Match Game
Encyclopedia
Match Game is an American television game show in which contestants attempted to match celebrities' answers to fill-in-the-blank questions. Gene Rayburn
is the host most commonly associated with the show.
The most famous versions of the 1970s and 1980s, starting with Match Game '73, are remembered for their bawdy and sometimes rowdy humor involving contestants trying to match six celebrities. The series has been franchised around the world, often under the name Blankety Blank(s).
, bore little resemblance to its more famous descendant. Taped December 5, 1962 with Gene Rayburn
as host, Peggy Cass
and Peter Lind Hayes
each headed a team of two non-celebrities who attempted to match answers to simple questions. All six contestants wrote down their answers to a question. If two team members matched answers the team earned 10 points, and if all three team members matched, the team earned 20 points. The first team to score at least 50 points won the game and received $100. The winning team moved on to a bonus round, attempting to guess the answer to a recent audience survey. Each correct match was worth $25 for a possible top prize of $300. The series premiered on December 31 with Arlene Francis
and Skitch Henderson
. The show was taped in Studio 8G at 30 Rockefeller Plaza
in New York City, which was later used for The Phil Donahue Show
and The Rosie O'Donnell Show
and now houses NBC Sports
.
A team scored 25 points if two teammates matched answers, or 50 points if all three players matched. The first team to score 100 points won $100 and played the Audience Match, which featured three survey questions. Each player who agreed with the most popular answer to a question earned the team $50, for a possible total of $450.
The questions used in the game were commonplace: "Name a kind of muffin" or "John loves his _____." In 1963, NBC canceled the series with six weeks left to be recorded. Question writer Dick DeBartolo
came up with a funnier set of questions, like "Mary liked to pour gravy on John's _____," and submitted it to Mark Goodson. With the knowledge that the show couldn't be canceled again, Goodson gave the go-ahead for the more risque-sounding questionsa decision that caused a significant boost in ratings and an "un-cancellation" by NBC.
The Match Game consistently won its time slot from 1963–1966 and again from April 1967-July 1968, with its ratings allowing it to finish third among all network daytime games for the 1963–1964 and 1967–1968 seasons (in the latter, the top two games were NBC's own, both of which would also enjoy long runs and multiple revivals: Jeopardy!
and Hollywood Squares
). Although the series still did well in the ratings (despite the popularity of ABC's horror-themed soap opera Dark Shadows
,) it was canceled in 1969 along with other games in a major daytime programming overhaul, being replaced by Letters to Laugh-In
which, although a spin-off of the popular prime time series Laugh-In, ended in just three months on December 26.
The Match Game continued through September 26, 1969 on NBC
for 1,760 episodes, airing at 4:00 p.m. Eastern (3:00 Central), running 25 minutes due to a five-minute newscast. Since announcer Johnny Olson
split time between New York and Miami
to announce The Jackie Gleason Show
, one of the network's New York staff announcers (such as Don Pardo
or Wayne Howell
) would fill in for Olson when he could not attend a broadcast.
On March 27, 1967 the show added a "Telephone Match" game, in which a home viewer and a studio audience member attempted to match a simple fill-in-the-blank question similar to the 70s' "Head-To-Head Match." A successful match won a jackpot which started at $500 and increased by $100 per day until won.
Very few episodes of the 1960s The Match Game survive (see "Episode Status" section below).
and Bill Todman
resurrected the show as Match Game '73 for CBS
, with Rayburn returning as host and Olson returning as announcer. The year in the title was updated on the New Year's Eve broadcast for the next six years. The gameplay for this version had two solo contestants attempting to match the answers given by a six-celebrity panel. Richard Dawson was the first regular panelist. Due to CBS News coverage of the Watergate
hearings, the network delayed the premiere one week from its slated date of June 25 to July 2.
The first week's panelists, in seating order (top left to top right, then bottom left to bottom right), were Michael Landon
, Vicki Lawrence
, Jack Klugman
, Jo Ann Pflug
, Richard Dawson, and Anita Gillette
. Rayburn reassured viewers of the first CBS show that "This is your old favorite, updated with more action, more money and as you can see, more celebrities." Dawson would maintain his bottom center seat for his duration on the show.
The first few weeks of the show were somewhat different from the rest of the run. At first, many of the questions fit into the more bland and innocuous mold of the earlier seasons of the original series. In addition, many of the frequent panelists on the early episodes were not regulars later in the series, including Klugman, Arlene Francis
, Bert Convy
and Steve Allen
, who was host of The Tonight Show
when Rayburn served as announcer. (Convy would later be chosen as host of the show's 1990 revival before being diagnosed with a brain tumor which eventually took his life.)
However, with the double entendre
in the question "Johnny always put butter on his _____" marked a turning point in the questions on the show. Soon, the tone of Rayburn's questions changed notably, leaving behind the staid topics that The Match Game had first disposed of in 1963 for more risqué humor.
Famous celebrity panelists Brett Somers
(Klugman's wife) and Charles Nelson Reilly
began as guest panelists on the program, with Somers brought in at the request of Klugman. Klugman and Somers were married at the time, and he felt she would make a nice fit on the program. The chemistry between Somers and Reilly prompted Goodson-Todman and CBS to hire them as regular panelists; Somers, who occupied the top center seat, remained on the show until 1982, while Reilly (top right) continued appearing through the 1983–1984 and 1990–1991 revivals, with a brief break from 1974–1975 when Gary Burghoff, Nipsey Russell
, and the equally flamboyant Rip Taylor
substituted for him. Reilly was late for the taping of two episodes; Goodson filled in for him for the first few minutes of one, and announcer Johnny Olson
did the same on the other.
Celebrity panelists usually appeared in weeklong blocks, due to the show's production schedule. A number of celebrities, including Betty White
, Dick Martin
, Marcia Wallace
, Bill Daily
and Fannie Flagg
, were semi-regulars, usually appearing in several weeklong blocks throughout the year.
The main game was played in two rounds (three on Match Game PM after the first season). The opponent was given a choice of two statements labeled either "A" or "B." Rayburn read the statement and the six celebrities wrote their answers on index cards. After they finished, the contestant verbally gave an answer. Rayburn then asked each celebrity, one at a time beginning in the upper left hand corner of the panel, to respond.
While early questions were similar to the NBC version (e.g., "Every morning, John puts _________ on his cereal"), the questions quickly became more humorous. Comedy writer Dick DeBartolo
, who had participated in the 1960s Match Game, contributed broader and saucier questions. Frequently, the statements were written with bawdy, double entendre
answers in mind. A classic example: "Did you catch a glimpse of that girl on the corner? She has the world's biggest _________."
Frequently, the audience responded appropriately as Rayburn critiqued the contestant's answer (for the "world's biggest" question, Rayburn might show disdain to an answer such as "fingers" or "bag" and compliment an answer such as "rear end" or "boobs," often also commenting on the audience's approving or disapproving response). The audience usually groaned or booed when a contestant gave a bad answer, whereas they cheered and applauded in approval of a good answer.
The contestant earned one point for each celebrity who wrote down the same answer (or reasonably similar as determined by the judges; for example, "rear end" matched "bottom" or a similar euphemism) up to a maximum of six points for matching everyone. After one contestant played, the second contestant played the other question.
A handful of potential answers were prohibited, the most notable being any synonym for genitalia. In instances where a celebrity gave a censorable answer, the word "Oops!" was superimposed over the index card, accompanied by a slide whistle muting the spoken response.
Popular questions featured "Dumb Dora
" or "Dumb Donald." These questions often began, "Dumb Dora/Donald is/was so dumb..." or "Dumb Dora/Donald is/was REALLY dumb..." To this, the audience would respond en masse, "How dumb IS/WAS he/she?" (a routine taken from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
.) Rayburn would finish the question (or, occasionally, deride the audience's lack of unison and make them try the response again). Other common subjects of questions were Superman/Lois Lane, King Kong/Fay Wray, panelists on the show (most commonly Brett Somers
), politicians, and Howard Cosell
. Questions also often featured characters such as "Ugly Edna" (later "Ugly Ulfrea"), "Horrible Hannah," "Rodney Rotten," and occasionally "Voluptuous Velma."
Rayburn always played the action for laughs, and frequently tried to read certain questions in character, such as "Old Man Periwinkle" or "Old Mrs. Pervis." He also did the same with Confucius or Count Dracula. Regular panelist Charles Nelson Reilly
, a Broadway director, often responded with comments such as "I like when you act" and "That character was really very good. Along with the other two that you do," to the amusement of the audience. Some questions dealt with the fictitious (and often sleazy) country of "Nerdo Crombezia." Another common subject of questions dealt with the world's greatest salesman who could sell anything to anyone.
In the second round, the contestants attempted to match the celebrities whom they had not matched in the first. On the CBS version, the challenger always began round 2 (unless that contestant matched all six stars; in this situation, the champion selected from the two questions available). This meant that a champion who had only answered one question could be ahead of a challenger who had played both questions, rendering the final question moot. On the syndicated versions, the leader after a round played first in the next round. In case of a tie score, the contestant who had not selected their own question in the previous round made the selection in the tiebreaker round.
The first round questions usually had a number of plausible answers, while the second round questions were generally easier and were usually puns with an obvious or "definitive" answer. For instance, "molars" would be the definitive answer for "Did you hear about the new religious group of dentists? They call themselves the Holy _____."
On Match Game PM, a third round was added after the first season as games proved to be too short to fill the half-hour. Again, the only celebrities who played were those who did not match that contestant in previous rounds, and third round questions tended to be even more "definitive" in their responses.
If the contestants had the same score at the end of the game, the scores were reset to 0-0 and the contestants played one tiebreaker question each, again attempting to match all six celebrities. On Match Game PM (or on the syndicated daytime show if time was running short), a time-saving variant of the tie-breaker was used that reversed the game play. The contestants wrote their answers first on a card in secret, then the celebrities were canvassed to give their answers verbally. Originally, this included regulars Somers, Reilly and Dawson only, but when Dawson left the show the canvass was expanded to include all six panelists in the usual order. The first celebrity response to match a contestant's answer gave that contestant the victory. If there was still no match (which was rare), the round was replayed with a new question. On the CBS version, the tie-breaker went on until there was a clear winner. If it came to the sudden-death tie-breaker, only the final question (the one that ultimately broke the tie) was kept and aired.
The CBS daytime version had returning champions and the gameplay "straddled" between episodes, meaning episodes often began and ended with games in progress. On this version, champions stayed until they were defeated or won $25,000. Originally, this amount was the network's winnings limit; anything above that amount was forfeited, but the rule was later changed so that although champions retired after winning $25,000, they kept any winnings up to $35,000. During the six-year run of Match Game on CBS, only one champion retired undefeated.
On the daily 1979–1982 syndicated version, two contestants played against each other in two games, and then both retired. The show was timed so that two new contestants appeared each Monday; this was necessary as the tapes of the show were shipped between stations, and weeks could not be aired in any discernible order (a common syndication practice at the time, known as "bicycling"). Usually, three pairs of contestants competed in a total of six games over the five episodes for each week. On Friday episodes which ran short, in order to fill time, audience members played a question similar to those used in the Super Match for a small cash prize.
Episodes of Match Game PM were self-contained, with two new contestants appearing each week.
was derived from the Audience Match.
Two Audience Matches were played on Match Game PM, for a possible total of $10,000, or $20,000 after the Star Wheel was introduced. On one 1976 episode of Match Game PM, a contestant failed to win any money on either Audience Match; the contestant then got to play a fill-in-the-blank with the entire panel for $100 per match as a consolation prize.
Richard Dawson was the most frequently chosen celebrity in the 1970s version, as he had a knack for matching contestants often. The producers tried to discourage contestants from repeatedly choosing him, even before the introduction of the Star Wheel. In 1975, a rule was briefly imposed that a returning champion could not choose the same celebrity for the Head-To-Head Match chosen for their previous visit to the bonus round. However, this rule was dropped after six weeks.
The wheel was added because contestants consistently kept choosing Richard Dawson for the Head-to-Head Match, and the producers wanted to ensure that other panelists had the chance to participate. Ironically, the first time the wheel was spun, it landed on Dawson, inspiring four of the panelists (including Dawson) to stand up from their places and leave the set momentarily out of disbelief.
A version of the Star Wheel was also used on the 1990 version of the show.
used a technique in which two celebrities' and/or contestants' faces were combined while Johnny Olson
announced information on how to obtain tickets to a taping. This type of ticket plug debuted during the summer of 1975, but were much more common during the daily syndicated 1979–1982 version. Match Game PM did not feature ticket plugs.
When CBS revamped Match Game in 1973 with more of a focus on risqué humor, ratings more than doubled in comparison with the NBC incarnation. Within eleven weeks, Match Game '73 was the most watched program on daytime television. By summer 1974, it grew into an absolute phenomenon with high school students and housewives, scoring remarkable ratings among the 12-34 age demographic. The best ratings this version of Match Game saw were in the 1975–1976 season when it drew a 12.5 rating with a 15 share, higher numbers than that of some prime-time series; this was due in part to the fact that it had been paired with The Price Is Right
, a hit in its own right, during this time. It surpassed records as the most popular daytime program ever with a record 11 million daily viewers, one that held until the "Luke and Laura" supercouple
storyline gripped viewers on ABC's General Hospital
some years later.
