Dating game show
Encyclopedia
Dating game shows are television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

s, some say reality game shows, that incorporate a dating system in the form of a game with clear rules. Human matchmaking
Matchmaking
Matchmaking is any process of matching two people for the purpose of marriage or a sporting contest.-Practice:In some cultures, the role of the matchmaker was and is quite professionalized...

 is involved only in selecting the game's contestants - usually for amusement value as opposed to any concern for their happiness or compatibility. The audience sees only the game - an important feature of all dating game shows is that the contestants have little or no previous knowledge of each other, and are exposed to each other only through the game, which may include viewing a photograph or at least knowing the basic criteria for participation (typically participants are not already married
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

).

Like other games, the outcomes of this activities are open to rigging (analogous to match-fixing in football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

), leading to missed matches and possibly unhappiness in the participants. These programmes have also been criticised for complicating courtship
Courtship
Courtship is the period in a couple's relationship which precedes their engagement and marriage, or establishment of an agreed relationship of a more enduring kind. In courtship, a couple get to know each other and decide if there will be an engagement or other such agreement...

 with needless public expectation (see observer-expectancy effect
Observer-expectancy effect
The observer-expectancy effect is a form of reactivity, in which a researcher's cognitive bias causes them to unconsciously influence the participants of an experiment...

). In spite of this, some programmes have produced episodes that portray follow-ups of unions forged therein, possibly with off-springs.

Popular dating game shows were an innovation of TV producer Chuck Barris
Chuck Barris
Charles Hirsch "Chuck" Barris is an American game show producer, film director and presenter best known for hosting The Gong Show and creating The Dating Game. Barris, a survivor of lung cancer, is also an author and claims to have worked for the CIA.-Early career:Barris was born in Oakland, New...

 in the 1970s. The Dating Game
The Dating Game
The Dating Game is an ABC television show that first aired on December 20, 1965 and was the first of many shows created and packaged by Chuck Barris from the 1960s through the 1980s...

, his first, put one unmarried man behind a screen to ask questions of three women who are potential mates, or one woman versus three men - thus hearing their answers and voices but not seeing them. The audience could, of course, see them all. The various suitors were able to describe their rivals in uncomplimentary ways, which made the show work well as a general devolution of dignity. Questions were often obviously rigged to get ridiculous responses, or be obvious allusions to features of the participants' privates.

The Newlywed Game
The Newlywed Game
The Newlywed Game is an American television game show that pits newly married couples against each other in a series of revealing question rounds to determine how well the spouses know each other. The program, originally created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir The Newlywed Game is an American...

, by contrast, another Barris show, had recently-married couples competing to answer questions about each others' preferences. The couple who knew each other the best would win. Sometimes others got divorced. Once, someone divorced after appearing on the Newlywed Game got a "second chance" on the Dating Game. Gimmicks were the lifeblood of all such shows. This drew criticisms for instigating disaffections that could not have been effected.

The genre waned for a while but The New Dating Game and the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 version Blind Date
Blind Date (UK TV series)
Blind Date is a British dating game show produced by London Weekend Television. An unscreened pilot was made with comic Duncan Norvelle as presenter but it was eventually hosted by Cilla Black, who already hosted the LWT series, Surprise, Surprise...

revived it, and the old shows were popular in rerun
Rerun
A rerun or repeat is a re-airing of an episode of a radio or television broadcast. The invention of the rerun is generally credited to Desi Arnaz. There are two types of reruns—those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Reruns can also be, as the...

s, unusual for any game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

. Cable TV revived some interest in the 1980s and 1990s and eventually new shows began to be made along the old lines. Gay variations began to appear on a few specialty channels.

