The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: wdm1219inpenna on February 14, 2025, 06:51:50 PM
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While I do remember watching it on ABC during its original run, I know Buzzr has been airing mini marathons in the late afternoon/early evening hours and I found myself really enjoying it much more than I remembered.
My only 2 gripes with Match Game '90:
1. The Star Wheel with that pointer, it's more fun watching the actual wheel spin than a pointer, especially since the contestant always starts off with the pointer in the same general spot on the wheel itself.
2. If a player won the big money in the Head To Head match, they did not also win the Audience Match money won (different from the Rayburn versions).
I thought the Match-Up rounds really helped to spice up the game and loved that all six celebrities got to play all of the comedy questions in both rounds too.
I know Brett Somers was on at least one week of episodes and that Charles was on a bit more frequently as a celebrity player. I also know that Gene Rayburn had been in line to get the gig until I think it was Entertainment Tonight made mention of Gene's age at the time due to a Happy Birthday announcement and that ultimately cost him getting the job in favor of a younger host in Ross Schaefer (who I felt did a really great job as host by the way!).
I could not help but wonder, since Gene was still alive and well in the early 1990s if Gene ever watched the ABC version of Match Game and if he ever felt angry or betrayed by Brett and Charles appearing on the updated version without Gene at the helm. I suppose on the one hand the prevailing attitude was "Well, that's show biz!" with respect to how the celebs may have felt. On the other hand I would like to think that Gene would have said to Brett and Charles "It's a paycheck! You would be dingbats to turn down being on the show!". I was wondering what you all think about these notions and if perhaps anybody may have some inside info about what I discussed here.
Thank you!
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Really? You're bent out of shape because the multiplier was 20x and not 21x and that the winner is pushing an arrow instead of grabbing a peg?
OK then.
As to your question about Gene's feelings of betrayal I would happily point you to a tome titled "The Matchless Gene Rayburn."
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^^ Was it really just Gene's age that cost him the MG'90 gig, or might it have been possibly his performance(s) on MGHS and his brief time on Break The Bank that played a part of it as well?
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Might be wrong here, but I remembered the ET revealing his age thing killing the 1987 Match Game version (there were ads for it in Broadcasting & Cable).
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Really? You're bent out of shape because the multiplier was 20x and not 21x and that the winner is pushing an arrow instead of grabbing a peg?
To be fair, I know some game show fans who aren't happy with the modern trend of awarding you $X for winning the game, but when you win the bonus round, you're actually playing for Grand Prize minus $X. (In other words, you "increase your winnings" to the amount the host says, as opposed to winning Grand Prize + $x.) MG90 deciding to hold onto the Super Match money feels like an offshoot of that.
That said, I actually never noticed this until the most recent run of the show on Buzzr. It's a curious choice, given it's Goodson, and that so few shows of the '70s/'80s did that sort of thing. But it didn't make MG90 any worse for me, now that I know that.
And I liked the 1990 Star Wheel! It was even bigger than the previous one, and spinning a pointer vs. spinning the wheel is right up there in innovation-land with Wheel of Fortune making their wheel horizontal, and Price is Right making theirs a thicker contraption that you view from the side.
My broader thoughts (https://www.gameshowforum.org/index.php/topic,36216.msg418331.html#msg418331) on the series were in the hot takes thread.
-Jason
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^^ Was it really just Gene's age that cost him the MG'90 gig, or might it have been possibly his performance(s) on MGHS and his brief time on Break The Bank that played a part of it as well?
I would have answered sooner but I was busy bending myself back into shape again :D
I think Gene was every bit as good on MG/HS Hour as his other version of Match Game but I agree, his Break The Bank hosting was pretty sub-par for Gene, but then it seemed to be a sub-par game too.
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Really? You're bent out of shape because the multiplier was 20x and not 21x and that the winner is pushing an arrow instead of grabbing a peg?
OK then.
Well, I read it that the only quibble was a few minor points, compared with the other offering of the decade. And to be fair, spinning that pointer was a little weird and the follow-shot of the last half-revolution was an unusual choice.
If we are quibbling (because it is what we do here), the neon and strobes were a little overdone. It may have been my TV at the time, but the neon glow would "smear" a little.