Every New Year's Eve
, when the two-digit year designation in the Match Game sign was updated, there was a New Year
's party with the cast and studio audience. Up to and including the 1977–1978 changeover, a new sign was built each year. Coinciding with a redesign of the set, a new sign was built with interchangeable digits that could be swapped as the years changed. Additionally, this sign allowed for a "PM" logo to be attached for tapings of the syndicated program instead of using an entirely different sign.
In 1976, the show's success, and celebrity panelist Richard Dawson's popularity, prompted Goodson-Todman to develop a new show for ABC
entitled Family Feud
with Dawson hosting. This show became a major hit in its own right, eventually surpassing the parent program. Feud was said to be based on Dawson's expertise on Match Games "Super-Match".
Meanwhile, Match kept its high standing in the ratings despite a short-lived move ahead one half-hour during summer and fall 1975. In late 1977, however, CBS made a fatal mistake regarding the show's time slot. Impressed with the ratings boon that resulted when Price and Match were paired in afternoons, CBS soon realized that in the morning slot that Price had left behind, they had a ratings crisis. CBS moved Match along with Price back to the morning time slot. However, because much of Matchs audience was composed of students who were in school at that time of day, ratings began to sag and eventually free fall; many of these students did not return. As a result, Family Feud quickly supplanted Match as television's highest-rated game show.
CBS attempted to correct the problem on December 19, 1977, with a scheduling shuffle among Match, Price, and Tattletales
. In a move that turned out to do even more damage, the network moved Match to its 1960s timeslot of 4:00 PM, a time slot which by this point many local stations were preempting in favor of local or syndicated programming. As a result, Match Game was unable to get the audience it once did in the 1960s at 4:00.
of the era) and the new feature allowed more celebrities the chance to participate in the end game, it also eliminated what effectively was Richard Dawson's "spotlight" feature.
On July 19, a new Match Game set was built by CBS, changed from the original bright orange to a new set with blue and white colors, as well as revamping the logo from the curved letters to a straight-line lettering it would use for the rest of the run. This was mainly for convenience; with a new Match Game set and sign, a whole new sign no longer had to be built each year as had been done previously. An attachment designating the year was simply taken off the end of the revamped Match Game '78 sign and replaced with a new one numbered 79 on New Year's Eve 1978 (aired January 2, 1979) becoming Match Game '79. (An alternate attachment was used for Match Game PM.)
At 4:00 PM, the show trailed Feud, Price, and NBC's Wheel of Fortune
, and fell out of the top three game shows in 1979 for the first time in the CBS run (as opposed to a solid and twice top-3 hit in the 1960s). The 1,439th and final CBS episode aired on April 20, 1979however, the show did not air on April 5, causing the Friday episode from that week to air on April 9. The last nine aired episodes were culled together from three separate taping sessions, leaving six unaired. In addition, the last two weeks recorded went completely unaired. Match Game was replaced by Whew!
at 10:30 A.M., which required a move of The Price Is Right to 11:00 (the time slot where it remains to this day), which in turn required Love of Life
to move from 11:30 to 4:00.
in New York), was produced by Goodson-Todman and distributed by Jim Victory Television, G-T's syndication partner for Concentration
.
Match Game PM was designed to be self-contained, the first version of the game to have that distinction. The front game was originally played the same way as the daytime Match Game with two rounds of questions, but beginning in September 1976 a third round of questioning was added to fill time in the half-hour. The maximum score a contestant could achieve remained six points, with matched celebrities not playing subsequent questions.
Tiebreakers were conducted differently than on the daytime version. A "Super-Match"-style question was asked, and the contestants wrote down their answers, then called on celebrities for a match. Until Dawson's departure in 1978, only the three regular panelists (Sommers, Reilly and Dawson) played in the tiebreaker, but afterwards all six celebrities were used.
Match Game PMs Super-Match used two Audience Matches, with the answer values combined and multiplied by ten for the Head-to-Head Match, with a maximum of $11,000 available. When the Star Wheel was introduced, that potential payout grew to $21,000 if a contestant spun a double. On the only episode when a contestant did not score in either Audience Match, she was given the opportunity to play a consolation question using the front-game format for $100 per match, and won the maximum $600.
Match Game PM ran until the end of the 1980–1981 TV season. For its last two seasons, the show's affiliate count went down significantly due in large part to a daily syndicated version that debuted in September 1979 (although some markets, like New York, kept both shows on the air as WABC-TV continued to air episodes of Match Game PM into its final season). The show aired 230 episodes over six seasons, and remains the longest-running version to air in syndication.
The rules and gameplay were the same as before, including the Star Wheel Bonus, but the format was altered slightly. Each contestant on this version of Match Game played a two-game match against another contestant, and the Super Match was played after each game. As on Match Game PM, a contestant did not win any money for winning the game. There were also no returning champions on the daily syndicated series, as two new contestants began each match.
The maximum payout for a contestant was $21,000 (two $500 Audience Matches and two $10,000 Head-To-Head Match wins), the same its syndicated sister series Match Game PM was offering during this time.
For the first two seasons Bill Daily
, Dick Martin
, Richard Paul
, and Bob Barker
were among the male semi-regulars who filled Dawson's old spot on the panel. McLean Stevenson
, who had done so once in September 1978 and twice near the end of the second year of this version, appeared in nearly all of Season Three (1981–1982) and became a regular from the eleventh taped week through the end of the run.
The fee plugs which had aired in the middle of the show on the CBS version were featured during the closing credits. The ticket plugs were now shown on every episode. Each ticket plug had two people's faces merged into one image by putting a man's face on a woman's head, putting a mustache on a woman's face, or putting a pair of red lips on a man's face or simply putting two halves of the faces together. The 1990 ABC version used a similar sequence to introduce the stars.
The syndicated Match Game helped exacerbate the perception of the 4:00 PM time slot being a "death slot" for network programming. After CBS cancelled Match Game '79, the network moved the long-running soap opera Love of Life
into the vacant timeslot. Although the syndicated Match Game was not a direct cause of the ratings problems Love of Life facedthe 4:00 PM timeslot, the last network daytime slot, had been a problem for CBS, NBC, and ABC for years and Love of Life had seen a precipitous drop in ratings since the April 1979 move to the late afternoonmany stations ran the syndicated series against the veteran soap opera and, in the case of some CBS affiliates and owned-and-operated stations, preempted Love of Life in favor of the new Match Game. (Love of Life aired its final episode on February 1, 1980, twenty-one weeks after the debut of the new Match Game.)
The daytime syndicated show produced 525 episodes, running until September 10, 1982exactly three years after its debut.
MG's 1973–1982 run was taped in Studio 33 at CBS Television City
in Los Angeles, except for one week of shows in 1974 in which it was shot in Studio 41.
teamed up with Orion Television (who had recently acquired the rights to Hollywood Squares
) and NBC
to create The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour
. Rayburn, after a year as a morning show host in New York, agreed to return as host. However, few of the regular Squares cast appeared on this version. Jon Bauman
("Sha Na Na") served as the lone regular panelist on this version, and the two swapped seats for Hollywood Squares with Bauman serving as host and Rayburn as the lower-left-hand square. Gene Wood
served as announcer, with Johnny Olson and Rich Jeffries
substituting.
These rules were roughly the same as those of Match Game PM with both contestants given three chances apiece to match each panelist once. The major difference was in the tie-breaker. Four possible answers to a Super Match-like statement (example: "_____, New Jersey") were secretly shown to the contestants (examples: "Atlantic City", "Hoboken", "Newark", "Trenton"). They each chose one by number. The host then polled the celebrities for verbal responses. The first panelist to give an answer selected by one of the contestants won the game for that contestant. The winner of the Match Game segment played the returning champion in the Hollywood Squares
segment with the eventual winner of Squares playing the Super-Match. The Audience Match featured payoffs of $1,000, $500 and $250, while non-matching contestants were given $100. For the Head-To-Head Match the contestant picked a celebrity who revealed a hidden number (10, 20 or 30); that number was multiplied by the contestant's Audience Match winnings to determine the grand prize ($30,000 being the top possible amount). Champions remained on the program for up to five days unless defeated.
The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour ran from October 31, 1983 to July 27, 1984. Several music cues from the program are still used today as background music during prize descriptions on The Price Is Right.
, which had not carried a daytime game show since Bargain Hunters
in 1987, revived Match Game. The producers (including Jonathan Goodson
, who took over the show at this time) selected Bert Convy
, a former Match Game panelist in the early days of the program, as host. Convy filmed a full week of pilots for the show, but in April 1990 (three months before the show was scheduled to premiere) was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor
and forced to relinquish hosting duties. (Convy died from the tumor on July 15, 1991, three days after Match Game ended its run on ABC.)
Among those considered to replace Convy was Gene Rayburn, who had just finished The Movie Masters
for AMC and had expressed interest in returning. The producers were uninterested in the 72-year-old original Match Game host, however, and chose stand-up comedian and former Late Show
host Ross Shafer
as Convy's replacement. Charles Nelson Reilly
returned as a regular panelist and Brett Somers
served as a guest panelist for several weeks. Vicki Lawrence
, Sally Struthers
, Brad Garrett
, Bill Kirchenbauer
, and Ronn Lucas
were among the semi-regulars for this version of the show. Gene Wood
returned as announcer, with Bob Hilton
filling in for one week.
On this version, matches were worth money instead of points. Each match during the two Match Game rounds was worth $50. All panelists played both questions for each contestant, regardless of whether they matched in the first round.
After each round of questions, contestants were given a chance to build their scores further by playing a new round called "Match-Up!" with a panelist of their choice. This was a rapid-fire series of Super Match-style questions, each having two possible answer choices, and the round was played similar to the Head-to-Head Match. The contestant was shown both potential answer choices and secretly chose one. The question choices were then revealed to the celebrity, who made their own choice; the contestant won money if both answers matched. Both Match-Up! rounds were played to a time limit; the first round was played for 30 seconds and each match was worth $50, while the second was played for 45 seconds with $100 earned for each match. Whoever had the most money at the end of the second Match-Up! round won the game and kept the money; the loser went away with parting gifts and prior winnings if they were a returning champion.
The Super Match was played identically to the 1978–1982 version of the round. Originally, the payoffs of $500–$250–$100 for the Audience Match were identical to the CBS version's payoff structure, but changed after three weeks to $500–$300–$200. Unlike the 1970s Match Game and its syndicated counterparts, a contestant was not eliminated from the Head-to-Head Match if an answer did not appear on the Audience Match board. Instead, the contestant was allowed to play for a minimum of $500 as a consolation; this was doubled to $1000 once the payoff structure for the Audience Match was changed.
Once the contestant's Audience Match winnings were determined they then faced the Star Wheel to determine the stake for the Head-to-Head Match, with a maximum amount of $10,000 available. The Star Wheel round was slightly modified for this Match Game seriesinstead of spinning the wheel itself, the contestant spun a green arrow, and instead of three stars underneath each panelist's name there were two red dots. The red dots served the same purpose as the stars, meaning that if the arrow landed on one of them the contestant's Head-to-Head Match stake would be doubled. Otherwise, play was the same as before: the contestant and panelist had to match exactly in order to win the Super Match. Champions on the ABC version could remain for up to five days.
Because many ABC stations in major Eastern Time markets carried local news at 12:00 Noon, the show was mostly seen in smaller markets and on independent stations in some larger markets without network clearances, and was canceled after one season. A proposed move to another network (rumored to be CBS
) for the 1991–1992 season had been announced on the finale, but never materialized. Match Game has the distinction of being ABC's last daytime game show to date.
was chosen as host of this revived version of the show, while Paul Boland
served as its announcer. The only celebrity guests who had appeared on previous versions of the show were Vicki Lawrence
(who appeared on two weeks of the 1970's version and regularly on the 1990–1991 version) and Nell Carter
(who had appeared on the final week in 1991). The regular panelists on this version were Carter, Lawrence, and Judy Tenuta
, and semi-regulars were George Hamilton
, John Salley
, Coolio
, and Rondell Sheridan
. Production returned to Studio 33 at CBS Television City on this version.
This incarnation of Match Game was played with rules nearly identical to that of the 1973–1982 versions with a few minor exceptions. The show featured a panel of only five celebrities instead of the usual six. Questions in this version were not labeled A or B, instead titles with puns were a clue as to the content (à la Win Ben Stein's Money
). Each match was worth one point in Round One and two points in Round Two. As on the 1990–1991 version, all five panelists played each round regardless of whether they matched a contestant on the first question.
After two rounds, the highest scorer played the Super-Match, which was played identically to its 1973–1978 incarnation, including the $5,000 top prize. If no match was made in the Audience Match portion of the Super-Match, the contestant played for $500 in the Head-To-Head Match.
This version was noted for its sometimes over-the-top risqué humor of the celebrities and contestants. For instance, the prohibition on answers such as genitalia was no longer existent. On many episodes, answers that were deemed inappropriate for daytime TV were edited out with a "cuckoo" dubbed over the audible answer and a "CENSORED" graphic over the answer card and sometimes the person's mouth.
