Match Game

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tpX_QkDQELQ/TQOLrIQqCmI/AAAAAAAAAJc/nP1suVU0Ecs/s1600/Reilly+Match+Game.jpg

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/SQeJvhB9KzM/0.jpg

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17orlsl9dt9pwjpg/medium.jpg

http://www.tvparty.com/bgifs14/brett76.jpg

http://blogs.citypages.com/canderson/images/charles.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4-fJne9ZO50/TB_fLhXA2MI/AAAAAAAAALI/wAfXfugR40g/s1600/dawsonmatch.jpg

http://www.infinitydish.com/tvblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/young-betty-white.jpg

"The world's DUMBEST advertising agency,they just hird Nipsy Russell to do a commercial for BLANK"

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/matchgame7382pm/match_game_photos/thumbnails/600x450/nipseyrussell79_1_.JPG

This morning I got a ride into work from some friends and we wound up trying to remember the name of the 70s game show that some other friends of ours used to get stoned and watch where everyone was basically always drunk and ridiculous all the time. Then, not 10 minutes after I got to work, someone posted about Match Game on FB and now you start this thread. I know he just died and all but it's still weird. Anyway, it ruled and so does your thread.

Check Betty out!

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_m527a9FJ0y1qz6f9yo1_r3_500.jpg

omg

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/06/05/154287229/why-every-70s-game-show-must-bow-down-to-match-game

many eps on youtube

http://i.imgur.com/CXofT.jpg angelfired from above

http://i.imgur.com/AfgSX.png

2nd-best game show ever (Gong Show wins by a coke-filled nose)

amazingly, my parents let me watch this when I was 11 or 12. Or maybe it was Grandma, who didn't get half the allusions?

R.I.P. Charles Nelson Reilly (1931-2007)

i only saw this when i was 'sick' as a child, but it was awesome -- gene rayburn's foot-long mike, cnr being fey, barely shaded references to things i didn't understand. dawson was always the best, tho -- i'm amazed that he was only 79 because he always seemed like the exhausted voice of epic experience

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/photopost/data/815/MG155PattiDeutsch10.jpg

http://ll-media.tmz.com/2008/04/18/0418_jack_klugman_brett_somers_austin_scarlett-1.jpg

. . . kenan?

http://i.imgur.com/TWbkN.png

This show seems ground zero for '70s appreciation for the people who weren't there at the time. I love it.

How I appreciate decades I wasn't alive for:

40s: vague appreciation for the good guys winning WWII
50s: "Tutti Frutti"
60s: Mad About the 60s collection
70s: Match Game
80s: Bloom County

http://i.imgur.com/plGhx.png

fly in my suop
http://i.imgur.com/y3CUu.png

http://i.imgur.com/7Bou2.png

Pat Morita
http://i.imgur.com/eq2pe.png

silby will you play your fabulous part in the 2012 presidential election or not

Bill Murray is kind of a straight Charles Nelson Reilly.

http://askabartender.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/match-game-41.jpg?w=450

next few screencaps courtesy my sister
http://i.imgur.com/w3GJd.png

http://i.imgur.com/5aBj8.png

http://i.imgur.com/1LSgh.png

http://i.imgur.com/Jqtby.png

http://i.imgur.com/MHGOL.png

this suit
http://i.imgur.com/82eZO.png

silby will you play your fabulous part in the 2012 presidential election or not

― mookieproof, Wednesday, June 6, 2012 1:05 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

do you mean voting or running or screencapping

Those triangles and circles were so enticing when I was 5 years old.

http://i.imgur.com/HVEH9.png

ppl who have figured out how to live
http://i.imgur.com/Njz75.png

http://www.whitewolfzone.com/images/joann/joannpflug5.jpg

The ever-alluring Jo Ann Pflug

http://img1.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/8/i/8ife4s5aixbmxims.jpg

Joyce Bulifant as Cleopatra

brett somers

http://www.tvparty.com/bgifs17/brettsomersA.jpg

p sure that's Vegas comic Jack Carter up there

and holy crow, he's still alive and working.

He can currently be seen in the Showtime series Shameless as Stan, the old racist bar owner.

Who's the white guy with the 'fro? Peter Bonerz?

A contestant.

LOL the shade CNR shot Brett every time she made a none-too-veiled reference to his sexuality

I would watch this on GSN but 7:30 a.m. seems a little early to fire up the tv. I get a twinge of guilt just turning it on at 2:00 for Jeopardy.

Ha, was also wondering about dude with the hair, my best guess was Marty Allen.