Other shows focused on the conventional blind date, where two people were set up and then captured on video, sometimes with comments or subtitles that made fun of their dating behaviour. He Said, She Said
He Said, She Said (game show)
He Said, She Said was an American game show hosted by Joe Garagiola, with Bill Cullen occasionally filling in when Garagiola was covering baseball games...

focused not on setting up the date, but on comparing the couple's different impressions afterwards, and for their cooperation offering to fund a second date. These resembled the reality shows that began to emerge at about the same time in the 1990s.

A completely new type of dating show merged it with the reality game show and produced shows where the emphasis was on realistic actions and tensions, but which used less realistic scenarios than the traditional blind date:
  • Temptation Island, where long-standing heterosexual couples were deliberately separated and made to watch each other's mates interacting romantically on and after dates, making extensive use of video which is the only means by which they could communicate on the island.
  • The Fifth Wheel, where four people, two of one sex and two of another, are allowed to meet and bond slightly, but then a fifth wheel of one or the other sex, but always a heterosexual, enters and attempts to break up the equilibrium.
  • Who Wants to Marry A Multi-Millionaire, which actually set up a real marriage, and put women in the situation of vying to marry a millionaire bachelor. The show turned into a major embarrassment for the Fox Network, who aired the series. Soon after the couple married, the husband was found to have a domestic violence record. The woman quickly had the marriage annulled. Charges of materialism
    Economic materialism
    Materialism is a mindset that views the consumption and acquisition of material goods as positive and desirable. It is often bound up with a value system which regards social status as being intrinsically linked to affluence as well as the perception that happiness can be increased through...

     or demeaning to the woman have also been levelled.
  • Joe Millionaire
    Joe Millionaire
    Joe Millionaire is an American reality television show that was broadcast on Fox beginning in January 2003. It was broadcast in the UK that same year...

    , which did likewise, with the twist that the bachelor was reputed to be a millionaire, but wasn't, although the cash prize offered by surprise at the end eventually made the deceptive scenario a bit less abusive.
  • The Bachelor, where a single man got a chance to choose from a pool of 25 women, with eliminations over a period of several weeks; and The Bachelorette
    The Bachelorette
    The Bachelorette is a spin-off of the American competitive reality dating game show The Bachelor. In its January 2003 debut on ABC, the first season featured Trista Rehn, the runner-up date from the first season of The Bachelor, offering the opportunity for Rehn to choose a husband among 25 bachelors...

    , which reversed the gender roles from The Bachelor. In the first two seasons of The Bachelorette, the last woman eliminated from the dating pool in the previous season of The Bachelor was given the opportunity to "turn the tables".


Some common threads run through these shows. When participants are removed it is usually one at a time to drag out the action and get audience sympathy for specific players. In shows involving couples, there is a substantial incentive to break up any of the existing relationships. In shows involving singles, there is a mismatch of numbers ensuring constant competition. This is what creates the action, the tension, and the humiliation when someone is rejected. There are also reports of mercenary
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...

 practice, that is, members of one sex paid to participate in the game to attain balance of sex ratio.

The first gay version of these more realistic shows to receive mainstream attention was Boy Meets Boy, with a format similar to that of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. The show featured an unusual plot twist. Eight of the men from the show's original dating pool were actually straight men pretending to be gay; one important part of the plot was whether the gay star would be able to recognize the straights.

Some gay and straight romances have been sparked on the other reality game shows, suggesting that they too may really be "dating shows" in disguise. But any social situation has the potential to result in romance, especially work.

By the late 1980s and very early 1990s a new wave of dating shows began airing in U.S. syndication that were more sexually suggestive than their earlier counterparts, including shows such as STUDS etc. And Later more boring and tame PC(politically correct) shows started airing in the late 90s and early 2000s like Blind Date, Elimidate
ElimiDATE
elimiDATE was a television dating reality show in which one contestant chooses between four contestants of the opposite sex by eliminating them one by one in three total rounds...

and The Fifth Wheel, which was often limited in the boundaries of sexual content. As the 2000s regressed, many of these shows began to see sagging ratings and the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy
Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy
Super Bowl XXXVIII, which was broadcast live on February 1, 2004 from Houston, Texas on the CBS television network in the United States, was noted for a controversial halftime show in which Janet Jackson's breast, adorned with a nipple shield, was exposed by Justin Timberlake for about half a...

 in 2004 exacerbated the situation as the fear of monetary penalties by the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

 (FCC) for indecent content led many dating shows (and many syndicated programs targeted at the 18-49 demographic, in general) to be censored to the point where even profanities typically permissible on television were edited out of episodes.