While Burger generally received positive reviews for his hosting, the series was mostly panned. Its humor was seen to have crossed the line from risqué into the out-and-out dirty and many stations pushed it into late-night slots. Its low budget and lack of returning champions (staples of several modern game shows) were also focal points for criticism. This was especially since two of the previous three versions to air all featured returning champions and offered cash prizes well in excess of $10,000 in an era when purchasing power was roughly twice that of 1998.
This version lasted one season, running from September 21, 1998 to September 17, 1999.
and announced by Rich Fields
, and the second of two "semi-final" games in the tournament. The contestants were Kathy Najimy
and Lance Bass
with Betty White
, George Foreman
, Kathy Griffin
, Bruce Vilanch
, Adam Carolla
, and Adrianne Curry as the panel. White retained her normal sixth-seat position and was the only one from the original series to appear for this segment of Gameshow Marathon.
Lake used the same signature long-thin Sony
ECM-51 telescoping microphone Rayburn used during the CBS version, and the set was rebuilt to be almost an exact match of that used from 1973–1978. Najimy won the game, scoring five matches to Bass' three.
The format was that of Match Game PM, except that in the Super-Match the Head-To-Head Match was played for 50 times the amount won in the two Audience Matches ($50,000), which was won.
The set was repackaged and sent to Studio 33 for the taping of the failed Match Game revival for TBS (see below).
recordings. Other sources report that there are 100 or more kinescope recordings still in existence. As the show was originally broadcast live from New York, most episodes were not recorded for posterity. The Paley Center for Media holds nine episodes as black-and-white kinescopes and one color episode (from 1969, and presumably also a kinescope).
In 1965, The Match Game began to be produced on color videotape; however, none of the tapes are known to have survived the wiping
and re-use procedures of NBC during that period as none of the surviving episodes is in color.
owns the rights to Hollywood Squares (at the time of MGHS it was owned by Orion Television
) while FremantleMedia
owns Match Gamehas never been rerun.
aired a clip from a Convy pilot, as well as a clip with Ross Shafer.
However, around this time Entertainment Tonight
allegedly reported that Rayburn was 70 years old; he was in fact only 69, however this was still several years older than most producers thought he was. With this, plus his production feuds on Break the Bank and The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour still relatively recent, the revival project was scrapped.
After this incident, Rayburn hosted only one more seriesAMC's The Movie Masters
, which ran from August 2, 1989 to January 19, 1990. Rayburn claimed that the leaking of his age subjected him to age discrimination for the rest of his life.
Studios in California for a revised version called Match Game 2 with Charlene Tilton
(a panelist on the 1979–1982 version) as host. The panel for this show included Downtown Julie Brown
, David Chokachi
, Gil Gerard
, Rondell Sheridan
, and Kathleen Kinmont
.
The format featured gameplay not used in any other version:
Many elements of this pilot, such as a change from a six celebrities to five, were kept in for a second pilot shot a year later with Michael Burger as host.
and TVgameshows.net reported in May 2004 that a pilot called What the Blank! was taped for FOX
and hosted by Fred Willard
for air during the Summer 2004 "off" season.
It was said that the game was an incorporation of 21st-Century elements into the classic game as well as an added feature that people from along the streets would be able to participate for matching with contestants and celebrities in Street Smarts
-style.
FOX abruptly canceled the series before the show made it to air; the status of any episodes produced is unknown.
commissioned a pilot for a revived Match Game as part of an overhaul of its late night television
programming. On June 21, 2008, Andrew Daly
hosted a pilot episode with Sarah Silverman
and Norm Macdonald
among the panelists, using the Gameshow Marathon episode's set. TBS eventually passed on the project in favor of Lopez Tonight
.
. Virtually all episodes of this version are still extant, although some reportedly are not shown due to celebrities' refusals of clearances. On November 26, 2006 the network broadcast an hour-long documentary titled The Real Match Game Story: Behind The Blank featuring rarely-seen footage of the 1960s version, many odd or memorable moments from the main 1973–1982 runs, plus interviews with Rayburn, Somers, Dawson, DeBartolo, producer Ira Skutch, and others involved in the show's production.
The 1990 version has also had runs on GSN, most recently throughout 2002-2004. The 1998 version has never been rerun.
's instrumental A Swingin' Safari
was used as the theme; a slightly different rendition (Billy Vaughn
's cover of the same song) was used on the pilot. From 1967–1969, a new theme composed by Score Productions
was used.
When the program returned in 1973, Goodson-Todman once again turned to Score Productions for a music package. A new theme, which was titled "The Midnight Four", was composed by Score staff composer Ken Bichel with a memorable "funk" guitar intro, and similar elements and instruments from this theme were also featured in the numerous "think cues" heard when the panel wrote down their answers. Alternate think cues were extracted from the music packages for Tattletales
and The Money Maze. In keeping with the zany atmosphere, the music supervisors also used other notable musical works to add to humorous situations. Among the non-Score Productions music heard on occasion was the "burlesque" music titled "The Stripper
". The alternate theme is heard today on the WFLZ version of The MJ Morning Show
The music for The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour was composed by Edd Kalehoff
. None of the music used from the 1970s version was used in this version. The main theme song and several of its cue variations are still used on The Price Is Right.
In 1990, Bichel re-orchestrated his 1970s theme with more modern instruments with new think cues (with the classic intro/think cue re-orchestrated). The 1998 version again used music from Score Productions.
and was presented by Terry Wogan
, Les Dawson
, and Lily Savage.
The second, more commonly-known version was Blankety Blanks
and based upon the 1970s version, running from 1977–1978. It was presented by Graham Kennedy
and became a ratings hit for Network Ten
. Like many Australian game shows during the 1970s–1990s (mostly those done by Reg Grundy
) this version was remarkably similar to the American show right down to the set, "spinning box" opening, and "Get ready to match the stars!" tagline. The signature music from the American version was not used, however, but was instead replaced by original tracks that were very similar.
A later version appeared on the Nine Network
in 1985 hosted by Daryl Somers
, and again in 1996 hosted by Shane Bourne
.
(This show is not to be confused with an unrelated American show by the same name
, which aired on ABC
and was hosted by Bill Cullen
in 1975.)
) in the early 1990s on satellite and cable network Sat.1
. The show was hosted by Mike Krüger.
On the 1970s "Match Game," Gene Rayburn occasionally mentioned another German version of the show titled "Schnick Schnack" (literally "Something, Anything" as there is no German word for blank.)
The format of the program more closely matched the 1990 American version, including a round similar to the Match Up round. Scoring was different (in the main game, matches in round one were worth 25 points and worth 50 points in round two; the Match Up round matches were also worth 50 points). The Super Match and Star Wheel rounds were also played in similar fashion as on the American version.
. The show was hosted by Mehmet Ali Erbil
.
from 1963 through 1978, in multiple editions.
Milton Bradley also created a "travel" version of the game.
Unlike some game show adaptations, the questions and answers from the main game are the show's celebrity panelists and the Super Match answers exactly as answered by the show's studio audience. As it says on the insert of the box cover, these answers are from the actual TV show. The questions and answers for first edition were much more simple and straightforward (ex: "Mary likes to look at _________ in the morning."), similar to the early episodes of the '70s version. The second edition questions were typically simple and straightforward, but some were the start of the comical questions from the show. However, in the third edition, all questions are similar to the ones used on TV.
Gene Rayburn
Gene Rayburn was an American radio and television personality. He is best known as the host of various editions of the popular American television game show Match Game for over two decades....
is the host most commonly associated with the show.
The most famous versions of the 1970s and 1980s, starting with Match Game '73, are remembered for their bawdy and sometimes rowdy humor involving contestants trying to match six celebrities. The series has been franchised around the world, often under the name Blankety Blank(s).
The Match Game (1962–1969, NBC)
The pilot for the original version of The Match Game, created by Goodson-Todman staffer Frank WayneFrank Wayne
Frank Wayne was an American game show producer and host.Wayne was the original executive producer of the 1972 revival of The Price Is Right until his death in 1988. He created the show's most popular game, Plinko, and many others...
, bore little resemblance to its more famous descendant. Taped December 5, 1962 with Gene Rayburn
Gene Rayburn
Gene Rayburn was an American radio and television personality. He is best known as the host of various editions of the popular American television game show Match Game for over two decades....
as host, Peggy Cass
Peggy Cass
Mary Margaret “Peggy” Cass was an American actress, comedian, game show panelist, and announcer.A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Cass became interested in acting as a member of the drama club at Cambridge Latin School; however, she attended all of high school without a speaking part...
and Peter Lind Hayes
Peter Lind Hayes
Peter Lind Hayes was an American vaudeville entertainer, songwriter, and film and television actor. He was born Joseph Conrad Lind in San Francisco, California....
each headed a team of two non-celebrities who attempted to match answers to simple questions. All six contestants wrote down their answers to a question. If two team members matched answers the team earned 10 points, and if all three team members matched, the team earned 20 points. The first team to score at least 50 points won the game and received $100. The winning team moved on to a bonus round, attempting to guess the answer to a recent audience survey. Each correct match was worth $25 for a possible top prize of $300. The series premiered on December 31 with Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis was an American actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist...
and Skitch Henderson
Skitch Henderson
Lyle Russell Cedric “Skitch” Henderson was a pianist, conductor, and composer. His nickname reportedly derived from his ability to quickly "re-sketch" a song in a different key.- Biography :...
. The show was taped in Studio 8G at 30 Rockefeller Plaza
GE Building
The GE Building is an Art Deco skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in the midtown Manhattan section of New York City. Known as the RCA Building until 1988, it is most famous for housing the headquarters of the television network NBC...
in New York City, which was later used for The Phil Donahue Show
The Phil Donahue Show
The Phil Donahue Show, also known as Donahue, is an American television talk show that ran for 26 years on national television. Its run was preceded by three years of local broadcast in Dayton, Ohio, and it was broadcast nationwide between 1967 and 1996.In 2002, Donahue was ranked #29 on TV Guide's...
and The Rosie O'Donnell Show
The Rosie O'Donnell Show
The Rosie O'Donnell Show is an Emmy Award-winning American daytime television talk show hosted and produced by actress and comedian Rosie O'Donnell. It aired for six seasons from 1996 to 2002...
and now houses NBC Sports
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is the sports division of the NBC television network. Formerly "a service of NBC News," it broadcasts a diverse array of programs, including the Olympic Games, the NFL, the NHL, MLS, Notre Dame football, the PGA Tour, the Triple Crown, and the French Open, among others...
.
A team scored 25 points if two teammates matched answers, or 50 points if all three players matched. The first team to score 100 points won $100 and played the Audience Match, which featured three survey questions. Each player who agreed with the most popular answer to a question earned the team $50, for a possible total of $450.
The questions used in the game were commonplace: "Name a kind of muffin" or "John loves his _____." In 1963, NBC canceled the series with six weeks left to be recorded. Question writer Dick DeBartolo
Dick DeBartolo
Dick DeBartolo is an American writer. He has most notably written for Mad. He is occasionally referred to as "Mads Maddest Writer," this being a twist on Don Martin's former status as "Mads Maddest Artist." DeBartolo served as the magazine's "Creative Consultant" from 1984 to 2009.Mad has long...
came up with a funnier set of questions, like "Mary liked to pour gravy on John's _____," and submitted it to Mark Goodson. With the knowledge that the show couldn't be canceled again, Goodson gave the go-ahead for the more risque-sounding questionsa decision that caused a significant boost in ratings and an "un-cancellation" by NBC.
The Match Game consistently won its time slot from 1963–1966 and again from April 1967-July 1968, with its ratings allowing it to finish third among all network daytime games for the 1963–1964 and 1967–1968 seasons (in the latter, the top two games were NBC's own, both of which would also enjoy long runs and multiple revivals: Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
and Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. 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...
). Although the series still did well in the ratings (despite the popularity of ABC's horror-themed soap opera Dark Shadows
Dark Shadows
Dark Shadows is a gothic soap opera that originally aired weekdays on the ABC television network, from June 27, 1966 to April 2, 1971. The show was created by Dan Curtis. The story bible, which was written by Art Wallace, does not mention any supernatural elements...
,) it was canceled in 1969 along with other games in a major daytime programming overhaul, being replaced by Letters to Laugh-In
Letters to Laugh-In
Letters to Laugh-In is a daytime game show and spin-off of NBC's popular nighttime comedy series at the time, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, that aired on the network from September 29 to December 26, 1969...
which, although a spin-off of the popular prime time series Laugh-In, ended in just three months on December 26.
The Match Game continued through September 26, 1969 on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
for 1,760 episodes, airing at 4:00 p.m. Eastern (3:00 Central), running 25 minutes due to a five-minute newscast. Since announcer Johnny Olson
Johnny Olson
John Leonard "Johnny" Olson was an American radio personality and television announcer. His work spanned 32 game shows produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman from the late 1950s through the mid 1980s...
split time between New York and Miami
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
to announce The Jackie Gleason Show
The Jackie Gleason Show
The Jackie Gleason Show is the name of a series of popular American network television shows that starred Jackie Gleason, which ran from 1952 to 1970.-Cavalcade of Stars:...
