I don’t think anyone would go out of their way to debate the idea that the majority of Family Feud’s modern-era episodes are fueled by suggestive questions primed to inspire occasionally perverse answers from its wide assortment of contestants. Others’ mileage will vary, but what makes the show continue to work for me is that the contestant pool hasn’t evolved much in any obvious capacity, and it never gets old watching normal, everyday people saying goofy shit on TV. And it also never gets old seeing how over-the-top Steve Harvey’s reactions can get, especially when he’s inspired to show off his most impressive rooster-crowing skills.
Okay, so it’s not every day you get a taste of what Harvey waking up the entire farm would be like. But that’s how things went down on a recent episode, when a member of the Badillo family mixed her words up mere seconds after the Family Feud host joked about language differences playing into previous episodes. And while Maria’s intended answer was hilariously benign in its own right, her misspeak was an instant classic that may or may not have been a Freudian slip. Or should we call it a Harvey-ian slip on this show?
Check out the episode clip below, with Maria’s portion starting at the 41-second mark.
For those who were unable to watch, here's how the mix-up played out ahead of Harvey's bird call.
- Steve Harvey: Now, Miss Maria, we've been together. This is the fifth game, so I know, because of our difference in language, I have to do this slow for Miss Maria. We asked 100 men: if you built a love shack, what would you be sure to have in it?
- Maria: A big chicken. [Small pause.] Kitchen. I'm sorry. Kitchen! [Laughs.]
At so many other points in life, mixing up the words "chicken" and "kitchen" would be innocuous and easy to bypass without drawing attention to it, but when it happens in front of Steve Harvey, and the mistake's implication has slightly phallic connections that can be made... Well, it's a recipe for silliness, I'll just say that.
Because after his rooster impression, which was captioned on YouTube (and YouTubeTV) as "imitating cock crowing," Harvey then not-so-subtly dropped in a little more innuendo before seeing that, unsurprisingly, none of the men who were surveyed voiced their need for a big kitchen in their hypothetical love shacks. In the host's loudly spoken words:
A big cock-a-doodle-doo.
Obviously, other answers that were given, and some that were only revealed at the end of the round, fell far more on the purposefully filthy side of things. I do wonder if Maria meant her answer as like, "a kitchen to have sex in," but then when she said "chicken," she just naturally stopped before saying "a chicken to have sex in," because that would have been weird.
Check out all the answers below.
I'm kind of surprised the #1 answer wasn't "a side room that makes one's penis get bigger just by standing there for a few seconds, and also makes one rich and a better father that can cook and stuff." But I can see how there might not be enough space for that on the board. Maybe that's what Maria's kitchen would have been...
For those who may wonder what Steve Harvey's sex moves would be if he had a love shack of his own, he's brought those to the Family Feud stage before as well. And for those in need of a game show moment that's entirely free from double entendres and the like, the host's emotional reunion with an old friend who happened to be in the audience is a nice reprieve.
Family Feud airs weekdays in syndication, with reruns airing all the time in various places, so there's a good chance an episode will be on somewhere right after you finish reading this.
