Hollywood Squares is an American game show in which two contestants compete in a game of tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The show piloted on NBC in 1965, and the regular series debuted in 1966 on the same network. The board for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants. The stars are asked questions by the host, and the contestants judge the truth of their answers to gain squares in the right pattern to win the game.

After the success of his 2 sitcoms, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The New Dick Van Dyke Show, comedian Dick Van Dyke, just like many others, decided to try his hand at a variety show. Titled Van Dyke and Company, it premiered in September 1976. It featured Dick Van Dyke standing in front of several doors, one of which a guest star would come out of. The show was best known for Dick's pantomime acting and a recurring skit about the dumbest family in the world, coincidently named "The Bright Family". Van Dyke & Co also featured appearances by the Los Angeles Mime Company. However, the show, like many other variety shows at the time, was cancelled rather quickly. Dick Van Dyke would later create a new sitcom, The Van Dyke Show.

Cher is an American variety show that premiered on CBS in 1975, hosted by singer-actress Cher. The show had many famous musical guests. It followed a TV special featuring Elton John, Bette Midler, and Flip Wilson as guests. Cher premiered at 7:30pm on Sunday, February 16, 1975, and finished the season ranked first among variety shows and twenty-second among all programs, with a 21.3 average household share, also receiving the most fan mail of any CBS program at the time. The first season aired Sundays at 7:30 and the second aired at 8:00.

Chico and the Man is an American sitcom television series that aired on NBC for four seasons from September 13, 1974 to July 21, 1978. It stars Jack Albertson as Ed Brown (the Man), the cantankerous owner of a run-down garage in an East Los Angeles barrio, and Freddie Prinze (until Prinze's suicide in the third season) as Chico Rodriguez, an upbeat, optimistic young Chicano who comes in looking for a job. It was the first U.S. television series set in a Mexican-American neighborhood.

The Midnight Special was an American late-night musical variety series originally broadcast on NBC during the 1970s and early 1980s, created and produced by Burt Sugarman. It premiered as a special on August 19, 1972, then began its run as a regular series on February 2, 1973; its last episode was on May 1, 1981. The 90-minute program followed the Friday night edition of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

The Mike Douglas Show was an American daytime television talk show that was hosted by Mike Douglas. Initially, it aired only in Cleveland during much of its first two years, followed by expansion to Philadelphia and nationwide. It went into syndication in 1963 and remained on television until 1981. It was distributed by Westinghouse Broadcasting, and for much of its run, originated from studios of two of the company's TV stations in Cleveland and Philadelphia.