, one of the network's New York staff announcers (such as Don Pardo
Don Pardo
Dominick George "Don" Pardo is an American radio and television announcer. He is best known as the voice of the long-running late night sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live....
or Wayne Howell
Wayne Howell
Wayne Clay Howell Chappelle , known professionally as Wayne Howell, was a voice-over announcer for the NBC television and radio networks from 1947 through 1986...
) would fill in for Olson when he could not attend a broadcast.
On March 27, 1967 the show added a "Telephone Match" game, in which a home viewer and a studio audience member attempted to match a simple fill-in-the-blank question similar to the 70s' "Head-To-Head Match." A successful match won a jackpot which started at $500 and increased by $100 per day until won.
Very few episodes of the 1960s The Match Game survive (see "Episode Status" section below).
Match Game '7x (1973–1979, CBS)
In the summer of 1973, Mark GoodsonMark Goodson
Mark Goodson was an American television producer who specialized in game shows.-Life and early career:...
and Bill Todman
Bill Todman
William S. "Bill" Todman was an American television producer born in New York City. He produced many of television's longest running shows with business partner Mark Goodson.-Early life:...
resurrected the show as Match Game '73 for CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, with Rayburn returning as host and Olson returning as announcer. The year in the title was updated on the New Year's Eve broadcast for the next six years. The gameplay for this version had two solo contestants attempting to match the answers given by a six-celebrity panel. Richard Dawson was the first regular panelist. Due to CBS News coverage of the Watergate
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
hearings, the network delayed the premiere one week from its slated date of June 25 to July 2.
The first week's panelists, in seating order (top left to top right, then bottom left to bottom right), were Michael Landon
Michael Landon
Michael Landon was an American actor, writer, director, and producer. He is widely known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza , Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie , and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven...
, Vicki Lawrence
Vicki Lawrence
Vicki Lawrence is an American actress, comedienne, and Billboard Hot 100 #1 singer, who was frequently a game show panelist in the 1970s and 1980s...
, Jack Klugman
Jack Klugman
Jacob Joachim "Jack" Klugman is an American stage, film and television actor known for his roles in sitcoms, movies, and television and on Broadway...
, Jo Ann Pflug
Jo Ann Pflug
Jo Ann Pflug is a former American motion picture and television actress, who retired in the 1990s.Pflug's first major role was as U.S. Army nurse Lt. Maria "Dish" Schneider in 1970's MASH. Other notable roles include the voice of Invisible Girl in the 1967 animated version of Fantastic Four, Lt...
, Richard Dawson, and Anita Gillette
Anita Gillette
Anita Gillette is an American actress, most notable for her work on Broadway and as a celebrity guest on various game shows....
. Rayburn reassured viewers of the first CBS show that "This is your old favorite, updated with more action, more money and as you can see, more celebrities." Dawson would maintain his bottom center seat for his duration on the show.
The first few weeks of the show were somewhat different from the rest of the run. At first, many of the questions fit into the more bland and innocuous mold of the earlier seasons of the original series. In addition, many of the frequent panelists on the early episodes were not regulars later in the series, including Klugman, Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis was an American actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist...
, Bert Convy
Bert Convy
Bernard Whalen "Bert" Convy was an Emmy Award winning American actor, singer, game show host and panelist known for his tenure as the host for Tattletales, Super Password, and Win, Lose or Draw.-Early life:...
and Steve Allen
Steve Allen
Steve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...
, who was host of The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
when Rayburn served as announcer. (Convy would later be chosen as host of the show's 1990 revival before being diagnosed with a brain tumor which eventually took his life.)
However, with the double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
in the question "Johnny always put butter on his _____" marked a turning point in the questions on the show. Soon, the tone of Rayburn's questions changed notably, leaving behind the staid topics that The Match Game had first disposed of in 1963 for more risqué humor.
Famous celebrity panelists Brett Somers
Brett Somers
Brett Somers was a American actress, singer, and comedienne who was born in Canada and raised in Maine...
(Klugman's wife) and Charles Nelson Reilly
Charles Nelson Reilly
Charles Nelson Reilly was an American actor, comedian, director and drama teacher known for his comedic roles in theater, movies, children's television, animated cartoons, and as a panelist on the game show Match Game....
began as guest panelists on the program, with Somers brought in at the request of Klugman. Klugman and Somers were married at the time, and he felt she would make a nice fit on the program. The chemistry between Somers and Reilly prompted Goodson-Todman and CBS to hire them as regular panelists; Somers, who occupied the top center seat, remained on the show until 1982, while Reilly (top right) continued appearing through the 1983–1984 and 1990–1991 revivals, with a brief break from 1974–1975 when Gary Burghoff, Nipsey Russell
Nipsey Russell
Julius "Nipsey" Russell was an American comedian, best known today for his appearances as a guest panelist on game shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, especially Match Game, Password, Hollywood Squares, To Tell the Truth and Pyramid...
, and the equally flamboyant Rip Taylor
Rip Taylor
Charles Elmer "Rip" Taylor, Jr. is an American actor and comedian.-Early life:Taylor was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Elizabeth, a waitress, and Charles Elmer Taylor, Sr., a musician. As a young man, Taylor served in the Korean War while in the U.S...
substituted for him. Reilly was late for the taping of two episodes; Goodson filled in for him for the first few minutes of one, and announcer Johnny Olson
Johnny Olson
John Leonard "Johnny" Olson was an American radio personality and television announcer. His work spanned 32 game shows produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman from the late 1950s through the mid 1980s...
did the same on the other.
Celebrity panelists usually appeared in weeklong blocks, due to the show's production schedule. A number of celebrities, including Betty White
Betty White
Betty White Ludden , better known as Betty White, is an American actress, comedienne, singer, author, and former game show personality. With a career spanning seven decades since 1939, she is best known to modern audiences for her television roles as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and...
, Dick Martin
Dick Martin (comedian)
Thomas Richard "Dick" Martin was an American comedian and director, best known for his role as the cohost of the sketch comedy program Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973.-Early life and career:...
, Marcia Wallace
Marcia Wallace
Marcia Karen Wallace is an American character actress, comedienne and game show panelist, primarily known for her roles in television situation comedies...
, Bill Daily
Bill Daily
Bill Daily is an American comedian and dramatic actor, and a veteran of many television sitcoms. He is best known for playing astronaut Roger Healey on I Dream of Jeannie and commercial airline navigator Howard Borden in The Bob Newhart Show.-Biography:Daily's father died when Bill was very...
and Fannie Flagg
Fannie Flagg
Patricia Neal , known professionally as Fannie Flagg, is an American actress, comedienne and author. She is perhaps best-known for the 1988 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, which was adapted into the 1991 movie Fried Green Tomatoes; Flagg was nominated for an Academy Award for...
, were semi-regulars, usually appearing in several weeklong blocks throughout the year.
Gameplay
Two contestants competed. On the CBS version, the champion was seated in the upstage (red circle) seat and the opponent was seated in the downstage (green triangle) seat. On the syndicated versions, which had no returning champions, positions were determined by a backstage coin toss. The object was to match the answers of the six celebrity panelists to fill-in-the-blank statements.The main game was played in two rounds (three on Match Game PM after the first season). The opponent was given a choice of two statements labeled either "A" or "B." Rayburn read the statement and the six celebrities wrote their answers on index cards. After they finished, the contestant verbally gave an answer. Rayburn then asked each celebrity, one at a time beginning in the upper left hand corner of the panel, to respond.
While early questions were similar to the NBC version (e.g., "Every morning, John puts _________ on his cereal"), the questions quickly became more humorous. Comedy writer Dick DeBartolo
Dick DeBartolo
Dick DeBartolo is an American writer. He has most notably written for Mad. He is occasionally referred to as "Mads Maddest Writer," this being a twist on Don Martin's former status as "Mads Maddest Artist." DeBartolo served as the magazine's "Creative Consultant" from 1984 to 2009.Mad has long...
, who had participated in the 1960s Match Game, contributed broader and saucier questions. Frequently, the statements were written with bawdy, double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
answers in mind. A classic example: "Did you catch a glimpse of that girl on the corner? She has the world's biggest _________."
Frequently, the audience responded appropriately as Rayburn critiqued the contestant's answer (for the "world's biggest" question, Rayburn might show disdain to an answer such as "fingers" or "bag" and compliment an answer such as "rear end" or "boobs," often also commenting on the audience's approving or disapproving response). The audience usually groaned or booed when a contestant gave a bad answer, whereas they cheered and applauded in approval of a good answer.
The contestant earned one point for each celebrity who wrote down the same answer (or reasonably similar as determined by the judges; for example, "rear end" matched "bottom" or a similar euphemism) up to a maximum of six points for matching everyone. After one contestant played, the second contestant played the other question.
A handful of potential answers were prohibited, the most notable being any synonym for genitalia. In instances where a celebrity gave a censorable answer, the word "Oops!" was superimposed over the index card, accompanied by a slide whistle muting the spoken response.
Popular questions featured "Dumb Dora
Dumb Dora
A dumb Dora is considered to be 1920s American slang for a completely idiotic woman.The phrase was made popular from the vaudeville acts of George Burns and Gracie Allen ; eventually becoming a name of a classic comic strip by King Features Syndicate...
" or "Dumb Donald." These questions often began, "Dumb Dora/Donald is/was so dumb..." or "Dumb Dora/Donald is/was REALLY dumb..." To this, the audience would respond en masse, "How dumb IS/WAS he/she?" (a routine taken from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....
.) Rayburn would finish the question (or, occasionally, deride the audience's lack of unison and make them try the response again). Other common subjects of questions were Superman/Lois Lane, King Kong/Fay Wray, panelists on the show (most commonly Brett Somers
Brett Somers
Brett Somers was a American actress, singer, and comedienne who was born in Canada and raised in Maine...
), politicians, and Howard Cosell
Howard Cosell
Howard William Cosell was an American sports journalist who was widely known for his blustery, cocksure personality. Cosell said of himself, "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these...
. Questions also often featured characters such as "Ugly Edna" (later "Ugly Ulfrea"), "Horrible Hannah," "Rodney Rotten," and occasionally "Voluptuous Velma."
Rayburn always played the action for laughs, and frequently tried to read certain questions in character, such as "Old Man Periwinkle" or "Old Mrs. Pervis." He also did the same with Confucius or Count Dracula. Regular panelist Charles Nelson Reilly
Charles Nelson Reilly
Charles Nelson Reilly was an American actor, comedian, director and drama teacher known for his comedic roles in theater, movies, children's television, animated cartoons, and as a panelist on the game show Match Game....
, a Broadway director, often responded with comments such as "I like when you act" and "That character was really very good. Along with the other two that you do," to the amusement of the audience. Some questions dealt with the fictitious (and often sleazy) country of "Nerdo Crombezia." Another common subject of questions dealt with the world's greatest salesman who could sell anything to anyone.
In the second round, the contestants attempted to match the celebrities whom they had not matched in the first. On the CBS version, the challenger always began round 2 (unless that contestant matched all six stars; in this situation, the champion selected from the two questions available). This meant that a champion who had only answered one question could be ahead of a challenger who had played both questions, rendering the final question moot. On the syndicated versions, the leader after a round played first in the next round. In case of a tie score, the contestant who had not selected their own question in the previous round made the selection in the tiebreaker round.
The first round questions usually had a number of plausible answers, while the second round questions were generally easier and were usually puns with an obvious or "definitive" answer. For instance, "molars" would be the definitive answer for "Did you hear about the new religious group of dentists? They call themselves the Holy _____."
On Match Game PM, a third round was added after the first season as games proved to be too short to fill the half-hour. Again, the only celebrities who played were those who did not match that contestant in previous rounds, and third round questions tended to be even more "definitive" in their responses.
If the contestants had the same score at the end of the game, the scores were reset to 0-0 and the contestants played one tiebreaker question each, again attempting to match all six celebrities. On Match Game PM (or on the syndicated daytime show if time was running short), a time-saving variant of the tie-breaker was used that reversed the game play. The contestants wrote their answers first on a card in secret, then the celebrities were canvassed to give their answers verbally. Originally, this included regulars Somers, Reilly and Dawson only, but when Dawson left the show the canvass was expanded to include all six panelists in the usual order. The first celebrity response to match a contestant's answer gave that contestant the victory. If there was still no match (which was rare), the round was replayed with a new question. On the CBS version, the tie-breaker went on until there was a clear winner. If it came to the sudden-death tie-breaker, only the final question (the one that ultimately broke the tie) was kept and aired.
The CBS daytime version had returning champions and the gameplay "straddled" between episodes, meaning episodes often began and ended with games in progress. On this version, champions stayed until they were defeated or won $25,000. Originally, this amount was the network's winnings limit; anything above that amount was forfeited, but the rule was later changed so that although champions retired after winning $25,000, they kept any winnings up to $35,000. During the six-year run of Match Game on CBS, only one champion retired undefeated.
