The MG/HS Hour was a television first: the combination of two classic game shows into a single, one-hour package. Gene hosted MG, while Bauman hosted Squares; the two also served as panelists for each other's portion, sitting in the lower left.

With Bauman and five celebrities on hand, Gene played three rounds of '70s-style MG with two new contestants. As in the '70s version, players attempted to match each star only once. After three rounds or a tie-breaker, the winner advanced to play the defending champion in Hollywood Squares, with Bauman as host. An additional tier of the panel swung in from offstage, and three more celebrities came out in the meantime.

As during its 1966-82 run, the object of HS was to win tic-tac-toe. Players won their Xs and Os by agreeing or disagreeing with a celebrity's response to a question from Bauman. In this version, players received $25 for each star captured and a bonus for completing a tic-tac-toe, starting at $100 and increasing by $100 each game until time expired.

The player with the most money at the end of the game became champion and joined Gene to play the Super Match. The Audience Match responses in this version were worth $1000, $500, and $250, with the player receiving $100 if their answer did not appear.

The player then chose a celebrity to play the Head-to-Head match with, and that celebrity then revealed the lucky number in front of them: Head-to-Head Match was worth that amount multiplied by the player's Audience Match prize. Four stars had "10"s, four had "20"s, and one had the ever-elusive "30", making the top possible prize $30,000.

The MG/HS Hour was a joint venture of Mark Goodson Productions and Orion Television. The rights to Squares are now owned by King World, so reruns likely won't be airing in the foreseeable future.