Match Game S2 and To Tell The Truth S2 are a Go?

[MikeK]

Am I correct that Valerie Bertinelli is the first celebrity on the current run of Match Game who was also on the 73-82 version?

Valerie Bertinelli might be the only current Match Game panelist to have been alive during the '73-82 run.

Okay, okay--Rosie too.

[KrisW73]

Or it could be that a 0-0 tie makes the contestants, celebrities and writers look bad.

*Gene Rayburn*
We have a pitcher's duel going here *points to both blank score displays*
*/Gene Rayburn*

[calliaume]

Am I correct that Valerie Bertinelli is the first celebrity on the current run of Match Game who was also on the 73-82 version?

I'm not 100% certain but that sounds right. Ironically, she wouldn't clear her appearance on the original MG to be aired.  I'm glad I stayed for the last show to see Valerie. I had a crush on her when I was in high school and she was on One Day at a Time.

I also got an unexpected souvenir from the show. Taye Diggs flung one of his cards into the audience. It landed near me, and I was near the top.

I like Valerie Bertinelli a lot, but I think her agent in the late 1970s may have booked her on a bunch of games a little early, based on the fact that she rarely if ever got invited back.  There's an episode or two of her on the Jim Peck version of You Don't Say on YouTube - I don't remember how she did there, but I do remember her not doing well at all on The $20,000 Pyramid.  In fairness, she was 19 or 20 years old at the time.

[Clay Zambo]

I saw Wednesday's second show, too--though I had to leave before it was over; they started over an hour late, and stop-downs between rounds went on forever.

I know they want it to be free-wheeling. I know they want it to be playful. I know it's a late-evening show. I know it's all about the celebrity interaction. But, geez. WRITE YOUR OWN ANSWERS, folks. If you're not clever enough to come up with an answer, maybe that should have been discovered during your celebrity briefing.

Alec did indeed seem to be better at ad-libbing, but he had to re-take way more prompter lines than you'd expect of someone who has already hosted 10 hours of this show. (Especially when many of them were boilerplate, "here's how we play our game" stuff.) Also I'd expect him to know enough to get the contestant's answer before turning to the panel, a mistake he made twice (though was caught in both cases before an answer was revealed).

As for the writing, eh. I don't mind there being a gimme question and a tough question in each round; seems to me that not knowing what you're going to get makes the choosing mean a little more to the game play. What bugs me more is when a round has to be thrown out because six sloshed celebrities can't come up with the answer to a gimme question.

[BillCullen1]

One interview was retaped when a contestant said the F word

Why retape it? Just move on with the show and censor the offending word in post.

I'm guessing the producers wanted to have an interview without cursing. They did this after doing the first round of questions.

One other thing. I recognized one of the possible contestants. The guy Jack, who won a car on Whammy and was also on Baggage was there. This will make another game show for him.

I went back today for the final taping. Celebs were Colin Quinn, Judy Greer, Judah Friedlander, Caroline Rhea, Orlando Jones and Abby Elliott. Joe Bronzi was the warmup guy. 

I heard that Wayne Brady, Ice T and Jason Alexander will be there tomorrow (Saturday). I might try to get in for those shows.

[BillCullen1]

I saw  the early morning taping today (11/7). Celebs were Adam Corolla, Jenna Fisher, Justin Long, Cheryl Hines, Kenan Thompson and Ana Gasteyer. Twice, Alec had to be told to get the contestant's response before asking the celebs. This was the last day of the taping schedule. So they have 14 shows in the can.

[vtown7]

I had a very interesting day this past Saturday (Nov 5th) whereby I was able to see the afternoon taping of Match Game.  I flew in especially to see it (thanks Delta for your cheap YYZ-JFK round trip flight) and was not disappointed.  The celeb line-up was Jason Alexander, Cheryl Hines, Joe Lo Truillo (Brooklyn Nine-Nine I'm told), Ellie Kemper, Wayne Brady and Caroline Rhea.  They were definitely a great panel - Caroline especially in seat six.

I was in line at 11:45 am, we were ushered into the lobby shortly thereafter where we milled around for about an hour perhaps while we waited for the early morning taping to get out.  I would say the taping itself started around 2 pm and ended about 3:30.  It was relatively quick and very enjoyable.  Ellie Kemper's parents were in the audience and thus Alec made a running joke about having answers get dirty enough so they'd get up and leave.

I thought the writing was quite decent - there was only one question that I thought was crummy and most of the gimmies had two solid plausible answers.  Alec didn't rely much on the prompter, and there was only one pick-up if memory serves.  The only glitches were just that - the contestants' desk scoreboard going out once (it's run by Windows 10, fact) and the "rotating lights" going out nearest the panel.

The panel were in very good spirits and were happy to get up and dance during any stop-downs.  As far as game-play I'm curious to see one thing play out because I really don't know how they can edit around it.  We got a Dumb Dora question; I was quite pleased.  Also I got chatting to one of the audience pages and she was nice enough to get me an answer card left over from an earlier taping: "We usually give these out for prizes but you're a great audience member so now you can add to your collection!" (I attended French-Canadian Match Game in 2010 and English-Canadian Match Game in 2013).

All in all a great taping and one that I would attend again.  Haven't laughed that hard at a taping in quite awhile.  Anyone know when Pyramid is back in studio?

[TLEberle]

The celeb line-up was Jason Alexander, Cheryl Hines, Joe Lo Truillo (Brooklyn Nine-Nine I'm told), Ellie Kemper, Wayne Brady and Caroline Rhea.  They were definitely a great panel - Caroline especially in seat six.

I'll look up the one name I'm not familiar with, but that absolutely sounds like a Murderer's Row--kudos to whoever does the booking.

[TimK2003]

All in all a great taping and one that I would attend again.  Haven't laughed that hard at a taping in quite awhile.  Anyone know when Pyramid is back in studio?

I was thinking the same thing.  A plausible answer would be sometime in February after the Super Bowl.  Michael is pretty much working 7 days a week between GMA on the East Coast and Fox NFL on the West Coast until then plus the special taped features he does for both shows when he's not live.

[trainman]

Joe Lo Truillo (Brooklyn Nine-Nine I'm told)

Spelled Joe Lo Truglio, actually.

[vtown7]

Whoops! I wrote that too late last night and apparently didn't spell check.  Thanks for the correction!

[NickintheATL]

Premiere dates have just been announced for MG and TTTT.

To Tell the Truth returns Sunday, January 1st at 9:00/8:00 Central, then January 8th will be 2 episodes per week at 8:00/7:00 and 9:00/8:00.
Match Game returns Wednesday, January 4th at 10:00/9:00 Central.

Full info here: http://www.disneyabcpress.com/abc/shows/match-game/press-releases/

Edited to revise info on TTTT.

[BillCullen1]

So we won't have to wait till Summer. Yay!