On the daily 1979–1982 syndicated version, two contestants played against each other in two games, and then both retired. The show was timed so that two new contestants appeared each Monday; this was necessary as the tapes of the show were shipped between stations, and weeks could not be aired in any discernible order (a common syndication practice at the time, known as "bicycling"). Usually, three pairs of contestants competed in a total of six games over the five episodes for each week. On Friday episodes which ran short, in order to fill time, audience members played a question similar to those used in the Super Match for a small cash prize.
Episodes of Match Game PM were self-contained, with two new contestants appearing each week.
Super Match
The contestant who matched the most celebrities at the end of the game won the game and went on to play the Super Match, which consisted of the Audience Match and the Head-To-Head Match segments, for additional money. On the CBS version, the winner of the game won $100.Audience Match
A two-to-four-word phrase was given, with part of the phrase blank, and the contestant attempted to fill-in the most common response based on a prior studio audience survey. The contestant consulted three celebrities for suggestions, and chose their favorite of those answers or one of their own. The top three answers were then revealed in ascending order. The most popular answer in the survey was worth $500, the second-most popular $250, and the third most popular $100. If a contestant failed to match any of the three answers, the bonus round ended. The idea for Family FeudFamily Feud
Family Feud is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Two families compete against each other in a contest to name the most popular responses to a survey question posed to 100 people...
was derived from the Audience Match.
Two Audience Matches were played on Match Game PM, for a possible total of $10,000, or $20,000 after the Star Wheel was introduced. On one 1976 episode of Match Game PM, a contestant failed to win any money on either Audience Match; the contestant then got to play a fill-in-the-blank with the entire panel for $100 per match as a consolation prize.
Head-To-Head Match
A contestant who won money in the Audience Match then had the opportunity to win ten times that amount (therefore, $5,000, $2,500 or $1,000) by exactly matching another fill-in-the-blank response with one celebrity panelist. Originally, the contestant chose the celebrity; later, the celebrity who played this match was determined by the Star Wheel. In the very start of the 70's series, Rayburn read the question before choosing a celebrity, but was changed after a few weeks. The contestant was instructed that their response must be an exact match, although singular/plural matches were usually accepted (whereas synonyms were not).Richard Dawson was the most frequently chosen celebrity in the 1970s version, as he had a knack for matching contestants often. The producers tried to discourage contestants from repeatedly choosing him, even before the introduction of the Star Wheel. In 1975, a rule was briefly imposed that a returning champion could not choose the same celebrity for the Head-To-Head Match chosen for their previous visit to the bonus round. However, this rule was dropped after six weeks.
Star Wheel
The Star Wheel was introduced in 1978 to determine which celebrity a contestant played with in the Head-To-Head Match. The wheel was divided into six equal sections, one for each celebrity. Each celebrity's section featured a bar with five gold stars in it, and if the wheel stopped in the starred area, the potential Head-To-Head Match payout was doubled. In 1979, each celebrity's section was modified to feature only three separately-divided sections, each featuring one gold star instead of the larger connected area with multiple stars.The wheel was added because contestants consistently kept choosing Richard Dawson for the Head-to-Head Match, and the producers wanted to ensure that other panelists had the chance to participate. Ironically, the first time the wheel was spun, it landed on Dawson, inspiring four of the panelists (including Dawson) to stand up from their places and leave the set momentarily out of disbelief.
A version of the Star Wheel was also used on the 1990 version of the show.
Ticket Plugs
Director Marc BreslowMarc Breslow
Marc Breslow is a former American television director, specializing in game shows for Mark Goodson Productions. Breslow was the director throughout the CBS and syndicated run of Match Game during the 1970s and early 1980s, and was the original director of the 1972 version of The Price Is...
used a technique in which two celebrities' and/or contestants' faces were combined while Johnny Olson
Johnny Olson
John Leonard "Johnny" Olson was an American radio personality and television announcer. His work spanned 32 game shows produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman from the late 1950s through the mid 1980s...
announced information on how to obtain tickets to a taping. This type of ticket plug debuted during the summer of 1975, but were much more common during the daily syndicated 1979–1982 version. Match Game PM did not feature ticket plugs.
Staffing and ratings
The 1973–1982 versions were produced by veteran Goodson-Todman producer Ira Skutch, who also wrote some questions and acted as on-stage judge. Marc Breslow directed, while Robert Sherman was associate producer and head writer.When CBS revamped Match Game in 1973 with more of a focus on risqué humor, ratings more than doubled in comparison with the NBC incarnation. Within eleven weeks, Match Game '73 was the most watched program on daytime television. By summer 1974, it grew into an absolute phenomenon with high school students and housewives, scoring remarkable ratings among the 12-34 age demographic. The best ratings this version of Match Game saw were in the 1975–1976 season when it drew a 12.5 rating with a 15 share, higher numbers than that of some prime-time series; this was due in part to the fact that it had been paired with The Price Is Right
The Price Is Right (U.S. game show)
The Price Is Right is an American game show which was created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Contestants compete to identify the pricing of merchandise to win cash and prizes. The show is well-known for its signature line of "Come on down!" when the announcer directs newly selected contestants to...
, a hit in its own right, during this time. It surpassed records as the most popular daytime program ever with a record 11 million daily viewers, one that held until the "Luke and Laura" supercouple
Supercouple
A supercouple or super couple is a popular or financially wealthy pairing that intrigues and fascinates the public in an intense or even obsessive fashion...
storyline gripped viewers on ABC's General Hospital
General Hospital
General Hospital is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the third longest running drama in television in American history after Guiding Light and As the World Turns....
some years later.
Every New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
, when the two-digit year designation in the Match Game sign was updated, there was a New Year
New Year
The New Year is the day that marks the time of the beginning of a new calendar year, and is the day on which the year count of the specific calendar used is incremented. For many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner....
's party with the cast and studio audience. Up to and including the 1977–1978 changeover, a new sign was built each year. Coinciding with a redesign of the set, a new sign was built with interchangeable digits that could be swapped as the years changed. Additionally, this sign allowed for a "PM" logo to be attached for tapings of the syndicated program instead of using an entirely different sign.
In 1976, the show's success, and celebrity panelist Richard Dawson's popularity, prompted Goodson-Todman to develop a new show for ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
entitled Family Feud
Family Feud
Family Feud is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Two families compete against each other in a contest to name the most popular responses to a survey question posed to 100 people...
with Dawson hosting. This show became a major hit in its own right, eventually surpassing the parent program. Feud was said to be based on Dawson's expertise on Match Games "Super-Match".
Meanwhile, Match kept its high standing in the ratings despite a short-lived move ahead one half-hour during summer and fall 1975. In late 1977, however, CBS made a fatal mistake regarding the show's time slot. Impressed with the ratings boon that resulted when Price and Match were paired in afternoons, CBS soon realized that in the morning slot that Price had left behind, they had a ratings crisis. CBS moved Match along with Price back to the morning time slot. However, because much of Matchs audience was composed of students who were in school at that time of day, ratings began to sag and eventually free fall; many of these students did not return. As a result, Family Feud quickly supplanted Match as television's highest-rated game show.
CBS attempted to correct the problem on December 19, 1977, with a scheduling shuffle among Match, Price, and Tattletales
Tattletales
Tattletales is a game show which first aired on the CBS daytime schedule on February 18, 1974. It was hosted by Bert Convy, with several announcers, including Jack Clark, Gene Wood, Johnny Olson and John Harlan, providing the voiceover at various times...
. In a move that turned out to do even more damage, the network moved Match to its 1960s timeslot of 4:00 PM, a time slot which by this point many local stations were preempting in favor of local or syndicated programming. As a result, Match Game was unable to get the audience it once did in the 1960s at 4:00.
1978 changes and cancellation
On June 28, 1978 the "pick a star" format used in the Head-to-Head Match was replaced with the "Star Wheel". While the show's top prize nearly doubled (partly to counter the high inflationInflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
of the era) and the new feature allowed more celebrities the chance to participate in the end game, it also eliminated what effectively was Richard Dawson's "spotlight" feature.
On July 19, a new Match Game set was built by CBS, changed from the original bright orange to a new set with blue and white colors, as well as revamping the logo from the curved letters to a straight-line lettering it would use for the rest of the run. This was mainly for convenience; with a new Match Game set and sign, a whole new sign no longer had to be built each year as had been done previously. An attachment designating the year was simply taken off the end of the revamped Match Game '78 sign and replaced with a new one numbered 79 on New Year's Eve 1978 (aired January 2, 1979) becoming Match Game '79. (An alternate attachment was used for Match Game PM.)
At 4:00 PM, the show trailed Feud, Price, and NBC's Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune (U.S. game show)
Wheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, which premiered in 1975. Contestants compete to solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a large wheel. The title refers to the show's giant carnival wheel that...
, and fell out of the top three game shows in 1979 for the first time in the CBS run (as opposed to a solid and twice top-3 hit in the 1960s). The 1,439th and final CBS episode aired on April 20, 1979however, the show did not air on April 5, causing the Friday episode from that week to air on April 9. The last nine aired episodes were culled together from three separate taping sessions, leaving six unaired. In addition, the last two weeks recorded went completely unaired. Match Game was replaced by Whew!
Whew!
Whew! is an American game show that aired on CBS from April 23, 1979, until May 30, 1980. It was hosted by Tom Kennedy and announced by Rod Roddy.The game was created by Jay Wolpert...
at 10:30 A.M., which required a move of The Price Is Right to 11:00 (the time slot where it remains to this day), which in turn required Love of Life
Love of Life
Love of Life is an American soap opera which aired on CBS Daytime from September 24, 1951 to February 1, 1980. It was created by Roy Winsor, whose previous creation Search for Tomorrow had premiered three weeks before Love of Life, and who would go on to create The Secret Storm two and a half years...
to move from 11:30 to 4:00.
Weekly syndicated version: Match Game PM (1975–1981)
On September 8, 1975 the first syndicated version, a weekly nighttime series dubbed Match Game PM, premiered. The series, sold to many ABC affiliates (including the network's owned and operated stations such as WABCWABC-TV
WABC-TV, channel 7, is the flagship station of the Disney-owned American Broadcasting Company located in New York City. The station's studios and offices are located on the Upper West Side section of Manhattan, adjacent to ABC's corporate headquarters, and its transmitter is atop the Empire State...
in New York), was produced by Goodson-Todman and distributed by Jim Victory Television, G-T's syndication partner for Concentration
Concentration (game show)
Concentration was an American TV game show based on the children's memory game of the same name. Matching cards represented prizes that contestants could win...
.
Match Game PM was designed to be self-contained, the first version of the game to have that distinction. The front game was originally played the same way as the daytime Match Game with two rounds of questions, but beginning in September 1976 a third round of questioning was added to fill time in the half-hour. The maximum score a contestant could achieve remained six points, with matched celebrities not playing subsequent questions.
Tiebreakers were conducted differently than on the daytime version. A "Super-Match"-style question was asked, and the contestants wrote down their answers, then called on celebrities for a match. Until Dawson's departure in 1978, only the three regular panelists (Sommers, Reilly and Dawson) played in the tiebreaker, but afterwards all six celebrities were used.
Match Game PMs Super-Match used two Audience Matches, with the answer values combined and multiplied by ten for the Head-to-Head Match, with a maximum of $11,000 available. When the Star Wheel was introduced, that potential payout grew to $21,000 if a contestant spun a double. On the only episode when a contestant did not score in either Audience Match, she was given the opportunity to play a consolation question using the front-game format for $100 per match, and won the maximum $600.
Match Game PM ran until the end of the 1980–1981 TV season. For its last two seasons, the show's affiliate count went down significantly due in large part to a daily syndicated version that debuted in September 1979 (although some markets, like New York, kept both shows on the air as WABC-TV continued to air episodes of Match Game PM into its final season). The show aired 230 episodes over six seasons, and remains the longest-running version to air in syndication.
(The) Match Game (1979–1982, daily syndication)
After the cancellation of Match Game '79, there was still enough interest in the series for Goodson-Todman and Jim Victory Television to consider a continuation of the daily series in syndication as the weekly Match Game PM was still airing and had not stopped production. The consideration eventually came to fruition as a daily syndicated Match Game, without a year attached and often referred to on air as The Match Game, debuted on September 10, 1979.The rules and gameplay were the same as before, including the Star Wheel Bonus, but the format was altered slightly. Each contestant on this version of Match Game played a two-game match against another contestant, and the Super Match was played after each game. As on Match Game PM, a contestant did not win any money for winning the game. There were also no returning champions on the daily syndicated series, as two new contestants began each match.
The maximum payout for a contestant was $21,000 (two $500 Audience Matches and two $10,000 Head-To-Head Match wins), the same its syndicated sister series Match Game PM was offering during this time.
For the first two seasons Bill Daily
Bill Daily
Bill Daily is an American comedian and dramatic actor, and a veteran of many television sitcoms. He is best known for playing astronaut Roger Healey on I Dream of Jeannie and commercial airline navigator Howard Borden in The Bob Newhart Show.-Biography:Daily's father died when Bill was very...
, Dick Martin
Dick Martin (comedian)
Thomas Richard "Dick" Martin was an American comedian and director, best known for his role as the cohost of the sketch comedy program Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973.-Early life and career:...