I did like the Match-Up as a new wrinkle to solve the "do not write" problem posed by early round matching in the 70s. It didn't get rid of all the goofy responses, but in general it promoted earnest attempts to match without having celebrities sit out most of the episode. I thought the writing was done well, and they generally had good celebrities (recognizing they often had to sacrifice Seat 6 to ABC Daytime promotion). I was in my first year of college, and I was able to run home to catch it every day, so some of the nostalgia is taking me back to a certain era.
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I know Brett Somers was on at least one week of episodes and that Charles was on a bit more frequently as a celebrity player. I also know that Gene Rayburn had been in line to get the gig until I think it was Entertainment Tonight made mention of Gene's age at the time due to a Happy Birthday announcement and that ultimately cost him getting the job in favor of a younger host in Ross Schaefer (who I felt did a really great job as host by the way!).
Was this ever confirmed or is it game show urban legend, kinda like Alex being drunk on the High Rollers finale? Gene wasn't only a few years older than Barker and TPiR didn't seem to suffer.
On the other hand I would like to think that Gene would have said to Brett and Charles "It's a paycheck! You would be dingbats to turn down being on the show!". I was wondering what you all think about these notions and if perhaps anybody may have some inside info about what I discussed here.
Never really thought about it until now but I doubt Gene would've had bad blood over Brett or CNR doing a few weeks. I'm sure he realized the two were just as synonymous with the show as he was.
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I was 11-12 when this version was on, so it was the first version of Match Game I had regular exposure to (though I did get to see some MGHS as a tyke.) Watching it as an adult with too much knowledge about how shows are made and built, I've formed some opinions:
- The game structure is better than MG '7x.
- The comedy is better and more consistent than MGHS.
- Ross is a better host than Gene was at any point during the 1980s.
- The editing is done really well to fit in the whole game without making the show feel chopped or rushed, as happened a lot during syndie MG.
- Not my money, but glad they figured out they could afford to up the stakes a little from the original for Super Match, even if the front game now gave a decent handful of money to the winner.
- My one structural critique: Once they figured out how to block the game as Round 1/Match-Up/Round 2 + Final Match-Up/Super Match, that second segment was just so short. Make the first go-round for :45 at $50, and make the second for :30 at $100. Doing that, you balance out the blocks a little better, and you still have the last round of the game worth the most money, but it's no longer weighted so heavily that it feels like it outweighs everything before it.
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- My one structural critique: Once they figured out how to block the game as Round 1/Match-Up/Round 2 + Final Match-Up/Super Match, that second segment was just so short. Make the first go-round for :45 at $50, and make the second for :30 at $100.
Before I get into the rest, can I ask why it's a detriment to you as a viewer to have one segment disproportionately short? Maybe I'm missing something.
-Jason
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Before I get into the rest, can I ask why it's a detriment to you as a viewer to have one segment disproportionately short? Maybe I'm missing something.
-Jason
I compare it to a common gripe in sports: Those moments in football where it's an ad break, kickoff, touchback, and then right to another ad break. I just like a little more meat in that particular sandwich. Honestly, the weight of the scoring is more important to me than the timing of the segments, but I just thought of a way that could have addressed both in one move without really messing with everything I feel worked just fine.
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Make the first go-round for :45 at $50, and make the second for :30 at $100. Doing that, you balance out the blocks a little better, and you still have the last round of the game worth the most money, but it's no longer weighted so heavily that it feels like it outweighs everything before it.
I would argue that you actually do want a fairly robust catch-up mechanic, especially when each person is effectively playing their own game with little way to affect the other. While modern game shows seem to visibly overbalance for their final round, I don't think MG '90 has that problem.
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You don't want the last round to be just 30 seconds (ask Temptation: The All-New $ale of the Century). You want the perception of a comeback possibility. Even if they flipped the timing to 45/30 instead of 30/45, Match-Up would still be more important to the score than the longer, main rounds of Match Game, where all the real entertainment of the show is supposed to come from. If we end up in the weeds of scoring on what's supposed to be a comedy show, we have a problem of a different kind.
-Jason
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I haven't been watching much of the Buzzr run, but revisiting just a couple of episodes, I don't like that there are two sets of Match-Up. There's no comedy, and each prompt goes by too quickly for the viewer to think about whether the contestant or celebrity are picking the "better" of each pair.