Since then, the syndicated dating show has virtually died off from broadcast television syndication, though cable television networks such as VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...

 have continued to use dating shows with content similar to that of the dating shows of the late 1980s and early 1990s and major over-the-air broadcast networks have tried, often with marginal success, to use dating shows not as raunchy as the syndicated shows that aired earlier in the decade.

A sobering caveat of the power of television and romance in combination came when a popular dating variant of the talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....

, inviting secret admirer
Secret admirer
A secret admirer is an individual who feels adoration, fondness or love for another person without disclosing their identity to that person. The admirer may often send gifts or love letters to their crush. A secret admirer is usually benign...

s to meet on the stage, backfired on the Jenny Jones
Jenny Jones (presenter)
Jenny Jones is a former Canadian American stand-up comedian and talk show host. She hosted The Jenny Jones Show from 1991 to 2003.-Life and career:...

 show. The admirer was a homosexual
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

 friend of a heterosexual man who was so outraged that he later murdered the admirer. The secret admirer variant of the talk show has remained popular, e.g. it is still done on Oprah
The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show is an American syndicated talk show hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey. It ran nationally for 25 seasons beginning in 1986, before concluding in 2011. It is the highest-rated talk show in American television history....

, but with less emotionally loaded surprises, and much more careful checking of the guests' backgrounds and attitudes.

Examples

  • The 5th Wheel
    The 5th Wheel
    The 5th Wheel is an American dating reality series that aired in syndication from 2001 to 2004. The show was initially hosted by comedian Aisha Tyler, but when Tyler left after completing the first season, the remaining two seasons were hosted in narration by announcer Tom Gottlieb.The series'...

  • 12 Corazones
    12 Corazones
    12 Corazones is a Spanish-language dating game show produced in the United States for the television network Telemundo since 2004, based on its namesake Argentine TV show format The show is filmed in Los Angeles and revolves around the twelve Zodiac signs that identify each contestant...

  • Average Joe
    Average Joe (TV series)
    Average Joe is an American reality television show broadcast on the NBC beginning in 2003. There were a total of four seasons, the first two following the original show premise, and the last two bringing back contestants from prior seasons.-Show Premise:...

  • Baggage
    Baggage (game show)
    Baggage is an American dating game show, hosted by Jerry Springer. It premiered on April 19, 2010 on GSN. A syndication test run was shown on a select group of Sinclair Broadcast Group's stations January 10, 2011 and premiered in Australia on April 11, 2011 on the subscription television channel...

  • The Bachelor
  • The Bachelorette
    The Bachelorette
    The Bachelorette is a spin-off of the American competitive reality dating game show The Bachelor. In its January 2003 debut on ABC, the first season featured Trista Rehn, the runner-up date from the first season of The Bachelor, offering the opportunity for Rehn to choose a husband among 25 bachelors...

  • Blind Date (UK)
  • Blind Date (U.S.)
    Blind Date (US TV series)
    Blind Date is an American reality show that aired in syndication from September 1999 to September 2006. Hosted by Roger Lodge, the series was distributed by Universal Worldwide Television. It was later distributed by NBC Universal.-Synopsis:...

  • Boy Meets Boy
    Boy Meets Boy (TV series)
    Boy Meets Boy is an American reality television show in which a gay man meets and chooses a mate from a group of 15 potential male suitors. The show was made more novel by the fact that the "leading man" did not know that the mix of suitors included both gay and straight men.The show premiered July...

