Mark Goodson


Mark Leo Goodson was an American television producer who specialized in game shows, most frequently with his business partner Bill Todman, with whom he created Goodson-Todman Productions.

Early life and early career

Goodson was born in Sacramento, California, on January 14, 1915. His Jewish parents, Abraham Ellis and Fannie Goodson, emigrated from Russia in the early 1900s. As a child, Goodson acted in amateur theater with the Plaza Stock Company. The family later moved to Hayward, California. Originally intending to become a lawyer, Goodson attended the University of California, Berkeley. He financed his education through scholarships and by working at the Lincoln Fish Market. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1937 with a degree in economics.
That year, he began his broadcasting career in San Francisco, working as a disc jockey at radio station KJBS. In 1939, he joined radio station KFRC, where he produced and hosted a radio quiz called Pop the Question in which contestants selected questions by throwing darts at multicolored balloons.

Television production

Goodson and long-time partner Bill Todman produced some of the longest-running game shows in American television history, and their names were well known at least to the large audiences for these shows. Their first television show, Winner Take All, debuted on CBS television on July 1, 1948. The long list of Goodson-Todman productions includes The Price Is Right, Family Feud, Classic Concentration, Match Game, Password, Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth, I've Got a Secret, What's My Line?, Card Sharks, and Tattletales. Goodson-Todman Productions/Mark Goodson Productions created content for American channels and other international channels.. such as CBS, NBC, and ABC in the US, BBC1, ITV, Channel 4, and Sky One,. It licensed many of its shows to the Reg Grundy Organisation to be adapted in Australia and Europe.
Goodson and Todman's shows endured through the decades, many over multiple runs, because of Goodson's sharp eye for production and presentation, and their strict insistence on maintaining clean, honest contests, thus allowing their shows to survive the quiz-show scandals of the late 1950s. After those scandals wiped out most of their competition, much of the newer game-show output of the 1960s and 1970s came from either Goodson-Todman or companies launched by their former employees: Merv Griffin, Bob Stewart, Monty Hall, and later Jay Wolpert. Goodson-Todman was involved with Jack Barry's comeback vehicle The Joker's Wild for its 1969 pilot, but ended involvement with the show before it debuted in 1972.
While Todman oversaw the company's lucrative businesses outside of television, Goodson handled the creative aspects of producing game shows. The people who worked for the company and created most of the Goodson-Todman shows were pivotal to the success of those shows. Goodson-Todman executives Bob Stewart, Bob Bach, Gil Fates, Ira Skutch, Frank Wayne, Chester Feldman, Paul Alter, Howard Felsher, Ted Cooper, Mimi O'Brien, Jay Wolpert, and others were instrumental in making the shows successful.
The company proved itself to be masterful at games, but was not as successful when it tried other fields of television programs, including the anthology dramas The Web and The Richard Boone Show, a talk-variety show for famed insult comic Don Rickles – and what was possibly the company's biggest failure, a sitcom titled One Happy Family. Goodson-Todman Productions was also involved with three Westerns: Jefferson Drum, starring Jeff Richards as a newspaper editor in the Old West; The Rebel, starring Nick Adams as a former Confederate soldier who traveled to the West after the American Civil War ; and Branded, starring Chuck Connors as a soldier who had wrongly been given a dishonorable discharge from the Army.
For many years, the company was headquartered in the Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue in New York City. Most of the company's production moved to Hollywood in the early 1970s, starting with the ABC revival of Password in 1971. The Los Angeles offices were based at 6430 Sunset Boulevard, moving to 5750 Wilshire Boulevard. The company's last New York-based show was the 1980 version of To Tell the Truth, but the New York office remained open and was used for East Coast Child's Play auditions.
A few years after Bill Todman's death in 1979, Goodson acquired the Todman heirs' share of the company, and in 1982, the company was renamed Mark Goodson Productions. Traditionally, shows signed off with: "This is speaking for, A Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Production/A Mark Goodson Television Production." After Goodson's death, to pay off a massive inheritance tax, Goodson's family sold the rights to All-American Television, which was subsequently taken over by Pearson PLC, and, in turn, was acquired by RTL Group, to form Fremantle, which now owns the rights to the library from Mark Goodson Productions. The Mark Goodson Productions name, logo, and announcement continued to be used for some shows until 2007, when Bob Barker's last show of The Price Is Right aired. Afterward, at the close of each episode of The Price Is Right, the announcer credits the show as "a FremantleMedia Production" until 2018; it is now credited simply as "a Fremantle Production", reflecting the name change of the company. However, for decades week kicking off season 44 in 2015 the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions announcement was brought back for the throwback 1970s episode and Mark Goodson Productions announcement was brought back for the 1980s and 1990s episodes albeit the Fremantlemedia logo in place.
Copyrights to many of the Goodson-Todman's game shows were assigned to its specially formed companies, named in The Company scheme, such as The Family Company, The Password Company etc. They are currently in-name-only units of Fremantle North America.
In 1990, Goodson received the Emmy Award "Lifetime Achievement Award for Daytime Television", which was presented to him by Betty White. Two years later, in 1992, Goodson earned induction into the Television Hall of Fame.