, Richard Paul
Richard Paul
Richard Paul was an American actor.He was born in Los Angeles, California. He was able to imitate most American and many foreign dialects. He had a tenor voice and trained with Lee Sweetland....
, and Bob Barker
Bob Barker
Robert William "Bob" Barker is a former American television game show host. He is best known for hosting CBS's The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007, making it the longest-running daytime game show in North American television history, and for hosting Truth or Consequences from 1956 to 1975.Born...
were among the male semi-regulars who filled Dawson's old spot on the panel. McLean Stevenson
McLean Stevenson
Edgar McLean Stevenson, Jr. , better known as McLean Stevenson, was an American actor most recognized for his role as Lt. Colonel Henry Blake on the TV series M*A*S*H...
, who had done so once in September 1978 and twice near the end of the second year of this version, appeared in nearly all of Season Three (1981–1982) and became a regular from the eleventh taped week through the end of the run.
The fee plugs which had aired in the middle of the show on the CBS version were featured during the closing credits. The ticket plugs were now shown on every episode. Each ticket plug had two people's faces merged into one image by putting a man's face on a woman's head, putting a mustache on a woman's face, or putting a pair of red lips on a man's face or simply putting two halves of the faces together. The 1990 ABC version used a similar sequence to introduce the stars.
The syndicated Match Game helped exacerbate the perception of the 4:00 PM time slot being a "death slot" for network programming. After CBS cancelled Match Game '79, the network moved the long-running soap opera Love of Life
Love of Life
Love of Life is an American soap opera which aired on CBS Daytime from September 24, 1951 to February 1, 1980. It was created by Roy Winsor, whose previous creation Search for Tomorrow had premiered three weeks before Love of Life, and who would go on to create The Secret Storm two and a half years...
into the vacant timeslot. Although the syndicated Match Game was not a direct cause of the ratings problems Love of Life facedthe 4:00 PM timeslot, the last network daytime slot, had been a problem for CBS, NBC, and ABC for years and Love of Life had seen a precipitous drop in ratings since the April 1979 move to the late afternoonmany stations ran the syndicated series against the veteran soap opera and, in the case of some CBS affiliates and owned-and-operated stations, preempted Love of Life in favor of the new Match Game. (Love of Life aired its final episode on February 1, 1980, twenty-one weeks after the debut of the new Match Game.)
The daytime syndicated show produced 525 episodes, running until September 10, 1982exactly three years after its debut.
MG's 1973–1982 run was taped in Studio 33 at CBS Television City
CBS Television City
CBS Television City is a television studio complex located in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles at 7800 Beverly Boulevard, at the corner of North Fairfax Avenue...
in Los Angeles, except for one week of shows in 1974 in which it was shot in Studio 41.
The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour (1983–1984, NBC)
In 1983, producer Mark GoodsonMark Goodson
Mark Goodson was an American television producer who specialized in game shows.-Life and early career:...
teamed up with Orion Television (who had recently acquired the rights to Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. 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...
) and NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
to create The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour
Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour
The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour is an American television game show that combined two long-running game shows of the 1960s and 1970s – Match Game and Hollywood Squares – into an hour-long format....
. Rayburn, after a year as a morning show host in New York, agreed to return as host. However, few of the regular Squares cast appeared on this version. Jon Bauman
Jon Bauman
Jon "Bowzer" Bauman is an American musician, best known as a member of the band Sha Na Na, and game show host. Bauman's popular Sha Na Na character, "Bowzer" Jon "Bowzer" Bauman (born September 14, 1947 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American musician, best known as a member of the band Sha Na Na,...
("Sha Na Na") served as the lone regular panelist on this version, and the two swapped seats for Hollywood Squares with Bauman serving as host and Rayburn as the lower-left-hand square. Gene Wood
Gene Wood
Eugene Edward "Gene" Wood was an American television personality, known primarily for his work as an announcer on various game shows. From the 1960s to the 1990s, he announced many game shows, primarily Mark Goodson–Bill Todman productions such as Family Feud, Card Sharks, Password, and Beat the...
served as announcer, with Johnny Olson and Rich Jeffries
Rich Jeffries
Rich Jeffries is a former American television announcer, who announced on the revival of Blockbusters in 1987.Jeffries also was the first announcer of Super Password until November 23, 1984, and would substitute sporadically afterwards, while regularly assisting main announcer Gene Wood in warming...
substituting.
These rules were roughly the same as those of Match Game PM with both contestants given three chances apiece to match each panelist once. The major difference was in the tie-breaker. Four possible answers to a Super Match-like statement (example: "_____, New Jersey") were secretly shown to the contestants (examples: "Atlantic City", "Hoboken", "Newark", "Trenton"). They each chose one by number. The host then polled the celebrities for verbal responses. The first panelist to give an answer selected by one of the contestants won the game for that contestant. The winner of the Match Game segment played the returning champion in the Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. 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...
segment with the eventual winner of Squares playing the Super-Match. The Audience Match featured payoffs of $1,000, $500 and $250, while non-matching contestants were given $100. For the Head-To-Head Match the contestant picked a celebrity who revealed a hidden number (10, 20 or 30); that number was multiplied by the contestant's Audience Match winnings to determine the grand prize ($30,000 being the top possible amount). Champions remained on the program for up to five days unless defeated.
The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour ran from October 31, 1983 to July 27, 1984. Several music cues from the program are still used today as background music during prize descriptions on The Price Is Right.
Match Game (1990–1991, ABC)
In 1989, ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, which had not carried a daytime game show since Bargain Hunters
Bargain Hunters
Bargain Hunters is a game show that aired on ABC in the summer of 1987, hosted by Peter Tomarken, which combined elements of The Price Is Right with home shopping. The show was canceled after nine weeks and replaced by reruns of Mr. Belvedere....
in 1987, revived Match Game. The producers (including Jonathan Goodson
Jonathan Goodson
Jonathan Michael Goodson is an American television producer who specializes in game shows. He is the son of legendary game show producer Mark Goodson and began his television career in 1973 as chief counsel of Goodson-Todman Productions. He later produced several of the company's shows...
, who took over the show at this time) selected Bert Convy
Bert Convy
Bernard Whalen "Bert" Convy was an Emmy Award winning American actor, singer, game show host and panelist known for his tenure as the host for Tattletales, Super Password, and Win, Lose or Draw.-Early life:...
, a former Match Game panelist in the early days of the program, as host. Convy filmed a full week of pilots for the show, but in April 1990 (three months before the show was scheduled to premiere) was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor
Brain tumor
A brain tumor is an intracranial solid neoplasm, a tumor within the brain or the central spinal canal.Brain tumors include all tumors inside the cranium or in the central spinal canal...
and forced to relinquish hosting duties. (Convy died from the tumor on July 15, 1991, three days after Match Game ended its run on ABC.)
Among those considered to replace Convy was Gene Rayburn, who had just finished The Movie Masters
The Movie Masters
The Movie Masters was an American television game show which ran from August 2, 1989 to January 19, 1990. It was the last game show hosted by Gene Rayburn and aired as filler programming on the American Movie Classics cable network....
for AMC and had expressed interest in returning. The producers were uninterested in the 72-year-old original Match Game host, however, and chose stand-up comedian and former Late Show
The Late Show (1986 TV series)
The Late Show is an American late-night talk show and the first series broadcast on the then-new Fox Network. Originally hosted by comic actress Joan Rivers, it first aired on October 9, 1986 under the title The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers...
host Ross Shafer
Ross Shafer
Ross Shafer is a comedian and television host turned motivational and customer service speaker/trainer, based in Carlsbad, California. Although he now splits time in Nashville, Tennessee, where his wife Leah has an aspiring singing career.-Biography:Shafer graduated from Federal Way High School in...
as Convy's replacement. Charles Nelson Reilly
Charles Nelson Reilly
Charles Nelson Reilly was an American actor, comedian, director and drama teacher known for his comedic roles in theater, movies, children's television, animated cartoons, and as a panelist on the game show Match Game....
returned as a regular panelist and Brett Somers
Brett Somers
Brett Somers was a American actress, singer, and comedienne who was born in Canada and raised in Maine...
served as a guest panelist for several weeks. Vicki Lawrence
Vicki Lawrence
Vicki Lawrence is an American actress, comedienne, and Billboard Hot 100 #1 singer, who was frequently a game show panelist in the 1970s and 1980s...
, Sally Struthers
Sally Struthers
Sally Ann Struthers is an American actress and spokeswoman, best-known for her roles as Gloria Stivic on All in the Family, for which she won two Emmy awards, and as Babette on Gilmore Girls.-Personal life:...
, Brad Garrett
Brad Garrett
Bradley "Brad" Garrett is an American actor, voice actor, stand-up comedian, and professional poker player. Throughout he has appeared in numerous television and film roles....
, Bill Kirchenbauer
Bill Kirchenbauer
Bill Kirchenbauer is an American actor and stand-up comic who has appeared in television shows and films since the 1970s...
, and Ronn Lucas
Ronn Lucas
Ronn Lucas is an American ventriloquist and stand-up comedian.Lucas grew up in El Paso, Texas and was graduated from Eastwood High School in 1972. He began his career performing at Saint Timothy's Lutheran church located in El Paso, Texas. He has received many accolades for his work, including...
were among the semi-regulars for this version of the show. Gene Wood
Gene Wood
Eugene Edward "Gene" Wood was an American television personality, known primarily for his work as an announcer on various game shows. From the 1960s to the 1990s, he announced many game shows, primarily Mark Goodson–Bill Todman productions such as Family Feud, Card Sharks, Password, and Beat the...
returned as announcer, with Bob Hilton
Bob Hilton
Robert "Bob" Wesley Hilton is an American television game show personality. He hosted The Guinness Game, a revival of Truth or Consequences and the 1990 revival of Let's Make a Deal, and announced on several other shows....
filling in for one week.
On this version, matches were worth money instead of points. Each match during the two Match Game rounds was worth $50. All panelists played both questions for each contestant, regardless of whether they matched in the first round.
After each round of questions, contestants were given a chance to build their scores further by playing a new round called "Match-Up!" with a panelist of their choice. This was a rapid-fire series of Super Match-style questions, each having two possible answer choices, and the round was played similar to the Head-to-Head Match. The contestant was shown both potential answer choices and secretly chose one. The question choices were then revealed to the celebrity, who made their own choice; the contestant won money if both answers matched. Both Match-Up! rounds were played to a time limit; the first round was played for 30 seconds and each match was worth $50, while the second was played for 45 seconds with $100 earned for each match. Whoever had the most money at the end of the second Match-Up! round won the game and kept the money; the loser went away with parting gifts and prior winnings if they were a returning champion.
The Super Match was played identically to the 1978–1982 version of the round. Originally, the payoffs of $500–$250–$100 for the Audience Match were identical to the CBS version's payoff structure, but changed after three weeks to $500–$300–$200. Unlike the 1970s Match Game and its syndicated counterparts, a contestant was not eliminated from the Head-to-Head Match if an answer did not appear on the Audience Match board. Instead, the contestant was allowed to play for a minimum of $500 as a consolation; this was doubled to $1000 once the payoff structure for the Audience Match was changed.
Once the contestant's Audience Match winnings were determined they then faced the Star Wheel to determine the stake for the Head-to-Head Match, with a maximum amount of $10,000 available. The Star Wheel round was slightly modified for this Match Game seriesinstead of spinning the wheel itself, the contestant spun a green arrow, and instead of three stars underneath each panelist's name there were two red dots. The red dots served the same purpose as the stars, meaning that if the arrow landed on one of them the contestant's Head-to-Head Match stake would be doubled. Otherwise, play was the same as before: the contestant and panelist had to match exactly in order to win the Super Match. Champions on the ABC version could remain for up to five days.
Because many ABC stations in major Eastern Time markets carried local news at 12:00 Noon, the show was mostly seen in smaller markets and on independent stations in some larger markets without network clearances, and was canceled after one season. A proposed move to another network (rumored to be CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
) for the 1991–1992 season had been announced on the finale, but never materialized. Match Game has the distinction of being ABC's last daytime game show to date.
Match Game (1998–1999, daily syndication)
Michael BurgerMichael Burger
Michael Burger is an American actor and game show host. He is best known for hosting the game show, Match Game, and co-hosting the 1994 ABC talk show Mike and Maty...
was chosen as host of this revived version of the show, while Paul Boland
Paul Boland
Paul Boland is a singer and impressionist who was also once a game show announcer for the 1998 revival of Match Game. He also filled in for announcer Rod Roddy on The Price Is Right for a week in 2002 during Roddy's cancer operations...
served as its announcer. The only celebrity guests who had appeared on previous versions of the show were Vicki Lawrence
Vicki Lawrence
Vicki Lawrence is an American actress, comedienne, and Billboard Hot 100 #1 singer, who was frequently a game show panelist in the 1970s and 1980s...
(who appeared on two weeks of the 1970's version and regularly on the 1990–1991 version) and Nell Carter
Nell Carter
Nell Carter was an American singer, and film, stage, and television actress. She won a Tony Award for her performance in the Broadway musical Ain't Misbehavin, as well as an Emmy Award for her reprisal of the role on television...