  • Bzzz!
    Bzzz!
    Bzzz! is a relationship game show that first aired in limited syndication from January 22 to March 8, 1996. Following this trial run, it later expanded to full national syndication, airing from September 9, 1996 to September 5, 1997, with reruns continuing on some stations until 2001...

  • Change of Heart
    Change of Heart (TV series)
    Change of Heart was a dating game show that was hosted by Chris Jagger and Lynne Koplitz and syndicated by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. During the 2001-2002 season, Phil Kollin would also serve as a fill-in host during some episodes...

  • Daisy of Love
    Daisy of Love
    thumb|right|Daisy de la Hoya attending the premiere of VH1's "Daisy of Love" at My House, Hollywood, CA on April 26, 2009Daisy of Love is a reality television dating show which stars Daisy de la Hoya, the runner-up of the VH1 reality dating show Rock of Love 2...

  • Date My Mom
    Date My Mom
    Date My Mom is a television dating show airing on the music channel MTV and produced by Kalissa Productions. The series premiered on November 15, 2004. An 18- to 24-year-old male, or gay male/lesbian female, goes on three separate dates with three moms, who try to convince them to pick their son or...

  • Dating Game
  • A Double Shot at Love
    A Double Shot at Love
    A Double Shot at Love is an American reality television dating game show which first aired weekly on MTV from December 9, 2008 to February 3, 2009. It is a spin-off of A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila...

  • Dismissed
    Dismissed (TV series)
    Dismissed is a reality television show on MTV that premiered in 2001. One person simultaneously takes two others on a date. Each of the daters chooses a place to go , and the person running the date dismisses the person he/she likes the least. Each of the competing daters also has a time-out card...

  • Elimidate
    ElimiDATE
    elimiDATE was a television dating reality show in which one contestant chooses between four contestants of the opposite sex by eliminating them one by one in three total rounds...

  • EX-treme Dating
    EX-treme Dating
    EX-treme Dating is a reality television show that paired two people on a blind date. The couple was chaperoned on the date by two of the person's ex-partners. They talked to the other person via an earpiece, feeding hints for conversation topics and comments on the date itself. At the end of the...

  • Flavor of Love
    Flavor of Love
    Flavor of Love is an American reality television dating game show parody starring Flavor Flav of the rap group Public Enemy.While not a direct spin-off, the show was a result of Brigitte Nielsen and Flavor Flav's failed relationship on Strange Love, as well as The Surreal Life...

  • For Love or Money (TV series)
    For Love or Money (TV series)
    For Love or Money is an American reality television show initially broadcast as summer programming on NBC in 2003 and 2004. Four seasons of the program were shown in linked pairs, and all seasons were hosted by Jordan Murphy. It was produced by Nash Entertainment with Bruce Nash and J. D...

  • He Said, She Said
    He Said, She Said (game show)
    He Said, She Said was an American game show hosted by Joe Garagiola, with Bill Cullen occasionally filling in when Garagiola was covering baseball games...

  • I Love New York
    I Love New York (TV series)
    I Love New York is a reality television series, which first aired on VH1. It features Tiffany Pollard in a quest to find her true love. The series is a spin off of another relationship competition series, Flavor of Love, which featured Pollard as a finalist in two consecutive seasons...

  • Joe Millionaire
    Joe Millionaire
    Joe Millionaire is an American reality television show that was broadcast on Fox beginning in January 2003. It was broadcast in the UK that same year...

  • Love Connection
    Love Connection
    Love Connection is an American television game show, hosted by Chuck Woolery, in which singles attempted to connect with a compatible partner of the opposite gender. The show debuted in syndication on September 19, 1983 and ended on July 1, 1994, after more than 2,000 shows. Reruns continued to air...

