Merrill Gabriel Heatter (December 16, 1925 – October 8, 2017) was an American television producer and writer. He was best known for his collaboration with writer Bob Quigley for over 20 years and the formation of their production company Heatter-Quigley Productions in 1960. The company was responsible for the game shows Hollywood Squares and Gambit and the animated television series Wacky Races.
He also formed Merrill Heatter Productions in 1980, which is responsible for the Gambit-based show Catch 21.
Early life
Heatter was born in New York City, the son of Frances and Edward Heatter. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Austria. Heatter was the nephew of journalist Gabriel Heatter and the cousin of cook Maida Heatter.
Career
Beginnings
Heatter's career began in the late 1940s when, on July 7, 1947, CBS Radio and writer Goodman Ace launched the historical educational program You Are There. The format of the series was to present important events from history to the viewer as if the viewer were listening to an actual news broadcast. The series aired its last radio broadcast on March 19, 1950.
On February 1, 1953, the series made a transition to CBS television. The series starred Walter Cronkite of CBS News with several field reporters including radio announcing veterans Dick Joy and Harlow Wilcox. Heatter was one of the head writers of the series. The series' last telecast was on October 13, 1957.
Heatter-Quigley Productions
Background
In 1960, Heatter met Bob Quigley. Quigley was a former writer for comedian and pianist Victor Borge. Shortly after the two met, they decided to form Heatter-Quigley Productions specifically to produce game shows.
Quiz show scandals and early game shows
The first game show the two created was entitled Video Village. The series premiered on CBS on July 1, 1960. Video Village was one of the first new game shows produced after the infamous quiz show scandals. The quiz show scandals were a series of revelations that contestants of several popular television quiz shows were secretly given assistance by the show's producers to arrange the outcome of a supposedly fair competition which took place between 1956 and 1958.
The scandals first arose in 1956. That year, the Jack Barry-hosted game show Twenty One featured a contestant, Herb Stempel, coached by producer Dan Enright to allow his opponent to win the game. The matter was brought into focus in 1958 when Enright was revealed to have rigged the show; this revelation caused networks to cancel their entire lineups of quiz shows.
The quiz shows scandals came to an end in 1958 after three popular game shows were cancelled. Those game shows were Twenty One on October 16, The $64,000 Question on November 2 and Dotto on August 15. They were the most publicized of all the shows involved in the scandals.
Heatter and Quigley took the chance and aired Video Village with Jack Narz as the original host (Narz also served as the host of Dotto during the scandals). Narz was replaced by future Let's Make a Deal host Monty Hall in September 1960. The series was well known for its gigantic life-sized game board which was the set of the show. The series ended its run in 1962.
Heatter and Quigley created and produced several unsuccessful game shows before their breakthrough hit Hollywood Squares premiered. Some of those shows included People Will Talk, which ran for six months on NBC in 1963, Shenanigans, which ran on ABC for one season, and PDQ, which ran in syndication for three seasons.
Hollywood Squares
Sometime after the premiere of Shenanigans, Heatter and Quigley decided to create a panel game show. The game show, which would be called Hollywood Squares, was a televised quiz show version of tic-tac-toe.
A pilot episode of the series was taped at CBS Television City and aired on April 21, 1965. The pilot featured Bert Parks of Break the Bank fame as the host. The pilot also featured future HS regulars Rose Marie and Charley Weaver with Jim Backus in the center square.
Shortly after the taping of the pilot episode, NBC acquired the rights to the game show and after some reworking of the CBS pilot, NBC taped a second pilot episode of the game show, with Peter Marshall as the host and aired it on October 17, 1966. The Marshall-hosted pilot became the official first episode of the game show. NBC aired Hollywood Squares''' final episode on June 20, 1980. The series continued to air in syndication until September 11, 1981.