That plaid is first-degree Rayburn

I saw him once walking around one of the ponds in Central Park, the one near the Summerstage, near where Al Bundy/Ed O'Neill gave a briefing to Steve Martin in The Spanish Prisoner. He was dressed pretty much the same and had a smile frozen on his face. Only the wand mic was missing. I didn't say anything to him but now I would have.

Should've offered to buy him a drink probably.

If only I had thought of that.

It wasn't Steve Martin, it was the other guy, George C. Scott's son, Campbell Scott.

Life of Reilly is on Netflix for one more week. CNR was Paul Lynde's understudy in Bye Bye Birdie!

Is that some euphemism they used at the time?

^foul

I'm sure there ultimately was resentment for taking jobs away from the other on TV? (on Lynde's part, at least; he could be a bitter guy)

Life of Reilly is on Netflix for one more week.

I had forgot to watch this up until now, thanks for the reminder.

Life of Reilly is maybe my favorite standup concert movie, though eventually it becomes something else. Fantastic performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUvyc-MilN8&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Wait for CNR near the end
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HywZDxNWUBc

Alec Baldwin to host 10 episode revival this summer

http://www.vulture.com/2016/04/alec-baldwin-match-game-revival-abc.html

I think it's theoretically possible to make a good Match Game in our day - there are certainly enough wacky & cerebral celebs out there to staff the panel - but I predict they will tinker with the format of the '70s show (for the sake of the ADD generation) just enough to make it stupid and unwatchable. Plus the set won't look as good.

watch, someone like Bruce Vilanch will "be" Chas N Reilly (as if)

Yeah there is no modern CNR really

well Justin Vivian Bond mebbe

Innuendo and double-entendres that were hysterical in 1975 won't budge the needle today. It'll be interesting to see how they update the nudge-nudge wink-wink stuff.

If the set is all video screens instead of carpet I'll be mad.

Betty White could still participate!

Joyce Bulifant, Fannie Flagg, and Patti Deutsch are all still available as well, so we have the bottom right seat tied down

Match Game of Thrones

2016 edition premiered back in June! Giving it a shot.

there's carpet

it's okay, I'm giggling.

Tituss Burgess and Rosie O'Donnell in the 1 and 2 slots

OH MY GOD I'M IN

Couldn't find anyplace in this thread where anyone addressed the magic moment when the year changed and so did the title of the show.

^ That happened six times, '74 to '79.

The Buzzr channel has gone back to the beginning and is showing Match Game episodes from the summer of '73.

At this point the questions are still of the low-information type, like, "Mary could never stop after just one ____." I'm sure that if they'd continued with this format the show would've become too boring and never would've taken off. It's also interesting that one month into the show the contestants have still not figured out that Dickie Dawson is the best choice for the head-to-head match. I've not seen him called upon once, while Jo Ann Pflug has won the head-to-head on at least two occasions.

Gene Rayburn still doesn't have his long mic yet, it's either a normal-sized one or a clip-on. Also, he often wears bow ties.

Lots of awkwardness all around as they work out the kinks in every facet of the production. Gene isn't sure where to move, the camera crew isn't sure where to point, etc. And the questions are written so as to aggressively suggest an indecent answer, which almost everyone stubbornly resists giving. I believe Bert Convy was the first panelist of all to say "boobs," and Barbara Stewart (Dick Gautier's wife) was the first to give what would come to be considered a taboo response, with the word "urinating"

where can we stream Match Game '16?

AAAHHH IT'S ON HULU NVM AHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA

so much better than 10,000$ pyramid with Strahan

Seem to remember Shatner being good on the orig $10,000 Pyramid.

HOW GOOD WAS HE

are there any youtube/etc. channels with full pyramid episodes? i've been trying for years to find an episode a family member of mine was on with michael j. fox to no avail.

Buzzr is about to show the 1978 episode where the Super-Match question is "Oral ___ ," and the contestant asks, "Can I say what I'm thinking?" prompting much hemming and hawing from Gene. It's either the episode on right now or one coming up in this 4-6pm block.

It was the 4pm (EST) episode

Yeah the Strahan pyramid isn't all that great but it's okay. I'll watch it. For the record I think Michael Strahan's career arc has been something truly remarkable. I can't think of anyone like him - not just an NFL player but a well-known All-Star that was a central piece of a Super Bowl team - who wound up taking hosting duties. Like most of these guys just make terrible announcers but Strahan is kind of a natural at it.

