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Match Game - Main game

Match Game - Main game: Encyclopedia II - Match Game - Main game

Two contestants competed to see who could match more of the answers of the six celebrities. Much of the show's humor sprung from questions that were heavy on double-entendres. One of the principal question-writers, Dick DeBartolo was also a writer for Mad. During the early 1970s, DeBartolo cast The Match Game panelists in his own 8mm film comedies. A rare public showing of those films was hel ...

Match Game: Encyclopedia II - Match Game - Main game

Match Game - Main game

Two contestants competed to see who could match more of the answers of the six celebrities. Much of the show's humor sprung from questions that were heavy on double-entendres. One of the principal question-writers, Dick DeBartolo was also a writer for Mad. During the early 1970s, DeBartolo cast The Match Game panelists in his own 8mm film comedies. A rare public showing of those films was held in a Manhattan hotel ballroom in 1970.

In the 1st round, the challenger chose 1 of 2 cards: A or B. The host then read the back of the card to the celebrity panel. Early questions were rather stagnant. Examples include: "Name a type of muffin" ("bran", "blueberry") and "Every morning, John puts <BLANK> on his cereal" ("Sugar", "bananas").

However, the show is well-known for questions such as: "Did you catch a glimpse of that girl on the corner? She has the world's biggest <BLANK>". (Acceptable answers may include "mouth", "boobs", etc.). These questions started appearing reguarly in mid-1974, and remained that way for the rest of the series.

Popular questions featured "Dumb Dora" (the question would always begin, "Dumb Dora is so dumb" to which the audience would respond, "How dumb is she?" and Rayburn would finish the question. The male counterpart was "Dumb Donald" and would feature the same beginning and audience response as for "Dumb Dora") and "Old Man Perriwinkle", a favorite character of actor/dancer Fred Astaire. The counterpart for Old Man Perriwinkle was "Old Lady Perkins".

The contestant had a moment to decide what word would best fit the blank while the celebrities wrote their answers down on index cards; after all of them were finished, the contestant gave his answer. Frequently, the audience would respond appropriately as Rayburn critiqued the contestant's answer.

Rayburn then polled each celebrity for an answer. The contestant earned one point for each celebrity who wrote down the same answer (or reasonably similar, as determined by the judges) as he had chosen up to a total of 6 points for matching everyone on the panel. After play was completed on the contestant's question, Rayburn read the statement on the other card for the challenger and play was identical.

In the 2nd round, whoever was leading the game got to choose a question first. Only the celebrities who did not match that contestant in the first round played. A 3rd round was played on Match Game PM after its 1st season (the producers realized that too much time was left at the end of the game, and the celebrities would chit-chat until the show's end); again, the only celebrities who played were those who didn't match that contestant in previous rounds.

Tiebreaker rounds--If the players had the same score at the end of "regulation", the scores were reset to 0-0. On "PM" (or in the daytime show, if a tie was still not broken after two tiebreaker rounds), a time-saving variant of the tiebreaker was used that reversed the game play. The contestants would write their answers first on a card in secret, then the celebrities were canvassed to give their answers. The first celebrity response to match a contestant's answer gave that contestant the victory; if there were still no match (which was rare), the round was replayed with a new quesiton. On the CBS version, the tiebreaker goes on until there is a clear winner.

The CBS daytime version had returning champions, and the show "straddled". The "PM" version was self-contained with no returning champions and each show would end with the "Super Match."

On the CBS daytime show, champions could say until defeated or reached the CBS limit of $25,000 any champion who exceeded that was retired, but they get to keep whatever money they won over $25,000.

The 1979-82 syndicated version didn't feature returning champions; rather, two contestants played the entire episode. (two main games, and two bonus games). Two new contestants appeared on the next episode. This was likely done due to the fact that episodes were "bicycled", and a player who ended the week on Friday as "champion" would not be seen the following Monday.