Tuned into a rerun of Match Game 79 on Game Show Network this morning. I was surprised to see two puppets - Kukla & Ollie as one of the panelists. Seems to me having two puppets as a panelist on the show that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel. Yes I am aware that Kukla & Ollie are from the old kid's show Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.
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Match Game 79 - Scraping The Bottom of the barrel for panelists?
- Thread starter MarcB
- Start date
Apparently, the "real" panelist was Burr Tillstrom. I recall Muppets on game shows such as Hollywood Squares. This goes back to the dawn of television when Paul Winchell appeared on What's My Line with his dummy (who did most of the questioning - the mystery guest was fellow ventriloquist Edgar Bergen with his dummy).
These are all game shows and the panelists are used for comic effect. In that context, puppets, muppets and dummies are very appropriate. And usually far better known than some humans on the panel.
These are all game shows and the panelists are used for comic effect. In that context, puppets, muppets and dummies are very appropriate. And usually far better known than some humans on the panel.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Match Game 79 was indeed an embarrassing last season of the CBS run.
To understand why, you have to go back a couple of seasons: Richard Dawson had begun hosting Family Feud in 1976 (legend has it that FF was designed specifically for him, based on how well he had performed in the bonus "Super Match" on MG) and managed to appear on both shows for a couple of years. CBS, however, started tinkering with MG's time slot ... first moving it up a half-hour, then disastrously moving it to mornings in the fall of 1977. That move nearly killed it right there as the ratings plummeted with the absence of the core viewers, students who watched it when they got home from school in the afternoons, and Family Feud took the title of most-watched game show as a result. The network tried to fix the mistake within weeks but MG ended up at 4:00pm, a slot which was increasingly being pre-empted for local programming by the affiliates, so the ratings did not return to previous levels.
Now CBS was in panic mode. In the summer of 1978 they added the "star wheel" to choose the head-to-head Super Match. That irritated Richard Dawson, who had been the favorite choice of contestants about 90% (or more, depending on whose version of the story you read) of the time and with that spotlight essentially removed, he left MG a few weeks after the wheel's introduction to concentrate on FF, which turned out to be a shrewd move on his part. Sidebar: The angular blue and white set was introduced right about the same time as Dawson's exit.
The episode you saw this morning on GSN was close to the end, as it did not last very long past changing the "78" to "79" on New Year's Day. The last MG 79 aired April 20 of that year, but a daily syndicated daytime edition debuted that September, running for two more seasons. The evening Match Game PM version, which had debuted in 1975, was still more popular than the syndicated daytime version, but lost affiliates its last two years because of most stations choosing one over the other; only in a few markets were both seen, such as New York where WABC-TV carried both.
MG PM ended in 1981 after six years, the syndicated daytime MG ran for exactly three years and ended in 1982.
And the decline in celebrity contestants was in lockstep with the falling ratings. My supposition is that if CBS had left it where it was in late afternoons it probably would have survived affiliate pre-emptions for longer than it did, because they likely would not have felt the need to add the "star wheel" and Dawson would have happily done both shows as long as Goodson-Todman would pay him to. The question would have been how long CBS would have been content to spotlight in that manner the host of a game show airing on ABC.
To understand why, you have to go back a couple of seasons: Richard Dawson had begun hosting Family Feud in 1976 (legend has it that FF was designed specifically for him, based on how well he had performed in the bonus "Super Match" on MG) and managed to appear on both shows for a couple of years. CBS, however, started tinkering with MG's time slot ... first moving it up a half-hour, then disastrously moving it to mornings in the fall of 1977. That move nearly killed it right there as the ratings plummeted with the absence of the core viewers, students who watched it when they got home from school in the afternoons, and Family Feud took the title of most-watched game show as a result. The network tried to fix the mistake within weeks but MG ended up at 4:00pm, a slot which was increasingly being pre-empted for local programming by the affiliates, so the ratings did not return to previous levels.
Now CBS was in panic mode. In the summer of 1978 they added the "star wheel" to choose the head-to-head Super Match. That irritated Richard Dawson, who had been the favorite choice of contestants about 90% (or more, depending on whose version of the story you read) of the time and with that spotlight essentially removed, he left MG a few weeks after the wheel's introduction to concentrate on FF, which turned out to be a shrewd move on his part. Sidebar: The angular blue and white set was introduced right about the same time as Dawson's exit.