In 6-10 years, Peyton will be doing all this shit.

Man, this '73 run w/Morey Amsterdam, Carolyn Jones, Convoy, Somers, Dawson & White must have been the first one they passed the vodka around for. Answers are getting bawdy and Brett in particular seems functionally shitfaced at all times.

If anyone hasn't seen it, the "Behind the Blank" documentary is worth watching. It's on youtube, with discussion of "dinner" around 26 minutes in.

I am glad we're back in the era of the casual game show rather than the "WILL YOU RISK IT ALL FOR A SHOT AT 100 GRAND!??" game show.

So part of the appeal of this show is that it's kind of a clusterfuck, right?

By design.

idk if anyone noticed but there was a cup on top of the M in MATCH GAME when S1E1 started that was gone after the first commercial break???

http://i.imgur.com/mpV1LaC.png

The Illuminati are so incompetent these days they're leaving _______ in plain sight.

Beyonce's lemonade

Man, this '73 run w/Morey Amsterdam, Carolyn Jones, Convoy, Somers, Dawson & White must have been the first one they passed the vodka around for. Answers are getting bawdy and Brett in particular seems functionally shitfaced at all times.

Buzzr is showing these again this afternoon. The reoccurring champ in this set, a dimpley PoliSci major from USC named Sue who constantly makes googoo eyes at Bert Convy, is quite crushworthy.

Forgot about the wacka-wacka guitar and funky bass line on the soundtrack.

x-post Sue Yannick. At >$13,000 the show's biggest winner to that point. She looks uncannily contemporary, like a young millennial. She finally got defeated on a ridiculously impossible 2nd round question, "Howard looked in the mirror and said, ____ ."

I guess they hadn't yet instituted the convention that 2nd round questions are easier than 1st round ones

Wow. I don't have Buzzr so I can only watch the first episode she won, which is on Youtube. Found some reference in imdb to a broken link on a Bert Convy website entitled "Burt Convy: Match Game 73 and the legacy of contestant Sue Yannick." Wonder if it is worth going in the wayback machine to see what was there.

https://web.archive.org/web/20050204055737/http://bertconvy.net/index1.html

Oh, here is the first one, but seems like there are more from that run
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoSB2khC4ww&list=PLCnvmZ8KpyOplEIPa8em1s_9RINxR7GMh

Still in awe of Josefa's impressive knowledge of this- is it just from watching or is some other fund of knowledge involved?

Hm. Try again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoSB2khC4ww

I watched a lot of these shows in the original run during my latchkey kid years. They were on just after school at 3:30. I often took in Tattletales at 4:00 as well. When they moved Match Game back to 11am (1977?) that broke me of the habit (post-'77 shows and panelists seem much less "familiar" to me, although I've caught up with that era in reruns). I still think the classic period ends when they bring in the celebrity wheel, remodel the set, and Dickie Dawson leaves - pretty much all in the summer of '78. That screws up the chemistry and they never found the right person to occupy the Dawson seat.. McLean Stevenson: no. Gary Burghoff: definitely not, and so on.

You can pick up some trivia from matchgame.org or the Match Game entry at tv.com

matchgame.org

Try this:

http://web.archive.org/web/20051105093646/http://www.matchgame.org/

Guess I can try wayback machine again.

Also, no latchkey here, but definitely came home from school looking forward to that 3:30 Match Game '73, '74 etc.
(xp)

Thanks!

The Match Game Hollywood Squares Hour (1983-1984)

Alec Baldwin is viciously owning the doofus contestants on this. Returning in the new year with more episodes apparently.

I watched some of the new ones, and must say the show loses something when the host/panel/contestants aren't drunk/stoned/blasted to the gills.

http://i.imgur.com/T3VKnTH.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/KtGmEo9.jpg

https://68.media.tumblr.com/1912ea643bd83c44cba92cfd0e073ad4/tumblr_mywrvriFwn1s8watwo1_500.jpg

RIP Patti

She was the best. My dream Match Game panel always starts with Patti.

I saw your obituary post and looked up some images on Google--just can't remember her for some reason. A local station here plays old Match Game episodes. Whenever I stop for a couple of minutes I remember everybody, but not her.

Buzzr actually just was running a set of '75s she was on while pregnant. There's also an ep from '78 they show from time to time that features Rayburn making his entrance w/two small children--Gary Burghoff's daughter and the son Patti was pregnant with in those earlier episodes!

I was inspired to look up some Match Game stuff on wiki last night, and discovered that Joyce Bulifant (still alive, btw) is the biological grandmother of Jenny McCarthy's 'Autistic' son.

