Match Game Prose

[The Pyramids]

For those member who are able to remember, how similar was the writing on the original 'Match Game' to the one from the 70s'? I don't recall any humor in the surviving 1964 episode.

[The Ol' Guy]

The humor didn't come along until about the end of the original run. Others have said here that Mark Goodson was reluctant to use "funny" questions in the show's early days, when average questions were dry ones like "Name a flavor of ice cream" or "Name a popular New York tourist attraction." Very straightforward questions. Even back then, the "joke" questions were dropped in only occasionally. Seeing how 4 of the 6 players were civilians, the questions weren't designed to turn them into comedians. Later, with the focus on the witty all-celebrity panel, the 70s questions changed to play to their strengths.

[geno57]

Most of the questions during the NBC run were either in the "Name something that ..." format, or the "Something ... blank" style.  Every once in a while, there'd be a "John and Mary" story question.  But I don't remember them ever being very risque, or even extremely funny, as they so often were during the CBS series.

And just so's ya know ... the 50th anniversary of The Match Game's premiere is ten days away!

[SuperMatch93]

According to Adam Nedeff's website:

At one point, NBC cancelled the series, but left them with six weeks to produce new episodes. Question writer Dick DeBartolo (who also happened to write for MAD Magazine), figuring  that the show was at a point of no return anyway, stopped writing serious questions and began submitting questions along the lines of “Mary liked to pour gravy on John’s (______).” The ratings picked up, NBC un-cancelled the show, now a full-fledged comedy game, and it survived until 1969.

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[gameshowcrazy]

I remember seeing an episode from the early days of the CBS version that had as a tiebreaker "name a breed of dog".

Anyone know if that was the standard type of tiebreaker in the early days, or was that a rare thing I saw?  Was that line of question used in a non-tiebreaker part of the game.

[JMFabiano]

I remember seeing an episode from the early days of the CBS version that had as a tiebreaker "name a breed of dog".

Anyone know if that was the standard type of tiebreaker in the early days, or was that a rare thing I saw?  Was that line of question used in a non-tiebreaker part of the game.

Yep, from what I recall of the first 7x episode, they also still had the "name a..." questions amongst the "blank" questions in the regular rounds.  The influence of which of course remained on the questions of a certain show that spun off from another element of Match Game.

When did the questions we all know and love appear (by that I mean ones conveyed in 2-3 sentences and more obviously with humorous narratives)?

[chris319]

When did the questions we all know and love appear (by that I mean ones conveyed in 2-3 sentences and more obviously with humorous narratives)?

Six weeks into the CBS run, according to Bobby Sherman.