Episode 46:Match Game

I love game shows. More than movies, sitcom reruns, kid shows or sports, I watch game shows. I even pay $8 a month to Comcast for a package that includes the Game Show Network. I don't know what it is about them. Maybe it is the fabulous cash and prizes being won by every day people like you and I. Maybe it is the wide variety of interesting and entertaining hosts, or the ridiculous concept of some of the games. Whatever the case, game shows, in my opinion, are the original reality television, and even the bad ones blow that 'Jersey Shore' crap out of the water.

With the baby, I find that much of her time playing is spent quietly exploring things and pressing buttons, so it helps to have a little something on in the background to keep me from tearing out my own eyes from boredom. Although, old game shows and auto racing on the Speed Network would probably drive a lot of people to tear out their own eyes, but to each his own, right?

I could write an entire blog on game shows that I love (like the Price is Right or Wheel of Fortune) and those I hate (Deal or no Deal, the Newlywed Game) and the same goes for hosts (good ones include Richard Dawson and Drew Carey, while bad ones would feature Alfonso Rubero and my TV nemesis, Tom Bergeron) but I will spare you the boredom- at least until I find the time to write a separate blog on game show culture. Maybe some day.

Today I am going to devote this space to a game show revelation I made last week. The original Match Game. I am sure that some of the older readers (Dad) remember this show, but my only memory of the Match game was the awful, terrible late 90's remake starring the insufferable Michael Burger as host and a list of Hollywood Squares rejects like Sarah Silverman and the equally as insufferable Brad Garrett (funny in Everybody Loves Raymond, awful everywhere else) as celebrity panelists. My brief, fleeting memories of this show are of it being a complete, unwatchable train wreck so you can imagine my expectations when I tuned in to the original on GSN a few days ago.

Boy was I wrong.

First, for those of you who don't know, I will explain in brief detail the concept of the original show. Essentially, two contestants face a panel of six celebrity guests and are asked to fill in the blank of a silly sentence. For example: "Wet Willy was so wet his blank came off on the street" or something to that nature. The six celebrities write down what they think the 'blank' is and then the contestants say what they think it is out loud. If the panelists answer matches, they get a point and so on and so forth. There are more intricate details, but you get the point.

The original match game- aired in the early 1960's- the 1980's was hosted by a man who I had never heard of, Gene Rayburn, seen here.



To say that he was pleasant and entertaining would be an understatement. Two days ago a dead man became my favorite game show host ever. Rayburn's interaction with the celebrity panel is pure gold entertainment, and although I only recognize a few of the panelists on each show, they are much, MUCH more entertaining than say, Bruce Vilanch.

I think the first thing that really struck me was how inappropriate some of the joking was, which surprised me for network TV in the 70's. An episode was on earlier today featuring the absolutely insane Charles Nelson Reilly and an actress whose name I don't remember who happened to be wearing some sort of poncho. Reilly was smoking a tobacco pipe as the show began and the actress began ribbing him for blowing smoke in her face. What followed was a series of unbelievably racist and stereotypical (but admittedly kind of funny) jokes about Native Americans. On a previous episode, the equally as insane and slightly grumpier McLean Stevenson was taken aback by a particularly attractive panelist (whose name I can't for the life of me remember or find) and repeatedly made references to not being able to concentrate because "I don't think she is wearing a bra." At one point, Rayburn responded with "How do you think I feel? At least you are sitting down." Fantastic. Either one of those incidents would have those actors banned from TV and making apology tweets if that happened now days.

I can't say what it is about the promiscuous behavior on the show, but something makes me miss that time in television. I would love to turn on Jeopardy and see a contestant openly smoking, or maybe go back to the days when Dawson used to kiss and grope all of the Female contestants on the Feud. On second thought, I take that back now that Steve Harvey has been named the show's new host (don't even get me started on THAT one). I don't think he has quite the swagger that Dawson had.

In any event, based on some shoddy research I have done (mostly to find out the name of that super hot actress McLean Stevenson was hitting on) it appears that the Match Game existed in several forms from the early 60's until the late 80's, and was then reincarnated for that dark re- make that we spoke about earlier. I can't speak to the later episodes, but I can tell you that the original is far and away the most entertaining game show I have ever seen.

So I guess my point is that if any of you "employed" people out there find yourself at home during the day and you get GSN, check out the Match Game when it is on. You won't be disappointed.