Heatter-Quigley Productions


Heatter-Quigley Productions was an American television production company that was launched in 1960 by two former television writers, Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley. After Quigley's retirement, the company became Merrill Heatter Productions.

History

On many of Heatter-Quigley's most popular game shows, beginning with Video Village, a key element of the game was enlarged, and in some instances the entire game itself was magnified to larger than life.
  • Video Village employed a huge "living board game" motif that used contestants as tokens.

In 1961, Heatter and Quigley entered into a partnership with Four Star Television to produce programming, and most of the assets were transferred to Four Star Television. The Heatter-Quigley company, which became an independent television production firm in 1965, was the year that this company had created and aired a pilot episode of Hollywood Squares thru which Bert Parks was the presentator. The show was rejected by CBS, but NBC acquired broadcasting rights to the series. In 1969, Heatter and Quigley sold the show, as well as the entire company to Filmways. In 1981, Quigley retired and ended his partnership with Merrill Heatter just before Filmways was bought by Orion Pictures. Quigley died on November 27, 1989. Heatter continued solo and produced new game shows, such as Battlestars, All-Star Blitz, Bargain Hunters, and the 1980s version of High Rollers. On September 28, 1998, Heatter leased the worldwide rights to his solo-developed game shows to King World for a limited time. That option has now expired. CBS Media Ventures currently owns the format rights to Hollywood Squares today, via CBS's acquisition of King World Productions in 2000.
MGM Television acquired the rights from Orion Television to Heatter-Quigley shows with the exception of Hollywood Squares and Wacky Races. Orion had sold those rights to King World Productions after Orion closed its television division on November 25, 1991. Today, the rest of the Heatter-Quigley library are owned by Amazon MGM Studios.
In 2008, Heatter returned to game show production with the GSN game show Catch 21, based on Gambit. Heatter is co-executive producer with another veteran producer, Scott Sternberg. Heatter died of cancer on October 8, 2017.

Employees

was the announcer on all of Heatter-Quigley's game shows except two: Temptation and The Magnificent Marble Machine ; both shows were hosted by Art James.
Many hosts would become famous for the shows they did for HQ. Peter Marshall became most famous for The Hollywood Squares, Wink Martindale would have his first big hit with Gambit, and Alex Trebek would see his first hit in America with High Rollers.

Titles by Heatter-Quigley Productions

  • Video Village/Video Village, Jr.
  • Double Exposure
  • People Will Talk
  • The Celebrity Game
  • Shenanigans
  • PDQ
  • Showdown
  • Hollywood Squares/Storybook Squares
  • Temptation
  • Funny You Should Ask
  • Wacky Races
  • Name Droppers
  • Gambit
  • Runaround ; a British version of this show aired 1975–81
  • The Amateur's Guide to Love
  • Baffle, a revival of PDQ.
  • All-Star Baffle, Baffle with "civilian" contestants playing the bonus round, picked from the studio audience.
  • High Rollers
  • The Magnificent Marble Machine
  • Hot Seat
  • To Say the Least
  • Bedtime Stories
  • ''Las Vegas Gambit''

    Titles by Merrill Heatter Productions

  • Battlestars
  • Fantasy
  • The New Battlestars
  • All-Star Blitz
  • Bargain Hunters
  • High Rollers
  • The Last Word
  • Hollywood Teasers
  • ''Catch 21''