One set wouldn't bother me, but when they keep interrupting the fun with Match-Up, and when Match-Up often pays better than the fun questions, it feels like the focus is on the wrong part of the show.
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Totally agree. It's a cute round once per show. If you want something that will help determine a winner better than the 2nd question, could do some form of the tiebreaker match as a 4th round. Or just drop the 2nd matchup and have more time for banter.
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I know Brett Somers was on at least one week of episodes and that Charles was on a bit more frequently as a celebrity player. I also know that Gene Rayburn had been in line to get the gig until I think it was Entertainment Tonight made mention of Gene's age at the time due to a Happy Birthday announcement and that ultimately cost him getting the job in favor of a younger host in Ross Schaefer (who I felt did a really great job as host by the way!).
Was this ever confirmed or is it game show urban legend, kinda like Alex being drunk on the High Rollers finale? Gene wasn't only a few years older than Barker and TPiR didn't seem to suffer.
Gene himself said this a few times, and ageism exists in show business but...I'll just say that this is probably the version of the story that gave Gene the most personal comfort. I've talked to some people who crossed paths with Gene in the 1980s and I've learned the following...
#1. People who dealt with Gene in the 1980s remember attitude problems.
#2. The feeling among people who had the power to hire him saw his recent work and concluded that regardless of age, his prime had passed.
#3. He tested shockingly poorly with focus groups in the 1980s.
Again, I'm sure that "He's in his 70s? Oh, geez, let's see if someone ELSE can do this" absolutely figured into it a bit, but there were a few other things going on that cost Gene work.
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1. The Star Wheel with that pointer, it's more fun watching the actual wheel spin than a pointer, especially since the contestant always starts off with the pointer in the same general spot on the wheel itself.
This really isn't different from The Price is Right starting every Showcase Showdown from the dollar, or Wheel of Fortune starting every round with the wheel in the same position so the camera can get a pretty shot of the important space for that round.
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Really? You're bent out of shape because the multiplier was 20x and not 21x and that the winner is pushing an arrow instead of grabbing a peg?
OK then.
He didn't complain that the set wasn't swathed in orange.
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The feeling among people who had the power to hire him
Care to name names? My intuition tells me Jonathan Goodson and possibly Chester Feldman.
Roger Dobkowitz has hinted that Gene was not a nice man and difficult to work with.
He tested shockingly poorly with focus groups in the 1980s.
Interesting.
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Did this version have any contract panelists? Here's what I mean: on the '70s version Brett, Charles and Richard were under contract to appear on every show. Did this version have any of that? Marcia Wallace would have worked well as a regular in seat 6, better than shit-faced Brett bickering with Charles.
The casting of the panel is crucial on MG. When you boil it down, on the CBS version there were only two bookable seats on the panel: 1 and 4. Seat 6 drew from a small circle of players.
Fred Travalena's impersonations get tiresome pretty quickly. I played MG with Fred Travalena when he tested in Ira's office and don't recall any impersonations.
Add to the list of "tiresome": Rayburn's character voices of Count Dracula and Old Man Periwinkle.
Match-Up seems like a throw-away that didn't integrate particularly well with the rest of the show.
Who was the judge on this version?
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Did this version have any contract panelists?
Charles was a regular on this version.
Match-Up seems like a throw-away that didn't integrate particularly well with the rest of the show.
I just pulled up my interview notes from Matchless...Robert Sherman indicated that Match-Up was Jonathan Goodson's brainchild and the idea was to accomplish what his dad was hoping for, infusing more GAME into the format. I don't dislike the concept of Match-Up, I just think it was used incorrectly. I think a better place for it would have been as Curt Alliaume once suggested--using it in place of Audience Match as a way to build up the jackpot.
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I like the concept of Match-Up, and didn't mind there being two sets per day. But there's a clip where a contestant only needed one correct match to win. He and the celebrity whiffed on every single choice.
The idea works on paper but IMO, having the game come down to blind guessing doesn't sit right with me for whatever reason. It feels like you could essentially go 6/6 on each of your riddles but still lose because your opponent made the better coin flip. I like the idea of replacing the Audience Match with Match-Up.
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I like the idea of replacing the Audience Match with Match-Up.
As do I. You pick your star for it and go for :30 or :45 at $100 a pop, and I think it would work really well.
