Match Game 1990-91 thoughts

[TLEberle]

There’s a win lose or draw ep I happened upon where heading into the speed round the gents lead by 1000 to 200. Guys hsve their turn and the women need only eighteen right to win.

[carlisle96]

With the format as it aired--for Final Match-Up, the game STOPS as soon as the player who goes second takes the lead. That makes sense, but it pretty much means the amount of money that you can win depends on how good your opponent is at the game. Some contestants win $1200-$1300, but then one contestant is saddled against a bad opponent and ends up with $500 because they only needed to play Final Match-Up for 10 seconds. And if they played all the way through, it would be anticlimactic.

I think the easy fix here is just having the leader play first.

What was Mark Goodson's beef with having a show that emphasized the comedy?

I think Jonathan was the one handling things by 1990, no?

I don't know who was directly handling things at that time, but I saw a taping in December and had to leave early. An ABC page escorted me and my friend to a backstage exit and we passed a dressing room with Mark Goodson's name on the door so maybe he was still directly involved because I don't remember too much comedy during the episode I sat through.

[Ian Wallis]

Toward the end of the syndicated daily version, was Brett less able to handle her Russian club soda?

I went on a bingewatch of the final season. It wasn't so much drunkenness that stuck out to me, it was how "checked out" everyone was. The moment that sticks out to me is one that involves Brett. With about nine weeks to go, there was an episode that opens with "Get ready to match the stars..." and when Johnny announces Brett Somers, Brett's chair is empty. "As we play the star-studded big-money Match Game!" The set lights up, and Brett is crossing the stage with a cup in her hands and heading to her seat. Wasn't a bit or anything--she just wasn't there when tape started rolling and nobody CARED.

I was never a huge fan of the syndicated version - it just didn't seem to have the same atmosphere or enthusiasm.  I prefer the first several years of the CBS run.  They seemed to have captured lightning in a bottle for a little while, anyway.

[Adam Nedeff]

I don't know who was directly handling things at that time, but I saw a taping in December and had to leave early. An ABC page escorted me and my friend to a backstage exit and we passed a dressing room with Mark Goodson's name on the door so maybe he was still directly involved because I don't remember too much comedy during the episode I sat through.

A few weeks ago, we had a thread about how the final Super Password was a point of demarcation for the genre--to hear Robert Sherman tell it, there was one other way that the end of that show marked the end of an era. As Sherman recalled, Mark Goodson conspicuously "checked out" after Super Password ended, and he showed up at the office far less often. As far as I know, Jonathan was running things for Match Game 90, although Sherman and Jonathan agreed on this much when they were talking about other shows--if Mark Goodson was in the studio, it kind of didn't matter who was running the show on paper.

[Eric Paddon]

How much was Mark Goodson involved with the 1990-91 TTTT revival?   That show to me has always felt like the swan song of the "Mark Goodson era" because it was a throwback in the set, theme music and the reliance on classic panelists like Kitty, Orson, Peggy and Polly Bergen (not to mention Goodson filling in as sub host).

[whewfan]

Toward the end of the syndicated daily version, was Brett less able to handle her Russian club soda?

I went on a bingewatch of the final season. It wasn't so much drunkenness that stuck out to me, it was how "checked out" everyone was. The moment that sticks out to me is one that involves Brett. With about nine weeks to go, there was an episode that opens with "Get ready to match the stars..." and when Johnny announces Brett Somers, Brett's chair is empty. "As we play the star-studded big-money Match Game!" The set lights up, and Brett is crossing the stage with a cup in her hands and heading to her seat. Wasn't a bit or anything--she just wasn't there when tape started rolling and nobody CARED.

I was never a huge fan of the syndicated version - it just didn't seem to have the same atmosphere or enthusiasm.  I prefer the first several years of the CBS run.  They seemed to have captured lightning in a bottle for a little while, anyway.

While the obvious edits started happening later in the '78 run, I think the cuts were far more obvious in the syndicated era, and I think with stuff edited out, the panel and Gene tried to contain the schtick outside of the answer writing time, as the answer writing was cut the most. Also, I would argue that without Richard Dawson, Brett and Charles basically carried the show, and that looked exhausting. I think McLean attempted to recapture the "Dawson" anchor in his own way while he was there, but overall, I think everyone was running out of gas.