The episode you saw this morning on GSN was close to the end, as it did not last very long past changing the "78" to "79" on New Year's Day. The last MG 79 aired April 20 of that year, but a daily syndicated daytime edition debuted that September, running for two more seasons. The evening Match Game PM version, which had debuted in 1975, was still more popular than the syndicated daytime version, but lost affiliates its last two years because of most stations choosing one over the other; only in a few markets were both seen, such as New York where WABC-TV carried both.
MG PM ended in 1981 after six years, the syndicated daytime MG ran for exactly three years and ended in 1982.
And the decline in celebrity contestants was in lockstep with the falling ratings. My supposition is that if CBS had left it where it was in late afternoons it probably would have survived affiliate pre-emptions for longer than it did, because they likely would not have felt the need to add the "star wheel" and Dawson would have happily done both shows as long as Goodson-Todman would pay him to. The question would have been how long CBS would have been content to spotlight in that manner the host of a game show airing on ABC.
I recall a syndicated version, titled Match Game, with no 'qualifier' after the title, which aired in 1982-83. Was this merely a continuation of the 1979 daytime version? (The 1983 date suggests it ended due to the Match Game/ Hollywood Squares experiment on NBC, but those '82-83 episodes were repeated in syndication til at least 1985(Gene Rayburn started doing a syndicated version of Break the Bank that fall, with even less success than 'MG/HS').
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
It does get complicated when you try to unravel the intertwining versions, but the version you refer to is the one I mention in the third paragraph from the bottom in my post that you quoted. It wasn't officially called an extension of the CBS daytime version (it didn't start in syndication until five months after the network cancellation) and although those were repeated for a few years after production ended (in September, 1982, not in 1983)* the NBC experiment was an independent thought process from any of the standalone Match Games, except that the concept itself was deemed worthy of resurrection.
* - I wonder if Fremantle Media owns the syndication rights to the "unqualified" and "PM" versions, and if they would therefore end up airing on Buzzr eventually.
I believe the only version of Match Game that Fremantle doesn't wholly own is the "Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour" (a co-production of Mark Goodson Productions and Orion Television, which through buyouts and mergers is now part of MGM). GSN has aired the 1979-82 syndicated and PM versions in the past, either in marathons or as part of the regular schedule. I'm sure it'll be a matter of time before Buzzr starts airing the aforementioned versions.
It's kinda funny...before I started watching the '70s version of Match Game in reruns on GSN, the only version I remembered was the 1990-91 version on ABC. I was only a toddler when "MG-HS Hour" originally aired (and since my grandmother was a General Hospital fan, as the two shows went head-to-head in most markets, I have no recollection of that show at all), and obviously the more familiar version was a bit before my time.
While the weekly MGPM was on WABC for its entire run, The syndicated daytime version actually aired on WCBS for its first two seasons (79-80 and 80-81), moved to WOR for 81-82, and then moved back to WCBS for a year of repeats from 82-83.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Find a verifiable source and go correct Wikipedia.
OK, now I'm wondering if the daytime syndicated episodes had then-current dates slapped onto the end credits when they were repeated in 1982 and later?
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
If you are referring to the fine print that gives the copyright date, that year by law must be the one the work being copyrighted was originally created in, so no.
Oh man...Really? OK. I didn't realize Wikipedia's entry was wrong. I'll head over there now and fix. I think old newspaper TV supplements are verifiable enough.
(the frustration in this message was directed to Wikipedia, not you).
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Saw your edit. I think the two small changes you made remove the confusion I had when I read it originally.
It was rather badly worded. Google Newspapers are fantastic places to get old TV listings. Even though there are no Harrisburg Patriot-News, I can get some harrisburg listings from the Reading Eagle (if the TV section is right-side up), and after September 1981, Gettysburg Times.
