Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour

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The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour
The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour logo.
Format	Game Show
Created by	Mark Goodson and Bill Todman Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley
Presented by	Gene Rayburn (Match Game segments) Jon Bauman (Hollywood Squares segment)
Narrated by	Gene Wood Johnny Olson (sub-announcer) Bob Hilton (sub-announcer) Rich Jeffries (sub-announcer)
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	191
Production
Running time	60 Minutes
Production company(s)	Mark Goodson Productions Orion Television
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	October 31, 1983 – July 27, 1984

The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour was a American television game show that combined two long-running game shows of the 1960s and 1970s — Match Game and Hollywood Squares — into an hour-long format.

The series ran from October 31, 1983 to July 27, 1984 on NBC. Gene Rayburn hosted the Match Game and Super Match segments, while Jon Bauman hosted the Hollywood Squares segment. Gene Wood was the show's regular announcer with Johnny Olson, Rich Jeffries, and Bob Hilton substituting during the run.

The series was a joint production of Mark Goodson Productions and Orion Television, who owned the rights to Squares at the time.

Contents 1 Rules 1.1 Match Game 1.2 Hollywood Squares 1.3 Super Match 2 Broadcast history 2.1 Aftermath 3 Music 4 Episode status 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Rules

[edit] Match Game

The show began with two new contestants playing a round of Match Game with a panel of five celebrities and Jon Bauman. The object was the same as the 1970s version: it was up to the contestant to match as many of the panel's responses to fill-in-the-blank questions, with three rounds played and matched celebrities not playing subsequent questions. In cases of ties a modified version of the Match Game PM tiebreaker was used. Four possible answers to a Super Match-like statement (example: "_____, New Jersey") were secretly shown to the contestants (examples: "Atlantic City", "Hoboken", "Newark", "Trenton"). They each chose one by number. The host then polled the celebrities for verbal responses, just as on the PM tiebreaker. The contestant whose choice was matched first by a panelist won the game.

[edit] Hollywood Squares

The winner of the Match Game segment of this show then advanced to face the returning champion in the Hollywood Squares segment. Three additional celebrities were brought onto the stage for this round, while Gene Rayburn assumed Jon Bauman's spot on the panel.

Although the tic-tac-toe format and the "agree/disagree" question concept of the original Squares were carried over to this version, there were several differences in gameplay. Here, the champion always played X and the opponent O (similar to that employed on then-popular Barry & Enright production Tic-Tac-Dough), regardless of the gender of the players; to date, this has been the only version of Squares not to use the traditional "Mr. X" or "M(r)s. Circle" distinction. Each individual square earned was worth $25, with a game win worth $100 for the first game and increasing by $100 per game until time ran out. No "Secret Square" was played in this version.

Additionally, most questions asked were of the true/false or multiple choice variety (this is generally believed to be the result of the show's writers not providing the same pre-show briefings to the celebrities as on other versions, as Mark Goodson did not want to have a scripted game show). Finally, on this incarnation of Squares it was possible to win a game "by default" on an opponent's mistake; on all other Squares versions it was necessary for players to earn the winning square themselves.

The contestants played as many games as time allowed. When the final bell rang, the contestant in the lead won the game and the championship. Both players kept their money.

[edit] Super Match

The champion played Super Match from Match Game, which was structured just like its classic form. Rayburn and Bauman switched positions once again. As before, the round began with the Audience Match, with the contestant again being able to call on three of the nine celebrities for help. The payouts raised to $1,000 for the most popular answer, with $500 and $250 for each successive answer. However, unlike on the previous version of Match Game, a player's Super Match did not end if they failed to provide a top three answer. Instead, a player was spotted $100 for the Head-To-Head Match.

For the Head-To-Head Match, the player selected one of the nine celebrities (Jon Bauman, the five other panelists from Match Game, and the three that were added for Squares). Each celebrity concealed a different multiplier. Four celebrities held a 10, four held a 20, and one had a 30. The chosen panelist then revealed his/her multiplier, which was then combined with the Audience Match earnings to create the prize the contestant was playing for; the potential top prize was $30,000. As always, the match had to be exact, or no money was awarded.

Champions could return up to five days or until they were defeated, with the maximum potential payout being over $150,000 (which was never won since the odds of selecting the required "30" five times in a row alone, let alone winning the rest of the game, were less than 1 in 59,000).

[edit] Broadcast history

The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour debuted on October 31, 1983 at 3:00 PM Eastern time (2:00 PM in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific zones) on NBC. Both Match Game and Hollywood Squares had been aired on NBC, with (The) Match Game (albeit with different rules) airing from 1962-1969 and (The) Hollywood Squares airing from 1966-1980.