  • Love Games: Bad Girls Need Love Too
    Love Games: Bad Girls Need Love Too
    Love Games: Bad Girls Need Love Too is an American reality television dating game show that premiered on the Oxygen Network on . It is the second spin-off of Oxygen's The Bad Girls Club, the first being Bad Girls Road Trip. Three "bad girls" from previous seasons of the The Bad Girls Club are...

  • Love on a Saturday Night
    Love on a Saturday Night
    Love on A Saturday Night was a London Weekend Television produced game show that aired on ITV between 7 February and 22 May 2004. It was a replacement show for Blind Date, and lasted only one and a half series before being axed.-The main game:...

  • Momma's Boys
    Momma's Boys
    Momma's Boys is an American reality television series on the NBC network, executive produced by Ryan Seacrest and Andrew Glassman , which centers on a group of mothers who must help choose the perfect woman for their complacent sons...

  • Perfect Match
    Perfect Match (Australian game show)
    Perfect Match is an Australian dating game show based on the format of The Dating Game. Perfect Match was produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation.It originally aired on Network Ten for 30 minutes most weekdays from 5:30pm between 1984 and 1989...

  • New Dating Game
  • Next
    Next (TV series)
    Next is a dating game show produced by Kallissa Productions which ran on MTV from 2005-2008.-Format:"Next", deals with a single person, going on blind dates with possibly 5 other single people who were secluded on a RV, referred to as the "Next Bus". The added twist was that the date could end at...

  • Paradise Hotel
    Paradise Hotel
    The first season of Paradise Hotel aired on Fox from June 18, 2003 to October 1, 2003 with thirty episodes and was hosted by Amanda Byram. A similar show called Forever Eden was produced the following year...

  • Real Chance of Love
    Real Chance of Love
    Real Chance of Love is an American reality television dating game show featuring two brothers Ahmad Givens and Kamal Givens , of the rap group The Stallionares, and former contestants on I Love New York, who are looking for love....

  • Rendez-View
  • Rock of Love with Bret Michaels
    Rock of Love with Bret Michaels
    Rock of Love with Bret Michaels is an American reality television dating game show. It stars Bret Michaels, the lead singer from the band Poison. The show closely resembles its sister show Flavor of Love. The first season featured 25 women competing to be Michaels' girlfriend. Each week, the women...

  • A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila
    A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila
    A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila is an American reality television dating game show similar to the TV show The Bachelor. It premiered on October 9, 2007 on MTV starring Tila Tequila. The series is a bisexual-themed reality dating show where 16 straight males and 16 lesbian-identified female...

  • Singled Out
    Singled Out
    Singled Out was a game show that ran on MTV from 1995-1998. Each episode featured a group of 50 men and a group of 50 women competing for a date with one main contestant of the opposite sex.The original hosts were Chris Hardwick and Jenny McCarthy...

  • Studs
    Studs (game show)
    Studs is an American television game show which was produced by Fox Television Studios. Hosted by Mark DeCarlo, it ran in syndication from March 11, 1991 to September 3, 1993.-Synopsis:...

  • Taken Out
    Taken Out
    Taken Out is an Australian television dating game show that was originally broadcast on Network Ten between 1 September 2008 and 26 February 2009. The show was hosted by James Kerley, a Foxtel television presenter who has hosted such shows as Cash Cab and The Dave & Kerley Show.The format was...

  • Temptation Island
  • That's Amore! (TV series)
    That's Amore! (TV series)
    That's Amore! is a reality television show that aired on MTV in early 2008. It is a spin-off of MTV's A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. The show stars Domenico Nesci, a 5-foot-3-inch Italian who had been a contestant on A Shot at Love. One of the other contestants from the previous show, Ashley...

  • Who Wants to Marry A Multi-Millionaire
  • The Match Off
    The Match Off
    The Match Off is a national television series produced by . Hosted by Maria Sansone, the reality show airs on NBC after Saturday Night Live. The premise of the series is to have two professional matchmakers compete against each other to find the best date for a featured single person in each episode...

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