Gender Equality for Game Show Contestants

[Jeremy Nelson]

Are there any game shows you can think of where the show consistently made an effort to keep a gender balance between contestants? Let's assume that dating/relationship shows and shows with a gender battle as their premise are already accounted for.

Press Your Luck always has a champion versus a man and a woman (hence why I came here with the topic originally)
Hollywood Squares always had a male and female contestant play one another.

What others can you think of?

[ivoryman1986]

I can think of The Joker's Wild(especially the first 3 seasons of that before they began using nametags). The Better Sex, Win, Lose or Draw and Body Language(prior to May 1985 anyway).

[BillCullen1]

Off the top of my head:

Break the Bank (70s and 80s), Name That Tune, Match Game PM, Gambit, The Newlywed Game, Chain Reaction (GSN version)

[SuperMatch93]

Sale of the Century generally had a man and woman as challengers, though I have seen a few eps with three men.

[That Don Guy]

I'm pretty sure Jack Clark-era Cross-Wits always had a man against a woman - certainly on Wednesdays (two women celebs & male contestant vs two male celebs & female contestant) and Fridays (three men vs three women).

And if you're counting shows with couples competing against other couples:

• Beat the Clock - the Monty Hall version was always two men and two women (it wasn't always "couples" as one episode had Charlie Brill & Bobby Van against Mitzi McCall & Elayne Joyce), and, except for the occasional "singles" episodes, the Gene Wood version had two man/woman couples on every show as well
• Dream House (except for the few "single parents and their children" shows that occasionally had two males or two females on the same team)
• The Moneymaze
• and the later seasons of Garagiola-era Sale of the Century (IIRC, only the couples version was syndicated).
• plus, if you count all-celebrity shows, TattleTales, All-Star Baffle (if you don't count the bonus round), and He Said, She Said

[ivoryman1986]

That Don Guy, you can add Shop Til You Drop to your list too. How about The Big Date? Don't forget about Fun House.

[Allstar87]

Just like Hollywood Squares, All-Star Blitz always had a male contestant at the left podium, and a female contestant at the right.

[Jeremy Nelson]

Let's assume that dating/relationship shows and shows with a gender battle as their premise are already accounted for.

This was the second sentence of the prompt, and four of the first five posts were like “nah, I’ll include it anyway”.

[BrandonFG]

Card Sharks, not counting the Game Show Hosts tournament? Although I think I’ve seen at least one same gender match. I honestly can’t remember.

[JasonA1]

Whew! kept up male/female dynamics for the most part...when Howard Wilson went on his long run, they probably realized what it did to their contestant pool, and started feeding him male challengers after a number of wins.

-Jason

[Kevin Prather]

Hasn't the current iteration of $100,000 Pyramid been one male and one female pretty faithfully?

[Casey]

I don’t believe Face the Music ever had more than 2 of one gender for the initial three players.  I’m not sure if those 3 were picked based on the returning champion’s gender. 

[Brian44]

One thing is for sure: There is no gender balance on this forum.

[SRIV94]

Card Sharks, not counting the Game Show Hosts tournament? Although I think I’ve seen at least one same gender match. I honestly can’t remember.

Think it was more frequent than that.  Seemed a lot more women than men were contestants.  Same thing with the Passwords (the NBC runs).  I don't think any of them tried to balance it--it was just how it all shook out.

[TimK2003]

This is a very good question.   Nearly every show I thought of  I've had to really think if it was consistently man/men vs. Woman/women.  I want to say both the original CBS Password was as well as the original $10K Pyramid, but I may be confusing the men versus women CELEBRITY pairings and not necessarily the contestants.

Slightly related...The Newlywed Game was very good in representing minorities in nearly episode.  Almost every Eubanks episode included one couple who was African-American.  Hispanics were well represented there as well on many of the episodes.