Would you care to elaborate.
Wasn't really wanting to derail this thread for this, but
since you asked: It is, without hesitation, my least favorite "popular" show in the canon by at least two orders of magnitude, particularly the 70s versions (most specifically the CBS run). When I'm having a day where I either actively watch Buzzr/GSN or even just passively have it on as background noise, it is the one show in rotation on either channel that will actively make me tune away.
Rayburn is
frequently creepy and often sexist (even above the shit Barker was pulling on Price at times) or prejudiced at other ways (there's, what, several
dozen shows Buzzr skips for content now?), much of the 70s version's humor generally comes from either "how drunk WAS the panel during this?" or "let's make fun of the dumb rube contestants without them knowing", the writing (especially from around late 1974-onwards) is generally the exact same type of comedy that absolutely everyone loves to complain about on Family Feud w/ Steve Harvey, just ~40 years earlier and with stricter TV regulations, and in general, I find the
game empty and the
show disgusting. There's also an
entire year of the show (1977-78) where this "legendary comedy game show"'s #1 joke essentially amounted to "haha one of our panelists doesn't want to be here and is making everyone miserable!".
The Baldwin version wraps itself in the veneer of the 70s version (and see above) while being connecting to a host who on a good day is a fairly terrible human being and doesn't even have the whole "it was 40 years ago" garbage to hide behind.
The 1998 version is an absolute trainwreck in execution in nearly every way (saved only remotely by arguably the show's best host excluding the Convy pilots), although it's definitely the best looking set-wise, and the 1990 version's greatest sin, besides Match-Up (which absolutely WAS cheated in some episodes), is how utterly dull it is with all of the garbage from the 70s taken out but absolutely no life put back in. I generally think the '90 version is the least worst, but that isn't generally a compliment.
I don't have that degree of feeling towards the 60s run (but then again only a couple of episodes circulate/have been aired), but if I never had to sit through any of the Rayburn-helmed Match Game again while waiting on Buzzr (or GSN until now) to air literally anything else it'd be too soon.
About three months ago I was trying to make space on my storage for stuff I actually enjoy. Through ripping old tapes and just "here you go" from other people with digital files, I'd accumulated about a quarter of the Rayburn run without even trying. The shift+delete to free up that space was
immensely satisfying - and while I can control the portion of viewing that I create (streaming, hard drive storage), not having it come up anyway when I'm a passive viewer on either linear network (GSN or Buzzr) for a while would be genuinely nice, and it's nice to see GSN move away from Rayburn for a while. (It'd be nicer if they remember the stuff their parent company owns).
IMO.
