TV on DVD: All-Star Family Feud

One of the DVDs in my collection is All-Star Family Feud. This four disc set includes soap opera performers as contestants with Richard Dawson as the host.

Since this blog is primarily about soap operas, I am going to only mention the episodes that had soap performers. If someone is a fan of the sitcom and soap opera parody Soap, this may be of interest. The cast of that show appeared on three of the four discs. Cast members on these disc included: Robert Mandan, Jennifer Salt, Jimmy Baio, Donnelly Rhodes, Arthur Peterson, Sal Viscuso, Dinah Manoff, Diana Canova and Jay Johnson. There are other soap alumni on this set like Caroline McWilliams who was on Guiding Light in the 70s, but was a regular cast member on Benson.

The first disc has seven episodes: six regular style episodes and one special that had three games within one hour from 1979, 1983, and 1984. The last episode included five cast members from the television show Soap. Of course, since some actors from classic television have appeared in daytime. On this set from The Brady Bunch team were Maureen McCormick and Christopher Knight who appeared on Passions and Another World respectively.

The second disc has five regular episodes and three hour-long affairs from 1979, 1982 and 1985. The Hollywood Walk of Fame episodes included Gloria DeHaven and Rory Calhoun, who were in soaps at that time. Gloria was on Ryan's Hope, while Rory was on Capitol. The Heroes versus Villains special includes both Susan Lucci and Joan Collins on the Villain team due to their bad characters on All My Children and Dynasty. One of the specials from 1979 includes the cast of Dallas (Larry Hagman, Linda Gray, Steve Kanaly, Charlene Tilton and Victoria Principal.)

Disc three has four hour-long specials spanning the years of 1979-1981. The first special from 1980 has Soap, All My Children (Ruth Warrick, Susan Lucci, Taylor Miller, Peter Bergman and Louis Edmond), Eight is Enough and General Hospital (John Beradino, Jackie Zeman, Tony Geary, Genie Francis, and Richard Dean Anderson) teams. The second from 1981 has a Dallas team (Ken Kercheval, Meg Gallagher, Steve Canaly, Susan Howard and Jeff Cooper). The fourth from 1979 also has a group of actors from Soap.

Disc four has three hour-long specials and one regular episode from the years 1978 and 1983. The 1983 special had random people including people who appeared on soaps like Heather Locklear, Phyllis Diller, Steven Ford, Richard Simmons and Lorenzo Lamas.

If someone is into classic television and is able to find this set they should try to purchase it. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the episodes appear online. As I grew up watching way too much television including reruns, I'm familiar with most of the people even if they never appeared in soap operas. These days it is nearly impossible for really popular television stars to go on a game show, but back then it seemed to happen more regularly. I appreciate being able to see the silly side of different performers and how they interact with other cast members, while winning money for charity.