Match Game PM

I loved this version of "The Match Game," too...especially since it came on after school! Yes, the rules were better, and the star wheel sucked, but it was still funny!

However, to beat all irony of ironies, in my hometown, "The Match Game PM" and "Family Feud" were aired back to back!

I'm sure Richard Dawson was thrilled...

In this nightime version of the Match Game, Gene Rayburn and panelists seemed to dress more formal. Fannie Flagg no longer wore her infamous t-shirts with "Danger-Curves Ahead" on them. Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly converted from their usual attire and changed into suits and dresses, (you decided what CNR was wearing).

Some questions were new, but also some came from older versions of the Match Game. Also, two audience matches were given with a jackpot of 20,000 dollars if a contestant landed on a double space.

Overall, this show was an excellent version, probably the best, except for the absence of Dicky Dawson.

With the wild successfulness of Match Game on CBS daytime, it wasn't long before it expanded to nighttime syndication with more money, more glamor and more time for the hilarity from the celebrity panel and host Gene Rayburn!

The objection is the same: trying to match the celebrity panel to a fill-in-the-blank question/statement and whoever match the most will go to the Super Match.

There is a slight difference to it, with them playing audience match rounds for a chance up to $20,000 in the Super Match round.

Gene was still Gene, and the celebrity panel, including regulars Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly and Richard Dawson, are wackier, and the outfits for the panel were now more glamorous on here than the daytime run!

So, if you've seen the daytime run on CBS, then check out this weekly syndicated run as everyone is crazier here.

Matchgame PM is quite possibly the best game show ever. Gene's informal hosting along with the six panelists refusal to do anything that could be considered serious makes it so fun to watch. It takes you straight back to the seventies with wacky outfits, onstage smoking, huge glasses and words that were only used in that decade. The shows real strength lies in the sentences that the shows producers came up with. While some of them have definative answers and others do not, all are funny yet still give you some chance of matching a member of the panel. If you've never seen Matchgame PM and you get the Gameshow Network I would advise you to give it a try, I'm sure you'll love it.

When I was a kid, I would often feign sickness to stay home from school, to watch reruns of "I Dream Of Jeannie," "Gomer Pyle," "Green Acres" & "Hogan's Heroes," but though I also loved game shows, I loved one in particular: Match Game. "Match Game PM" was on (probably syndicated) around dinnertime, but only once a week, & even if I didn't understand the more racy questions ("Every night, So-And-So went home to his wife & blanked her"), I still loved the idea of putting in a word & trying to match it with people who were called celebrities, even if I had never seen Brett Sommers & Charles Nelson Reilly in anything *but* "Match Game" before.

The other comment on this show mentions the absence of Richard Dawson; actually, in repeats on the Game Show Network, he's very much there & host Gene Rayburn refers to him as a "regular"; he also occasionally plugs Dawson's "new" game show, "Family Feud." The rules are a little different (the two audience matches, for example), but. to be fair, as the daily show went on, they changed the rules regularly (the last season, for example, seemed to think that contestants deserved two chances, so the same pair vied twice). What "Match Game PM" allows, because the game lasts the whole thirty minutes, is *more* time with the celebrities, & as such it's a lot more fun than the daily version - none of the weird audio cuts or Gene Rayburn suddenly appearing in front of the contestants when a second before he was hovering behind Richard Dawson.

I consider this the best game show ever because it's simply so much fun. Certain guests are more clever than others, but a good time is honestly had by all. By 21st century standards (if such things be) it's one weirdo trip: wide lapels, the occasional uncomfortable racist remark (always handily countered by the minority on the show), the celebrities smoking freely, & the fact that Gene Rayburn, God bless his soul, looks & acts like the creepy uncle you always hated visiting on holidays. I watch this regularly & it's only because I have too many videotapes as it is that I don't have a huge stash of old episodes of "Match Game" in my closet. As of this writing, the Game Show Network has a full hour of it nightly, one-half of which is "Match Game PM." I encourage you to seek it out. Who knows? Maybe there's a seven-year-old in you that has been missing it for a long, long time.