(who had appeared on the final week in 1991). The regular panelists on this version were Carter, Lawrence, and Judy Tenuta
Judy Tenuta
Judy Tenuta is an American entertainer, actress, comedienne, author, producer and accordionist.-Early life:...
, and semi-regulars were George Hamilton
George Hamilton (actor)
George Stevens Hamilton is an American film and television actor.-Early life:Hamilton was the youngest son of bandleader George "Spike" Hamilton and his first wife, Ann Stevens . He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and lived in Blytheville, Arkansas...
, John Salley
John Salley
John Thomas "Spider" Salley is a retired American professional basketball player, actor and talk show host. He was the first player in NBA history to play on three different championship-winning franchises....
, Coolio
Coolio
Artis Leon Ivey Jr. , better known by the stage name Coolio, is an American musician, rapper, actor and record producer.-Late 80s:He recorded two singles in the late 80s, titled "Watcha Gonna Do" and "You're Gonna Miss Me"...
, and Rondell Sheridan
Rondell Sheridan
Rondell Jerome Sheridan is an American actor, comedian and television director, best known for his seven-year portrayal of Victor Baxter, the goofy-yet-lovable father of a psychic teenager, in the Disney Channel sitcoms That's So Raven and Cory in the House. Sheridan is an alumnus of Marquette...
. Production returned to Studio 33 at CBS Television City on this version.
This incarnation of Match Game was played with rules nearly identical to that of the 1973–1982 versions with a few minor exceptions. The show featured a panel of only five celebrities instead of the usual six. Questions in this version were not labeled A or B, instead titles with puns were a clue as to the content (à la Win Ben Stein's Money
Win Ben Stein's Money
Win Ben Stein's Money is an American television game show that ran from July 28, 1997 to January 31, 2003 on the Comedy Central cable network with episodes airing until May 8, 2003. It featured three contestants who competed in a general knowledge quiz contest to win the grand prize of $5,000 from...
). Each match was worth one point in Round One and two points in Round Two. As on the 1990–1991 version, all five panelists played each round regardless of whether they matched a contestant on the first question.
After two rounds, the highest scorer played the Super-Match, which was played identically to its 1973–1978 incarnation, including the $5,000 top prize. If no match was made in the Audience Match portion of the Super-Match, the contestant played for $500 in the Head-To-Head Match.
This version was noted for its sometimes over-the-top risqué humor of the celebrities and contestants. For instance, the prohibition on answers such as genitalia was no longer existent. On many episodes, answers that were deemed inappropriate for daytime TV were edited out with a "cuckoo" dubbed over the audible answer and a "CENSORED" graphic over the answer card and sometimes the person's mouth.
While Burger generally received positive reviews for his hosting, the series was mostly panned. Its humor was seen to have crossed the line from risqué into the out-and-out dirty and many stations pushed it into late-night slots. Its low budget and lack of returning champions (staples of several modern game shows) were also focal points for criticism. This was especially since two of the previous three versions to air all featured returning champions and offered cash prizes well in excess of $10,000 in an era when purchasing power was roughly twice that of 1998.
This version lasted one season, running from September 21, 1998 to September 17, 1999.
Gameshow Marathon (2006, CBS)
On June 22, 2006 Match Game was the sixth of seven classic game shows featured in CBS' month-long Gameshow Marathon hosted by Ricki LakeRicki Lake
Ricki Pamela Lake is an American actress, producer, and television host. She is best known for her starring role as Tracy Turnblad in the original Hairspray, her ground-breaking documentary film The Business of Being Born, and her talk show which was broadcasted internationally from...
and announced by Rich Fields
Rich Fields
Richard Wayne "Rich" Fields is an American broadcaster, spokesman, announcer and meteorologist, best known for being the announcer of the American version of The Price Is Right from 2004–2010....
, and the second of two "semi-final" games in the tournament. The contestants were Kathy Najimy
Kathy Najimy
Kathy Ann Najimy is an American actress, most notable as Olive Massery on the television series Veronica's Closet, Sister Mary Patrick in Sister Act and the voice of Peggy Hill on the animated television series King of the Hill. Prior to her film work, she was best known for two Off Broadway shows...
and Lance Bass
Lance Bass
James Lance Bass , best known as Lance Bass, is an American pop singer, dancer, actor, film and television producer, and author. He grew up in Mississippi and rose to fame as the bass singer for the American pop boy band 'N Sync. 'N Sync's success led Bass to work in film and television...
with Betty White
Betty White
Betty White Ludden , better known as Betty White, is an American actress, comedienne, singer, author, and former game show personality. With a career spanning seven decades since 1939, she is best known to modern audiences for her television roles as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and...
, George Foreman
George Foreman
George Edward Foreman is an American two-time former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Olympic gold medalist, ordained Baptist minister, author and successful entrepreneur...
, Kathy Griffin
Kathy Griffin
Kathleen Mary "Kathy" Griffin is an American actress, stand-up comedienne, television personality, New York Times best-selling author and an LGBT rights advocate. Griffin first gained recognition for appearances on two episodes of Seinfeld, and then for her supporting role on the NBC sitcom...
, Bruce Vilanch
Bruce Vilanch
Bruce Vilanch is an American comedy writer, songwriter and actor. He is a six-time Emmy Award-winner Vilanch is best known to the public for his four-year stint on Hollywood Squares, as a celebrity participant; in the entertainment industry he is best known as head writer for the show...
, Adam Carolla
Adam Carolla
Adam Carolla is an American radio personality, television host, comedian, and actor. He currently hosts The Adam Carolla Show, a talk show distributed as a podcast on the ACE Broadcasting Network...
, and Adrianne Curry as the panel. White retained her normal sixth-seat position and was the only one from the original series to appear for this segment of Gameshow Marathon.
Lake used the same signature long-thin Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
ECM-51 telescoping microphone Rayburn used during the CBS version, and the set was rebuilt to be almost an exact match of that used from 1973–1978. Najimy won the game, scoring five matches to Bass' three.
The format was that of Match Game PM, except that in the Super-Match the Head-To-Head Match was played for 50 times the amount won in the two Audience Matches ($50,000), which was won.
The set was repackaged and sent to Studio 33 for the taping of the failed Match Game revival for TBS (see below).
1962–1969
Only 11 episodes are reported to survivethe pilot and ten kinescopeKinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
recordings. Other sources report that there are 100 or more kinescope recordings still in existence. As the show was originally broadcast live from New York, most episodes were not recorded for posterity. The Paley Center for Media holds nine episodes as black-and-white kinescopes and one color episode (from 1969, and presumably also a kinescope).
In 1965, The Match Game began to be produced on color videotape; however, none of the tapes are known to have survived the wiping
Wiping
Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...
and re-use procedures of NBC during that period as none of the surviving episodes is in color.
1973–1982
All three versions that aired during this period are presumed to be intact, and currently air on GSN. GSN has also aired all 16 episodes that were recorded in 1979 but not aired by CBS at the time.1983–1984
All episodes are intact, but due to cross-ownershipCBS Television DistributionCBS Television Distribution
CBS Television Distribution is a global television distribution company, formed from the merger of CBS Corporation's two domestic television distribution arms CBS Paramount Domestic Television and King World Productions, including its home entertainment arm CBS Home Entertainment...
owns the rights to Hollywood Squares (at the time of MGHS it was owned by Orion Television
Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures Corporation was an American independent production company that produced movies from 1978 until 1998. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and three former top-level executives of United Artists. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion...
) while FremantleMedia
FremantleMedia
FremantleMedia, Ltd. is the content and production division of Bertelsmann's RTL Group, Europe's second largest TV, radio, and production company...
owns Match Gamehas never been rerun.
1990–1991
All episodes of this version are intact, along with all five Convy pilots. GSN aired this version as recently as 2004, and the VH1 miniseries Game Show Moments Gone BananasGame Show Moments Gone Bananas
Game Show Moments Gone Bananas is a television series on VH1. The first of five hour-long episodes aired on May 21, 2005 with the last first-run episode airing on June 18. Each episode aired for the first time on Saturday mornings at 11:30 ET, but "officially" premiered at 10:00 PM that night.The...
aired a clip from a Convy pilot, as well as a clip with Ross Shafer.
1998–1999
The series is intact; however, it has not been rerun. Brief clips have been seen on various game-show blooper specials.1985
Plans were made to re-launch Match Game as a stand-alone series in daily syndication in conjunction with the revival of the nighttime version of The Price Is Right. Rayburn was once again to serve as host, but he had already committed to Break the Bank at the time, and was unavailable. The project was postponed, and reruns from the 1979–1982 daily series aired instead.1987
Rayburn was fired from Break the Bank after 13 weeks and several disputes with the producers, and by late 1986 was once again available. The January 19, 1987 issue of Broadcasting & Cable featured a trade advertisement promoting another five-day-a-week revival attempt in syndication, again with Rayburn as host. The advertisement featured a red-colored version of the 1978–1982 logo and was promoted as featuring "the biggest names in entertainment" plus "big cash prizes".However, around this time Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight is a daily tabloid television entertainment television news show that is syndicated by CBS Television Distribution throughout the United States, Canada and in many countries around the world. Linda Bell Blue is currently the program's executive producer...
allegedly reported that Rayburn was 70 years old; he was in fact only 69, however this was still several years older than most producers thought he was. With this, plus his production feuds on Break the Bank and The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour still relatively recent, the revival project was scrapped.
After this incident, Rayburn hosted only one more seriesAMC's The Movie Masters
The Movie Masters
The Movie Masters was an American television game show which ran from August 2, 1989 to January 19, 1990. It was the last game show hosted by Gene Rayburn and aired as filler programming on the American Movie Classics cable network....
, which ran from August 2, 1989 to January 19, 1990. Rayburn claimed that the leaking of his age subjected him to age discrimination for the rest of his life.
Match Game 2 (1996)
A pilot was shot in September 1996 at KTLAKTLA
KTLA, virtual channel 5, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, USA. Owned by the Tribune Company, KTLA is an affiliate of the CW Television Network. KTLA's studios are on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson...
Studios in California for a revised version called Match Game 2 with Charlene Tilton
Charlene Tilton
Charlene L. Tilton is an American actress and singer. She is best known for playing Lucy Ewing in the television series Dallas.-Career:...
(a panelist on the 1979–1982 version) as host. The panel for this show included Downtown Julie Brown
Downtown Julie Brown
Julie Dorne Brown, also known as Downtown Julie Brown , is an English actress and former MTV VJ.Of mixed race, Brown's father, Valentine Brown, was Jamaican and her mother, Doreen, is white...
, David Chokachi
David Chokachi
David Chokachi is an American television actor. He's best known for his role in the TV series Witchblade, Baywatch, and Beyond The Break. His father is Turkish and his mother is Finnish.-Early life:He attended Tabor Academy, an elite boarding prep school in Marion, Massachusetts...
, Gil Gerard
Gil Gerard
Gilbert C. "Gil" Gerard is an American actor. He is most famous for his role as Captain William "Buck" Rogers in the 1979-1981 television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.-Early life:...
, Rondell Sheridan
Rondell Sheridan
Rondell Jerome Sheridan is an American actor, comedian and television director, best known for his seven-year portrayal of Victor Baxter, the goofy-yet-lovable father of a psychic teenager, in the Disney Channel sitcoms That's So Raven and Cory in the House. Sheridan is an alumnus of Marquette...
, and Kathleen Kinmont
Kathleen Kinmont
Kathleen Kinmont is an American actress who starred in film and on television. Kinmont is perhaps best known for starring in horror movies.-Career:...
.
The format featured gameplay not used in any other version:
- Instead of celebrities writing answers and contestants providing verbal responses, MG2 switched the roles, similar to the tiebreaker in Match Game PM.
- A "Panel Poll" took the place of the Head-To-Head Match in the Super-Match. Each celebrity was given a choice of three adjectives, and the contestant guessed who picked what at $100 per match. This was done twice, after which the Audience Match was played.
- In the Audience Match, instead of having the third, second, and most popular answers worth money, they each multiplied the contestant's earnings. The third most popular response doubled the "Panel Poll" winnings, the second most popular tripled their winnings, and the most popular multiplied their winnings by five for a top prize of $5,000.
Many elements of this pilot, such as a change from a six celebrities to five, were kept in for a second pilot shot a year later with Michael Burger as host.
What The Blank! (2004, FOX)
Vanity FairVanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
and TVgameshows.net reported in May 2004 that a pilot called What the Blank! was taped for FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
and hosted by Fred Willard
Fred Willard
Fred Willard is an American actor, comedian, and voice over actor, best known for his improvisational comedy skills. He is known for his roles in the Christopher Guest mockumentary films This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration as well as...
for air during the Summer 2004 "off" season.
It was said that the game was an incorporation of 21st-Century elements into the classic game as well as an added feature that people from along the streets would be able to participate for matching with contestants and celebrities in Street Smarts
Street Smarts (game show)
Street Smarts was a United States game show that features two in-studio contestants trying to predict the outcome of interviews of people that were found on the street. The show aired in syndication from October 2, 2000 to September 23, 2005, hosted by Frank Nicotero.A French-Canadian version, Les...
-style.
FOX abruptly canceled the series before the show made it to air; the status of any episodes produced is unknown.