An idea that's been bouncing around my head too long: If you made Match-Up your stake builder for the bonus round, would an Audience Match game work in between two rounds of the front game? You do Round 1 at $50/match, the Audience Match at something like 250-100-50, 300-200-100, or even rework it to 300-200-150-100-50, and then Round 2 at $100/match is your finisher.
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I think a better place for it would have been as Curt Alliaume once suggested--using it in place of Audience Match as a way to build up the jackpot.
That would have been better. For one thing it would mean Match-Up got played once by the winner of the main game.
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I know Brett Somers was on at least one week of episodes and that Charles was on a bit more frequently as a celebrity player. I also know that Gene Rayburn had been in line to get the gig until I think it was Entertainment Tonight made mention of Gene's age at the time due to a Happy Birthday announcement and that ultimately cost him getting the job in favor of a younger host in Ross Schaefer (who I felt did a really great job as host by the way!).
Was this ever confirmed or is it game show urban legend, kinda like Alex being drunk on the High Rollers finale? Gene wasn't only a few years older than Barker and TPiR didn't seem to suffer.
Gene himself said this a few times, and ageism exists in show business but...I'll just say that this is probably the version of the story that gave Gene the most personal comfort. I've talked to some people who crossed paths with Gene in the 1980s and I've learned the following...
#1. People who dealt with Gene in the 1980s remember attitude problems.
#2. The feeling among people who had the power to hire him saw his recent work and concluded that regardless of age, his prime had passed.
#3. He tested shockingly poorly with focus groups in the 1980s.
Again, I'm sure that "He's in his 70s? Oh, geez, let's see if someone ELSE can do this" absolutely figured into it a bit, but there were a few other things going on that cost Gene work.
Another thing to consider: Gene lived on the East Coast, and any show he did would have involved him doing a cross country commute. It's likely Gene was not willing to travel as much as he used to, or the taping schedule would not mesh as well with his travel demands.
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I would like someone in the know to expound on the whole West Coast/East Coast cost argument that keeps getting tossed about.
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One interesting strategic element of "Match-Ups" that I picked up on--and I don't know if it was intentional or not--is that often times, the choice was between a single word and a longer phrase. It didn't happen often enough, unfortunately, but I did notice a few savvy contestants/celebs who picked up on this and chose the single word every time to save themselves a few more valuable seconds.
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Brett did 3 weeks. Nice compilation
https://youtu.be/qmNtwYMUc4A?si=tS7Ny-X5zqPw5fX8
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Charles Nelson Reilly was called out in the TV Guide ads as "Match Game's own."
(https://i.imgur.com/al50XLV.jpeg)
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I like the idea of replacing the Audience Match with Match-Up.
As do I. You pick your star for it and go for :30 or :45 at $100 a pop, and I think it would work really well.
An idea that's been bouncing around my head too long: If you made Match-Up your stake builder for the bonus round, would an Audience Match game work in between two rounds of the front game? You do Round 1 at $50/match, the Audience Match at something like 250-100-50, 300-200-100, or even rework it to 300-200-150-100-50, and then Round 2 at $100/match is your finisher.
Did you get this idea from the DVD game? Because Audience Match is played exactly this way in the DVD game. I've played it with a lot of groups of friends and while it tends to go over well (I don't think anyone really cares who wins the Match Game DVD game), thing that I noticed from all those playings is that a player who matches the top answer in between-rounds Audience Match will for sure win the whole game.
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Did you get this idea from the DVD game? Because Audience Match is played exactly this way in the DVD game. I've played it with a lot of groups of friends and while it tends to go over well (I don't think anyone really cares who wins the Match Game DVD game), thing that I noticed from all those playings is that a player who matches the top answer in between-rounds Audience Match will for sure win the whole game.
I've actually never played the DVD game. The idea came to me back when MGHSH was new in the nightly rotation on Buzzr, and I was thinking about ways to not make the MG portion the three-round slog it so often was, while keeping the breaks the same and not having to depend on a band being present in the audience.
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...having the game come down to blind guessing doesn't sit right with me for whatever reason.
I never liked this distillation of Match-Up as a coin flip. While this doesn't apply to every pair of options, knowing your celebrity could mean that some options were softballs. It might only result in a couple extra matches, but at $100 a pop, that makes a huge difference in winning and losing.