Something I've come across as well regarding MG that I find quite interesting:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=0q7iQwrhYWUC&dat=19790617&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
Page 19 of 35 - lists MG on Channel 2 at 4pm. This is from July 1979. The CBS daytime version left the air in April. The daily syndie wouldn't premier until September. What exactly aired here? I've only ever seen it on WCBS during this inbetween time period. I've verified it in old TV Guides so it's not a mistake with this paper.
Google Newspapers was a great idea that the geniuses at Google pulled the plug on far short of completion. Not sure why, maybe legal eagles for "old media" sharpening their talons? Anyway, while Google was still working on the project, dozens of results from the Newspapers archive would come up in routine Google searches. Now hardly any do.
For the record, the Star Wheel was used with the old set for three weeks of shows. The fourth week with the Star Wheel was when the new set was introduced. Dawson's last eight weeks on MG 78 were the first eight weeks of the Star Wheel; 3 weeks with the old set, and 5 weeks with the new set. Another change was made on the fifth week of the Star Wheel, when the sound effect of the wheel slowing down was changed. (Sorry that my notes are not more specific regarding the sound effect.)
Regarding the 90% number, it seems a bit exaggerated, as my records indicate a 75-80 % clip for Dawson on MG 75 & 76. However, Dawson was selected for 46 of the first 47 H2H matches on MG 77 (that is all the data I have for MG 77, an admittedly small sample size).
Per the Mark Goodson wikia page, one show from the week with Kukla & Ollie did not air on CBS. In this latest rerun cycle, GSN has aired all but one episode of MG79 (from March 5, 1979), including all (so far) of the "Lost" episodes from the last 5 weeks of taping. The two shows that GSN aired this morning at 8:00 and 8:30 AM ET were the third and fourth shows from the last week of shows. That means that there is one MG79 episode left to air, hopefully on Monday at 8 AM.
Interestingly, since GR and crew did not realize their ultimate fate as they were taping these last 5 episodes of MG 79 on March 11, 1979, twice that week references were made to air dates that were not to be. Show 2 is indicated as expected to air on Thursday, May 10, and show 4 on Monday, May 14.
Finally, I am guessing the absence of CNR from the last 10 shows is what lead to those never being broadcast on CBS. In amazing coincidence, the Broadway play that CNR was producing at the time was also canceled. "Break a Leg" at the Palace Theater in NYC lasted 12 preview performance, and ONLY ONE official performance on April 29 before closing. Clearly, April 1979 was not a good month for CNR.
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K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Appreciate your taking the time to look those facts up in your notes. As I said in my post, some of what I said is subject to the interpretation of whose narratives one reads and having the more definitive answer (as Gene used to put it) is helpful to the discussion.
For some reason Buzzr chose to start midway through MG78, as I am now seeing episodes there which I saw a few months back on GSN. They are now using an airing pattern similar to GSN's:
Monday - shows #1 and #2 of a week
Tuesday - shows #3 and #4 of the same week
Wednesday - show #5 of that week and show #1 of the next week
Thursday - shows #2 and #3 of the second week
Friday - shows #4 and #5 of the same week
If they stick to that pattern to the end of the CBS run, it should be easy to tell if they include the lost episodes.
I wonder what episodes will follow those (we'll know Monday about GSN, have to wait a few months on Buzzr) ... will they go to the syndicated version? MGPM?
How far along is Buzzr in MG 78? In the last rerun cycle, GSN skipped 9 consecutive shows; the last two shows of the fifth week without RD (with Nipsey Russell in RD's old seat); the entire sixth week without RD; and the first two shows of the seventh week without RD (will Bill Daily in RD's old seat). I am curious if Buzzr is airing these episodes. I'd love to see them.
I won't speculate about what GSN will do next. They seem to randomly, and without provocation, switch from one season to another. I will spare you the details, but the last 18 months on GSN present no discernible pattern.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
The last set of five shows aired (July 1B-2A/2B-3A/3B) was with Gary Crosby in upper left, Mary Wickes in lower left, and Dawson still there.
If it will be helpful, I can post the celebrity lineups as they begin airing each set of five on Buzzr.
Are you saying then that, for example, a Hart to Hart episode that was copyrighted in 1984 to Columbia Pictures Television had to have been made in that year (referencing this example of a copyright card from that show taken from the final-season DVD)?
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