’Hurley also noted, “My family didn’t want to do it.”
“So I said, ‘This is the time, probably, when you should pass it on to somebody else. I’ve had my fun with it, and that’s it, time to move on now,’ ” he explained.
O’Hurley noted that it fell into the right hands with Harvey, who he said “came in and reignited it.”
“It turned out to be a much bigger hit than when I was doing it. So I tip my hat to him and all that has happened with the success of the show since then,” he shared. “And again, the show has moved from Florida up to Atlanta, where he’s based, and I don’t know if they’re still shooting it there or not. I think they are, but it turned out to be just a wonderful jolt of success for the show.”
Addressing previous comments about the show’s content contributing to his decision to leave, O’Hurley admitted, “That was a very strong reason too.”
“I was getting a lot of… you know, they blame the host for whatever the show is. Truth-wise, I had very little to do with the content of the show, except to put my hand up and say, ‘I won’t do that,’ because, as I said, and I meant it when I said it, the show had become kind of a penis joke,” he explained.
“It wasn’t the family orientation that it was. Everything was looking for the sexual double entendre, all the time, and it was even getting a little too demonstrative,” he continued. “And I just felt that this was always a show you could watch with your family. In fact, in most syndicated arenas, it was on at 6 p.m., and that was a popular family show to watch. But I was getting so many letters from people all around the country, saying, ‘I can’t watch this with my family anymore. It’s making me answer questions that I don’t want to answer.’ ”
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As for his ability to influence the direction of the show, O’Hurley continued, “I did, at least, have the final say on what questions we would do, and if I objected to one, it didn’t go in. But I had to fight that, and there were always 10 who were like, ‘Oh, it’s not that bad, trust me.’ ”
In the end, O’Hurley learned to stand his ground.
“No, I don’t like it. It’s not right. I’ve got to stand by my values or find somebody else to do it,” he noted. “And ultimately, that’s what it came down to, between that and the complexity of having to be in the air too much, away from my family. It was the right decision at the right time.”
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