Slide it, Earl

[ActualRetailMike]

With Hurricane Earl dusting the easternmost shores of the USA, does anyone remember the catchphrase, "Slide it, Earl"?

The Super Match round of Match Game '7x had four sliding panels: one with the "blank", and the other 3 with the $500, $250, and $100 responses.  Often, especially toward the higher values, Gene Rayburn might say, to the Super Match board "Now let's see the $500 response.  Slide it, Earl!".  Was Earl the pet name of the game board itself?  Or was there actually a stage hand back there with that proper name.  Sometimes Earl would get crazy, making strange sounds and whatnot.

[golden-road]

[quote name=\'ActualRetailMike\' post=\'246794\' date=\'Sep 3 2010, 05:24 PM\']With Hurricane Earl dusting the easternmost shores of the USA, does anyone remember the catchphrase, "Slide it, Earl"?

The Super Match round of Match Game '7x had four sliding panels: one with the "blank", and the other 3 with the $500, $250, and $100 responses.  Often, especially toward the higher values, Gene Rayburn might say, to the Super Match board "Now let's see the $500 response.  Slide it, Earl!".  Was Earl the pet name of the game board itself?  Or was there actually a stage hand back there with that proper name.  Sometimes Earl would get crazy, making strange sounds and whatnot.[/quote]

There was indeed a stage hand with that name; he even made an on-camera appearance one time.

[whewfan]

Sometime in 1978, the stagehand was named Aurie (sp?)

[mbclev]

[quote name=\'whewfan\' post=\'246802\' date=\'Sep 3 2010, 07:55 PM\']Sometime in 1978, the stagehand was named Aurie (sp?)[/quote]

And then, on the MG-HS Hour, before the $1000 Super Match response was revealed, Gene would say, "Slide it, Steve!"

[Ian Wallis]

There was indeed a stage hand with that name; he even made an on-camera appearance one time.

I think he appeared more than once.  Gene even said to the audience one time "...you thought we had a machine doing that, didn't you?"  Each time Earl appeared it meant he got union scale money for an on-camera appearance.

[DrBear]

I remember the appearance; Earl slid in through a side panel in the rotating wall.