That said, I kinda love the idea of it as a cash builder.
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The two sides for me—as a game player I dislike that a Contestant can speak all of twice and be spun off. At the same time Match up does test that catch a wavelength thing but it is still unsatisfactory. It’s one of those where the surroundings hsve to make up for the onion skin thin premise.
Regarding not winning your audience match prize, I thought up it was odd a perfect game was $5,600 in 1973, but in 1990 you’re winning in the neighborhood of $1,000 for the main game. Maybe they should have brought out bonus shuffle out and the best slider plays for ten times that.
It’s a case where if you want you can pick it apart and you can also enjoy it for what we got as a final product.
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Maybe they should have brought out bonus shuffle out and the best slider plays for ten times that.
I think we're on to something here. Bonus Shuffle, but then there are match-up words hidden under the pucks for extra money. :P
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MG 90 isn't that bad. But it isn't that good either. It's a solid, middle of the road type show, nothing edgy or remarkable or anything, 6/10.
They needed to do a better job with the panel. There are so many D-level celebrities. But maybe by this time, that was all who was willing to do game shows. Those who appeared semi-regularly and were not MG7x vets were more annoying than anything else. Charles is by far the funniest panelist; he's the highlight in most episodes.
Ross is too introverted, and his humor is too ironic. I think they needed to get someone more extroverted. Bert Convy would have been perfect.
Match Up was out of place. It took away from the humor. There were also so many ways to game it. It's terrible that it determined who won the game. It would have been better as part of the end game.
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Ross' humor was of its time and worked well, in my opinion. The show didn't need more extroversion.
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I never thought Ross was all that bad, but watching BUZZR lately, I like him even more. He was good with an ad-lib and good with the stars.
The fun of Match Game is making up an answer. Match-Ups don’t have that.
Good heavens, why they’d have the idiot with the dragon puppet on even once is beyond me.
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Just like I've Got A Secret went from outgoing Garry Moore to reserved Steve Allen, Match Game went from outgoing Gene to reserved Ross.
Match Up went against the spirit and flow of the whole proceedings. The time to get serious was during the end game, not during the main game.
What was Mark Goodson's beef with having a show that emphasized the comedy? The game aspects of Match Game are so lame, for them to emphasize more game, it will fall flat.
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shit-faced Brett
Toward the end of the syndicated daily version, was Brett less able to handle her Russian club soda? It has seemed to me she was, uh, tired more of the time. Is that why she wasn’t invited to the MGHSH?
Was Gene? Adam, I think in your book you note that he was drinking less when MGHSH started. I think he was great on that with new stars helping.
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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.
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Watching more of Match Game '90 and there's another issue that sticks out to me--playing for cash doesn't work on this show.
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.
And if they just played standard Match Game rounds for cash, what do you do in the same situation? It looks awkward again. "You matched Charles and that means you win the game!....Oh, uh, let's see what everyone on the bottom tier said...okay, that's a match so you win more money...not a match...and another match for more money." There's just not a graceful way to give contestants money with this structure.
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As "out of place" as Match Up seems, I think Match Game 1998 shows why Match Up makes the game more fair. I always
thought that MG 98's scoring format was broken. Pearson, the company that owned MG productions then, wasn't satisfied
with the lack of matching on that version of Match Game, so consequentially the questions were written with only one or two possible answers. It also didn't help that the panel made no attempts to be discreet in copying off each other... they looked like a class of students cheating on a test with no teacher in the room. So, that made the game less fun knowing that all the celebs would have the same answer. With each celeb having the same answer, that meant either you would match everyone or no one. With the MG 98 scoring format, there was no room for error. So, I think Match Up takes off the pressure to have to match each celeb TWICE to secure a win. On the 70s version, you only had to match each celeb once.
Ross was just fine for me. His more reserved style allowed the panel more leeway to be more funny. I do think the panel selection was sometimes hit or miss, but I think overall they kept within the spirit of the game.
Edited to remove a bunch of blank lines at the end of the post. -knagl
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It also didn't help that the panel made no attempts to be discreet in copying off each other... they looked like a class of students cheating on a test with no teacher in the room.
A bad trait that carried over to the Alec Baldwin version as well.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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
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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?
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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.
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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."
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Orson did at least 1 week in '79.
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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?