The show's only regular panelists were the co-hosts—Bauman sat on the panel during Match Game and the Super-Match while Rayburn sat on the panel during Hollywood Squares. Several guests on the show did have prior Match Game experience including Charles Nelson Reilly, Fannie Flagg, McLean Stevenson, Fred Travalena, and Bauman (who previously appeared on Match Game and Password Plus in his "Bowzer" persona). Of the former 1970s regulars of Match Game Reilly appeared the most, guesting in seven weeks of episodes, followed by Flagg with four weeks. Few of the original Hollywood Squares regulars appeared in this version, though George Gobel did appear.

Cast members of other NBC series often appeared on the show, as did stand-up comedians like Jay Leno and Arsenio Hall as well as younger stars such as Mary Page Keller and John de Lancie. Game show hosts also appeared on the show, including Bill Cullen, Bob Eubanks, Pat Sajak, Bill Rafferty, and Chuck Woolery (who promoted Scrabble during the week before it premiered). The cast of Leave It to Beaver was reunited for one week at the end of 1983, while another week in May 1984 featured NBC soap opera stars.

Competition from ABC's General Hospital and CBS's Guiding Light affected the show's ratings and the venture was cancelled after nine months, being replaced by Santa Barbara.

While the show aired on most NBC stations, some declined to carry it, such as WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York, KSDK in St. Louis, and WLBT in Jackson, Mississippi among others. In Milwaukee, WTMJ-TV passed on the show and then-independent WCGV-TV took it instead.

[edit] Aftermath

When the show was cancelled, plans were immediately made to revive both franchises as stand-alone programs. MG-HS was the last time that Hollywood Squares would air on a network; in 1986, a successful syndicated revival aired for three years with John Davidson as host. A further revival, hosted by Tom Bergeron, aired in syndication from 1998-2004.

However, this was the last time Gene Rayburn would host any form of Match Game. Another revival was slated for 1985, with Rayburn once again serving as host. However, Entertainment Tonight released a report around this point that included Rayburn's age, which was nearing 70. It was believed that Rayburn was too old for the job and the plans were scrapped, with stations that had signed on for the revival getting repeats from the 1979-1982 series. Rayburn would only go on to host two more game shows: Break the Bank (from which he was fired after 13 weeks and then went largely into retirement) and the short-lived game The Movie Masters for AMC from 1989-1990.

Match Game would not return to the airwaves until a revival on ABC in 1990, with Ross Shafer as host. Match Game was again revived in 1998, hosted by Michael Burger. Both lasted one season each, with the failure of the former attributed to its 12:00 Noon timeslot (which many affiliates used for local news) and the latter's many changes to its gameplay (five celebrities, no returning champions) in addition to an outdated $5,000 top prize.

Match Game was used as one of the semifinal games in CBS' Summer 2006 airing of Game $how Marathon.

[edit] Music

The theme of The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour was composed by Edd Kalehoff for Score Productions. It can still be heard today as a prize cue on The Price is Right particularly for new cars and the retired pricing game Super Ball!!; it was also used with cars on the 1986-89 version of Card Sharks. The music played during the show's ticket plug has also appeared on The Price is Right. A revamp of the theme, "Lottery", was used by WHDH in Boston during the late 1980s and early 90's as well as several local Illinois game shows; it can also be heard at the stage show The Price Is Right Live!.

[edit] Episode status

All episodes of the Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour are believed to be intact. However, aside from dozens of original-broadcast clips on YouTube and full episodes on other video-sharing websites, no episode has been repeated on terrestrial stations. Joint ownership of the program is the reason most often cited for the lack of reruns.

Match Game (a Goodson-Todman production, bought out by All American Television (now FremantleMedia) in 1994) and Hollywood Squares (a Heatter-Quigley production, acquired by Orion Television in 1983, Orion bought by MGM in 1998) had different producers and each series' rights are held by a different company. Match Game is held by Fremantle, whereas the format rights to Hollywood Squares are held by CBS Television Distribution. (CBS and Fremantle also co-own The Price is Right, which has not been seen in reruns since 2000.)

Another possible reason that the episodes have not been seen is a presumed veto by Gene Rayburn. Rayburn, according to Gene Wood, had to be dragged back to the Match Game portion of the show "kicking and screaming", and he reportedly had feuds with the production staff - specifically over Hollywood Squares host Jon Bauman.^[1]

[edit] See also

• Match Game
• Hollywood Squares

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Game Show Galaxy: Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour
• Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour on the Match Game Homepage
• Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour at ClassicSquares.com