[TimK2003]

With the format as it aired--for Final Match-Up, the game STOPS as soon as the player who goes second takes the lead. That makes sense, but it pretty much means the amount of money that you can win depends on how good your opponent is at the game. Some contestants win $1200-$1300, but then one contestant is saddled against a bad opponent and ends up with $500 because they only needed to play Final Match-Up for 10 seconds. And if they played all the way through, it would be anticlimactic.

I think the easy fix here is just having the leader play first.

Not really.  I mean, sure, it "solves" the money issue, but it creates a bigger issue in that most of the games would end with a loss, rather than most of the games ending with a win.  You really want the latter, which is why in a lot of games like this, the one who's trailing goes first.

Did Win Lose of Draw do the "leader goes first" throughout its entire run?   Yes, the leader gets the head start, so to speak, but both contestants kept all the money they won.

[JasonA1]

Did Win Lose of Draw do the "leader goes first" throughout its entire run?

Yes. The rule made sure the show came in closer to its runtime without straddling. It's the same reason why certain versions of Match Game had the leader go first in later rounds, and why it was such a detriment that Match Game '98 DIDN'T do that. There were some painful examples of stretching on that version when Round 2 only had one question.

-Jason

[Joe Mello]

So I guess the question for this part of the discussion is why did Goodson(s) and/or ABC want to move away from the MG PM scoring system that worked for the better part of a decade? Too old? Was it really a timing concern? Were talent that upset that at the chance they wouldn't play all the questions?

[Neumms]

I went on a bingewatch of the final season. It wasn't so much drunkenness that stuck out to me, it was how "checked out" everyone was.

McLean didn’t really help matters. I liked him but he was a laid back dude. Bill Daily brought good energy but was so horrible at matching.

Did they ever try Orson Bean in the bottom middle? He could be funny, was reasonably good looking and played well.

[whewfan]

No, Orson was never in the Dawson seat, in fact I don't think he ever did the syndicated run or daytime run after 1977. Perhaps by that point he was considered a little too "old school."

[Brian44]

Orson did at least 1 week in '79.

[calliaume]

I went on a bingewatch of the final season. It wasn't so much drunkenness that stuck out to me, it was how "checked out" everyone was. The moment that sticks out to me is one that involves Brett. With about nine weeks to go, there was an episode that opens with "Get ready to match the stars..." and when Johnny announces Brett Somers, Brett's chair is empty. "As we play the star-studded big-money Match Game!" The set lights up, and Brett is crossing the stage with a cup in her hands and heading to her seat. Wasn't a bit or anything--she just wasn't there when tape started rolling and nobody CARED.

One possibility is that someone decided they weren't going to let the problems they were having on Feud, with tapings running long because of Richard Dawson, repeat on their other shows.

By that point, I suspect everybody knew the end was near. Match Game PM had ended, and I'm sure the show was getting weaker time slots -- at that point most markets certainly had Family Feud and then-hot Tic Tac Dough in prime access, and the one station that didn't probably ran something like PM Magazine as counterprogramming (or Entertainment Tonight, which was new that year). In New York, Match Game moved from 4:30 PM on WCBS in 1980 to 6:30 PM on WOR (the weakest of the independent stations) in 1981 -- but by November had already been moved to 2:30 PM (in favor of The New You Asked For It).

Hollywood Squares had gone through the same thing the previous year -- Peter Marshall noted in his book that when he needed help from Jay Redack and Bob Quigley, they were at the blackjack tables and couldn't be found, because the assumption was the rest of the staff could handle anything by themselves. (And if people were upset by Dawson not smiling in his final days on MG, look at Paul Lynde during some of the opens before the show logo appears.)

It's a shame the people in front of the camera felt this way, although it's understandable—after nine years or more, it's like being at a party that's gone on too long, and a few people are obviously looking to leave. But for the people who did the production work, it had to be frustrating knowing your job was coming to an end.

EDIT: I vaguely recall somebody saying here that in 1981, MGP considered moving Match Game tapings from CBS to Merv Griffin's Trans-American Video theater as a cost-cutting move, but it turned out the MG set wouldn't fit on Merv's stage. Can someone verify?