Foreign versions

Many Goodson-Todman games were produced internationally, some under different titles, and were distributed by Reg Grundy Productions. Family Feud was known in the United Kingdom as Family Fortunes, and Card Sharks went under the title Play Your Cards Right. In Germany, Match Game was known as Schnickschnack. In the United Kingdom, it was known as Blankety Blank, while in Australia, it was known as Blankety Blanks.

Shows

Of the numerous shows Goodson produced in his lifetime, four are currently on the air: The Price Is Right, which has run continuously since 1972; Family Feud, which ran in two different iterations during 1976–1985 and 1988–1995, and was revived in its current form in 1999; Password, which was revived in 2022 after a lengthy stint off the air; and Match Game, which returned in 2025. All revivals since 1994 have been produced by successor companies.

Mark Goodson–Bill Todman Productions (1948–1982)

  • All-Star Family Feud Special
  • About Last Night produced by Sweet July Productions and Unanimous Media
  • Beat the Clock
  • The Better Sex
  • Blade Rider, Revenge of the Indian Nations
  • Blockbusters ; UK version produced from 1983 to 1995
  • Branded
  • Broken Sabre
  • By Popular Demand
  • Call My Bluff
  • Card Sharks copyrighted as Suzanne Productions, and The Card Sharks Company.
  • Celebrity Family Feud
  • Choose Up Sides
  • Concentration and Classic Concentration copyrighted as G-T Enterprises and The Concentration Company
  • The Don Rickles Show
  • Double Dare
  • Family Feud copyrighted by The Family Company, The New Family Company, Feudin' Productions, and Wanderlust Productions
  • Get the Message
  • Goodyear Theatre
  • He Said, She Said
  • It's News to Me
  • I've Got a Secret produced by Oxygen Media LLC in the 2000–01 version and Burt DuBrow Productions in association with Get Real Entertainment in the 2006 version
  • Jefferson Drum
  • Judge for Yourself
  • Las Vegas Beat
  • Make the Connection
  • Match Game copyrighted as Sojourn Productions, Celebrity Productions, The Match Game Company, and others.
  • Million Dollar Password
  • Mindreaders
  • Missing Links
  • The Name's the Same
  • Now You See It copyrighted as Suzanne Productions and The Now You See It Company
  • Number Please
  • One Happy Family
  • Password copyrighted as Peak Productions.
  • Password Plus and Super Password copyrighted as The Password Company and The Super Password Company.
  • Philip Marlowe
  • Play Your Hunch
  • The Price Is Right copyrighted as Marbil Productions, Price Productions and The Price Is Right Productions.
  • The Rebel
  • The Richard Boone Show
  • Ride Beyond Vengeance
  • Say When!!
  • Showoffs
  • Snap Judgment
  • Split Personality
  • Stop the Music produced in association with Louis Cowan Productions
  • Tattletales copyrighted as Panel Productions and The Tattletales Company.
  • That's My Line
  • To Tell the Truth
  • Two for the Money
  • What's Going On?
  • What's My Line?
  • What's My Line? at 25
  • The Web
  • The Web
  • ''Winner Take All''

    Mark Goodson Productions (1982–1996)

  • Body Language
  • Bonus Bonanza
  • Child's Play
  • Classic Concentration copyrighted as The Concentration Company, a subsidiary of NBC.
  • Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
  • Flamingo Fortune
  • TV's Funniest Game Show Moments
  • TV's Funniest Game Show Moments #2
  • Illinois Instant Riches
  • The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour
  • ''Trivia Trap''