2008 proposed revival (TBS)
TBSTBS (TV channel)
TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...
commissioned a pilot for a revived Match Game as part of an overhaul of its late night television
Late night television
Late night television in the United States is the block of television programming airing after 11:00 pm and usually through 2:00 am. Traditionally, this type of programming airs after the late local news and is most notable for being the daypart used for a particular genre of programming that falls...
programming. On June 21, 2008, Andrew Daly
Andrew Daly
Andrew "Andy" Daly is an American actor, comedian and writer best known for playing Principal Terrence Cutler in the HBO comedy series Eastbound & Down.-Early life:Daly was born in Mount Kisco, New York and raised in New Jersey...
hosted a pilot episode with Sarah Silverman
Sarah Silverman
Sarah Kate Silverman is a Jewish American comedian, writer, actress, singer and musician. Her satirical comedy addresses social taboos and controversial topics such as racism, sexism, and religion....
and Norm Macdonald
Norm MacDonald
Norman Gene "Norm" Macdonald is a Canadian stand-up comedian, writer and actor. He is best known for his five seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, which included anchoring Weekend Update for three years...
among the panelists, using the Gameshow Marathon episode's set. TBS eventually passed on the project in favor of Lopez Tonight
Lopez Tonight
Lopez Tonight was an American late-night television talk show hosted by comedian George Lopez. The hour-long program premiered on November 9, 2009, on cable network TBS. Lopez was the first Mexican American to host a late-night talk show on an English-language network in the United States. The...
.
Reruns
The 1973–1982 incarnations are shown in reruns daily on Game Show NetworkGame Show Network
The Game Show Network is an American cable television and direct broadcast satellite channel dedicated to game shows and casino game shows. The channel was launched on December 1, 1994. Its current slogan is "The World Needs More Winners"...
. Virtually all episodes of this version are still extant, although some reportedly are not shown due to celebrities' refusals of clearances. On November 26, 2006 the network broadcast an hour-long documentary titled The Real Match Game Story: Behind The Blank featuring rarely-seen footage of the 1960s version, many odd or memorable moments from the main 1973–1982 runs, plus interviews with Rayburn, Somers, Dawson, DeBartolo, producer Ira Skutch, and others involved in the show's production.
The 1990 version has also had runs on GSN, most recently throughout 2002-2004. The 1998 version has never been rerun.
Music
Match Game featured several theme songs throughout its various runs. From 1962–1967, Bert KaempfertBert Kaempfert
Bert Kaempfert was a German orchestra leader and songwriter. He made easy listening and jazz-oriented records, and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, such as "Strangers in the Night" and "Spanish Eyes".-Biography:He was born in Hamburg, Germany - where he received his lifelong...
's instrumental A Swingin' Safari
A Swingin' Safari
A Swingin' Safari is an instrumental composed by Bert Kaempfert in 1962. It was recorded by Kaempfert on Polydor Records and released in the United States on Decca Records. It was also recorded by Billy Vaughn whose version became a bigger hit in the U.S. where it reached #13 on the Billboard...
was used as the theme; a slightly different rendition (Billy Vaughn
Billy Vaughn
Richard "Billy" Vaughn was an American singer, multi-instrumentalist, orchestra leader, and A&R man for Dot Records....
's cover of the same song) was used on the pilot. From 1967–1969, a new theme composed by Score Productions
Score Productions
Score Productions is an American musical production company specializing in background music and themes for television programs. Started in 1963 by music producer Robert A...
was used.
When the program returned in 1973, Goodson-Todman once again turned to Score Productions for a music package. A new theme, which was titled "The Midnight Four", was composed by Score staff composer Ken Bichel with a memorable "funk" guitar intro, and similar elements and instruments from this theme were also featured in the numerous "think cues" heard when the panel wrote down their answers. Alternate think cues were extracted from the music packages for Tattletales
Tattletales
Tattletales is a game show which first aired on the CBS daytime schedule on February 18, 1974. It was hosted by Bert Convy, with several announcers, including Jack Clark, Gene Wood, Johnny Olson and John Harlan, providing the voiceover at various times...
and The Money Maze. In keeping with the zany atmosphere, the music supervisors also used other notable musical works to add to humorous situations. Among the non-Score Productions music heard on occasion was the "burlesque" music titled "The Stripper
The Stripper
"The Stripper" is an instrumental composed by David Rose and recorded in 1962. It evinces a jazz influence with especially prominent trombone lines, and evokes the feel of music used to accompany striptease artists....
". The alternate theme is heard today on the WFLZ version of The MJ Morning Show
The MJ Morning Show
"The MJ Morning Show" is a morning radio show that originates from 93.3 FLZ in Tampa, FL and is also broadcast in cities such as St. Louis, Jacksonville, and Melbourne. The show was previously known as "The MJ and BJ Morning Show" until former cohost BJ Harris left the show...
The music for The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour was composed by Edd Kalehoff
Edd Kalehoff
Edward Woodley "Edd" Kalehoff is a music composer who specializes in compositions for television.-Notable pieces:Composer of about 1,000 pieces, mainly for television, his credits include the majority of cues used on The Price is Right as well as the Nickelodeon game show Double Dare, a music...
. None of the music used from the 1970s version was used in this version. The main theme song and several of its cue variations are still used on The Price Is Right.
In 1990, Bichel re-orchestrated his 1970s theme with more modern instruments with new think cues (with the classic intro/think cue re-orchestrated). The 1998 version again used music from Score Productions.
United Kingdom
In the UK, Match Game was known as Blankety BlankBlankety Blank
Blankety Blank is a British comedy game show based on the 1977–1978 Australian game show Blankety Blanks ....
and was presented by Terry Wogan
Terry Wogan
Sir Michael Terence Wogan, KBE, DL , or also known as Terry Wogan, is a veteran Irish radio and television broadcaster who holds dual Irish and British citizenship. Wogan has worked for the BBC in the United Kingdom for most of his career...
, Les Dawson
Les Dawson
Leslie "Les" Dawson was a popular English comedian remembered for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife.-Life and career:...
, and Lily Savage.
Australia
Several versions were made in Australia. The original 1960s The Match Game was imitated, with the same name, and hosted by Michael McCarthy.The second, more commonly-known version was Blankety Blanks
Blankety Blanks
Blankety Blanks was a popular Australian game show based on the American game show Match Game. It was hosted by Graham Kennedy on Network Ten. It ran from 1977-1978.Regular panelists were Ugly Dave Gray, Noeline Brown, Carol Raye and Stuart Wagstaff...
and based upon the 1970s version, running from 1977–1978. It was presented by Graham Kennedy
Graham Kennedy
Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO was an Australian radio, television and film performer, often called Gra Gra and The King of Australian television.-Childhood:...
and became a ratings hit for Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
. Like many Australian game shows during the 1970s–1990s (mostly those done by Reg Grundy
Reg Grundy
Reginald Roy "Reg" Grundy, AC, OBE is one of the most successful Australian entrepreneurs, and media and television moguls of his generation.He was the only child born to Roy Grundy and Lillian Lees...
) this version was remarkably similar to the American show right down to the set, "spinning box" opening, and "Get ready to match the stars!" tagline. The signature music from the American version was not used, however, but was instead replaced by original tracks that were very similar.
A later version appeared on the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
in 1985 hosted by Daryl Somers
Daryl Somers
Daryl Paul Somers OAM , is an Australian television personality. The son of a dairy farmer and a cabaret singer, Somers rose to national fame as the host of the long-running comedy-variety program Hey Hey It's Saturday.-Early life:Somers, who has an Irish Catholic heritage, was educated at...
, and again in 1996 hosted by Shane Bourne
Shane Bourne
Shane Bourne is an Australian stand-up comedian, actor and a television host.-1980's / 1990's:...
.
(This show is not to be confused with an unrelated American show by the same name
Blankety Blanks (US game show)
Blankety Blanks is an American game show that aired on ABC from April 21 to June 27, 1975. This Bob Stewart Production starred Bill Cullen as its host with Bob Clayton announcing.-Gameplay:...
, which aired on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and was hosted by Bill Cullen
Bill Cullen
William Lawrence Francis "Bill" Cullen was an American radio and television personality whose career spanned five decades...
in 1975.)
The Netherlands
The Netherlands also had its own version during the mid-1980s with the same title as the UK version.Germany
Match Game had a 150-episode run as Punkt, Punkt, Punkt (Dot, Dot, Dot–an allusion to an ellipsisEllipsis
Ellipsis is a series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word, sentence or whole section from the original text being quoted. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence...
) in the early 1990s on satellite and cable network Sat.1
Sat.1
Sat.1 is a privately owned German television broadcasting station. Sat.1 was the first privately owned television broadcasting station in Germany, having started one day before RTL Television....
. The show was hosted by Mike Krüger.
On the 1970s "Match Game," Gene Rayburn occasionally mentioned another German version of the show titled "Schnick Schnack" (literally "Something, Anything" as there is no German word for blank.)
Mexico
The game was called Espacio en Blanco (Blank Space) and was hosted by Mauricio Barcelata in Televisa. The show had a 40-episode run in 2006.Canada
A Francophone version of Match Game called Atomes Crochus began airing in 2010 on V. The host of the show is Alexandre Barrette, and the show features regular guests as did the original Match Game. Among the most regular of the guests are Alex Perron (formerly of the Quebec comedy troupe Les Mecs Comiques), Tammy Verge and Stéphane Fallu.The format of the program more closely matched the 1990 American version, including a round similar to the Match Up round. Scoring was different (in the main game, matches in round one were worth 25 points and worth 50 points in round two; the Match Up round matches were also worth 50 points). The Super Match and Star Wheel rounds were also played in similar fashion as on the American version.
Turkey
The game was called Şansını Dene and aired in the early 1990s on Show TVShow TV
SHOW TV is a nation-wide television channel in Turkey owned by Çukurova Holding. The channel was established by the Turkish businessmen Erol Aksoy and Haldun Simavi on March 1, 1992. During the last years, Show TV extended its range of viewers by adding more channels like Show Plus, Show Max and...
. The show was hosted by Mehmet Ali Erbil
Mehmet Ali Erbil
Mehmet Ali Erbil is a Turkish comedian, actor and talk show host.-Biography:Mehmet Ali was born in Istanbul, Turkey, as the son of Saadettin Erbil, a theatre and film actor, in 1957. He is the grandson of Mehmed Efendi and the great-grandson of Mehmed Esad Erbilî.He completed his primary and...
.
Home version
Several home game versions based on the '60s and '70s American television version were published by Milton BradleyMilton Bradley Company
The Milton Bradley Company is an American game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the largest game manufacturer in the United States, and in 1987, it purchased Selchow and Righter,...
from 1963 through 1978, in multiple editions.
"The Match Game" Home Version (1963–1969)
Milton Bradley made six editions of the NBC version starting in 1963. Each game contained 100 perforated cards with six questions per card, a plastic scoreboard tray with colored pegs and chips, 6 "Scribble Boards", crayons and a "generous supply" of wipe-off papers. After the first edition, the vinyl "scribble boards" and crayons were replaced with six "magic slates" and wooden styli.Rules
The main object of the game is for contestants to try to write answers to questions that will "match" their partners' answers. The rules for a six-contestant game are the same as on the TV show (with similar scoring, such as receiving points for matching two answers and more points for matching all three answers), but the home game also has variations for fewer than six contestants. No bonus game is included.Special Editions
Milton Bradley also created a Fine Edition and a Collector's Edition with more questions, now on slick playing cards. The magic slates came enclosed in a gold-looking folder, plus a dial to keep score instead of the pegboard. The scoring and point values are just like the TV show. The only difference between the Fine Edition and the Collector's Edition is that instead of being packaged in a normal cardboard box, it came in a leatherette case with buttons on the front apron.Milton Bradley also created a "travel" version of the game.
"Match Game" Home Version (1974–1978)
Starting in 1974, Milton Bradley created three more editions, now with the format based on the most famous CBS version. Each edition contained a game board with a plastic stand, two game booklets (one with instructions) with material for 92 complete games (368 Main Game Questions and 92 "Audience Match" and "Head-to-Head Match" questions), two magic slates and styli (only of the Head-to-Head portion), and play money.Rules
As in the '70s version, two contestants have two chances to match as many of the six "celebrities" as possible. Celebrity answers are printed in the booklets, and after the contestant gives an answer, the M.C. reads the celebrity responses one by one, marking correct answers on the game board. A contestant can get up to six matches in one game. The contestant with the most matches plays the "Super Match" round (the MC reads the question and the responses) for a chance to win money (with an "Audience Match" and a "Head-to-Head Match" similar to the TV show) for up to $5,000.Unlike some game show adaptations, the questions and answers from the main game are the show's celebrity panelists and the Super Match answers exactly as answered by the show's studio audience. As it says on the insert of the box cover, these answers are from the actual TV show. The questions and answers for first edition were much more simple and straightforward (ex: "Mary likes to look at _________ in the morning."), similar to the early episodes of the '70s version. The second edition questions were typically simple and straightforward, but some were the start of the comical questions from the show. However, in the third edition, all questions are similar to the ones used on TV.
External links
- 1962 pilot episode at archive.org