Accidentally posted this elsewhere...that '78 episode w/the kids

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyWi3K-Olmk

I was inspired to look up some Match Game stuff on wiki last night, and discovered that Joyce Bulifant (still alive, btw) is the biological grandmother of Jenny McCarthy's 'Autistic' son.

― to fly across the city and find Aerosmith's car (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, July 29, 2017 2:47 PM (seven hours ago)

Edward Mallory was the grandfather. Joyce Bulifant & her then-husband Edward Mallory appeared as one of the celebrity couples on Tattletales in 1974; they were divorced the same year, which is probably a speed record.

Joyce Bulifant has an interesting marital history: in the 1960s she was married to James MacArthur ("Dan-O" on Hawaii Five-O); later she was married to Elizabeth "Bewitched" Montgomery's ex-husband. Later still she was married to Jo Anne Worley's ex-husband. Worley and her husband also appeared on Tattletales the same year Joyce Bulifant was on with her then-husband.

Ha, I was just looking up Joyce Bulifant today. Helen Hayes AND Jenny McCarthy as in-laws, that's bonkers.

Just stopped on an episode with Denise DuBarry, who I have no recollection of whatsoever, here or anywhere else. Exceptionally beautiful, but so painful to watch--Rayburn starts off by saying it's a tradition on the show that new panelists get a kiss, she's sort of "Uh...okay," and he goes ahead and plants a real kiss on her. Then he tries to cover his tracks by kissing Dawson, another panelist, and a contestant.

Hanging my head in shame for my favourite decade.

Buzzr's doing a rarities week starting tonight. RN they are running an ep of Choose Up Sides, a 50s game show for kids hosted by Rayburn and his cohost Mr. Mischief...

http://www.game-show-utopia.net/gene/cusmrmischief.jpg

http://www.game-show-utopia.net/gene/cusmrmischief.jpg

Interesting to see how the seating conforms to Josefa's taxonomy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uskfXFKvdJk

The cast here is, in seated order: Bobby Van, Elaine Joyce, Charles Nelson Reilly, Brett Somers, Richard Dawson, and Nanette Fabray. Notice how Elaine Joyce is sitting in Brett Somer's canonical set and Nanette Fabray is sitting where Elaine might otherwise sit.

Based on: Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

upper left = comedian
bottom left = eye candy (people like Lee Meriweather)
bottom right = funny lady or kook

btw two misspellings in that screen shot - should be Nipsey and Fannie

― Josefa, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 17:15 (fifty minutes ago) link

and I misspelled Meriwether

― Josefa, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 17:18 (forty-eight minutes ago) link

Convenience link to: PO9: ILX HOLLYWOOD SQUARES!!!

They hadn't quite set the canonical seating in most of the Match Game '73s. Only Dawson was present at the beginning, with Somers and CNR joining as they went along, but they didn't become regulars till late in the season, or maybe in '74.

x-posts That's an early episode from before the seating arrangement got solidified, with Elaine Joyce obv taking Brett Somers' rightful seat there.

To elaborate on my seating taxonomy -

top left: comedian or impressionist, hunky actor, not-very-bright actor, any actor from a new TV show, athlete, sometimes a "hip" dude
top middle: Brett Somers
top right: Charles Nelson Reilly
bottom left: eye candy, ingenue, not-very-bright actress, glamorous older star
bottom middle: Dickie Dawson, later frequently Bill Daily or Bart Braverman, later still McLean Stevenson
bottom right: funny lady, kook, oddball... having red hair a plus

Elaine Joyce being a looker was a natural for the bottom left, but since she was also a bit of a kook she could take the bottom right when needed

Scoey Mitchell is an example of a "hip" dude who would properly be in the top left seat

Neither I nor my mom--who was alive when it aired--had any knowledge of the original, serious version of Match Game til we watched Behind the Blank. It seems like a gag, a la "Homonym" in 30 Rock. Even the first dozen or so episodes of the rebooted version had very generic, overly broad unfun questions. "Mary was hungry and went to the store and bought blank" or whatever.

Yeah those early episodes are odd to see... I said this upthread but oftentimes early on the questions would be of a leading type as if they were trying to entice the stars to say something risqué, but at first none of the stars would bite since they weren't sure what was allowed on daytime TV. Then one day Bert Convy says "boobs" and the floodgates are opened.

