After a decade of panel shows, quiz shows and games with increasingly complicated rules, this show's 1963 debut was a modernist revolution: no questions to answer, no rules to learn, just American greed running rampant. And Hall, who was also the show's producer, was the excitable ringmaster, wandering through an audience made up of people dressed as bowls of fruit and offering them trades and deals in a free-form frenzy. You were never sure what was in the box, but Monty was always Door No. 1.
By Richard Zoglin