Yeah and later on it was the reverse wasn't it? The setup sounded dirty with the "blank" in it but the "correct" answer was tame. "Daffy Dory was astounded by the size of the plumber's blank" but the logical answer would be wrench.

right, and the best was when on occasion you would get a naive contestant who would "go there" and say something definitively out-of-bounds. I think eventually the contestants were pre-coached on what words to use for what, but being on the spot during the actual taping they would sometimes forget these guidelines

That elaborated seating taxonomy may be the greatest thing ever, Josefa. Wondering if a similar thing could be done for other game shows, although I'm not sure I would care nearly as much.

I’d love to see a toxicology report on an average episode of Match Game 74. Mötley Crüe couldn’t handle the volume of drugs and alcohol in those bodies. pic.twitter.com/VIyYGEQUUq

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) July 20, 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJHICKg2Mkg

Gene Rayburn only came here to use a skinny microphone and kick some ass. Looks like he’s done talking. pic.twitter.com/Ea1bS0eI3n

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) December 1, 2021

Get ready to match the stars!

Orson Bean!

Brett Somers!

Charles Nelson Reilly!

Scoot Japson!

Joyce DeBrille!

Debralee Scott!

Who is Joyce DeBrille?

Assuming those are joek names and Joyce DeBrille is a play on Joyce DeWitt.

Except Debralee Scott is real.

Couldn't tell you about Scoot Japson though.

Tonight's episode brought to you by the bottle of Southern Comfort under the table of RICHARD DAWSON!!

xp Scoop Jackson I guess

I want Louisa Moritz in one of these fake people’s seat

I was going for more of a Scoey Mitchell homage. He's still alive! 91

So it seems that Scoey Mitchell was a bit actor, but his main claim to fame is being on Match Game? Could that be true?

I remember asking my mom who he was and she knew of him from things other than Match Game but yeah I guess he's like Charles and Brett and well basically all the regulars: C level celebrities prior and now best known for being on Match Game.

My mom is just a trove of "who's that? What were they in?" knowledge. She got hooked for awhile on watching Tattletales on GSN too, interesting to see how some couples interact on that show given her knowledge of how their marriage turned out

I believe Scoey Mitchell was more of a Broadway actor who did a little TV and film on top of a ton of game shows.

interesting to see how some couples interact on that show given her knowledge of how their marriage turned out

There's a wild week of Tattletales featuring Bob Crane and his widow who supposedly had him off'd.

That’s why Tattletales is the darkest show that’s ever been on US TV. Imagine doing that show nowadays,

Wow at this latest.

Just found an image of Scoey Mitchell as a boxer with Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessell looking on which, of course, was from an episode of That Girl.

Also came to note that it doesn't seem Conny Van Dyke has been mentioned yet.

RIP Scoey Mitchell (92)

RIP. May his memory be a BLANK.

Lol, didn’t know he was Jewish.

Real name was Scoey Mitchlll, which is not a typo believe it or not.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcThU56S7s7IC9hIquM8LJzTcjOJ1-Oy0uj0hg&usqp=CAU

Been scheduling my lunch breaks around MG reruns these days. My dream panel, working off Josepha's template from a few years back:

top left: someone cute, like Bert Convy, or Anson Williams
top middle: Brett Somers
top right: Charles Nelson Reilly
bottom left: kinda feel like leaving this one open for the hetero guys to pick. Adrienne Barbeau, perhaps.
bottom middle: Dickie Dawson
bottom right: Betty White

Not crazy about the '79 run, honestly: Dawson swapped out for that Tom Arnold-looking guy, the weird new set with the Confederate Flag motif...I kinda get why there was now Match Game '80.

I am eternally tickled by the fact that RuPaul's Drag Race singlehandedly gave the format/idea an unexpected worldwide afterlife.

Great choices. I've been watching whatever episode aired 50 years ago on this date when I need something requiring half-attention span on while playing with the cat, thanks to a Match Game YouTube playlists for each year. The audience survey choices are always fun because I get to use my 1970s knowledge to guess what someone in 1975 would have thought was common, rather than the first thing that comes to my own mind.

Returning again with Martin Short at the long mic:

https://deadline.com/2025/04/match-game-abc-martin-short-1236380096/

To be shot in Montréal, that’s interesting

Justin Trudeau in the Richard Dawson seat?

Man, I loved the golden age of game shows I grew up watching. Match Game, Gong Show, Tattletales, Hollywood Squares, Joker's Wild, etc.

Edith Prickley as Brett Somers

Just saw that two eps of the Martin Short revival have aired/dropped so far. Haven't watched yet. Thoughts?