Enjoying the show? Support our mission and help keep the content coming by buying us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/deepdivepodcastToday, we're talking about The Blank Show: Match Game. This is the story of a game show that was so funny, so chaotic, and so wonderfully inappropriate that it literally changed comedy forever. What do all the viral word puzzles we are obsessed with today—from the New York Times Strands to the Wordle TV show—have in common with a game show that's over 50 years old? The answer involves fast wit, shameless innuendo, and a panel of some of the funniest people to ever grace the TV screen. We're talking about the one, the only, Match Game.
The story doesn't start with a bang; it starts with a show that was pretty much dead in the water. Back in the 1960s, Match Game was boring, tame, and on the verge of being canceled by NBC. In a last-ditch Hail Mary pass to save the show, the writers made a huge pivot: they started leaning into risqué fill-in-the-blank questions. The whole vibe shifted from something innocent like "Name a kind of muffin" to "Johnny always put butter on his blank." That one little blank changed everything. This move to naughty double entendre humor didn't just save the show; NBC actually uncanceled it. When CBS rebooted it as Match Game '73, it exploded into a massive cultural phenomenon.
The beauty of the format was its simplicity, designed to create the most comedy and chaos possible. The whole point was for a contestant to match answers with a panel of celebrities on hilarious fill-in-the-blank questions. Two contestants, six celebrities, and a whole lot of laughs—that was the formula. The questions were the engine, driving the comedy. Take a classic one: "97-year-old man said whenever I go streaking I always take my blank." The studio audience would erupt, their minds going to the funniest, craziest place, leading to cheeky celebrity answers like "his wife" or "his cane." Contestants got points for a match, but the real prize was just how hard everyone was laughing.
The true magic, the thing that made this show a legend, was the people. You had Gene Rayburn as the host, the perfect ringmaster with his iconic skinny microphone, barely keeping the circus in check. But the heartbeat of the show was the electric panel chemistry, especially between the core players: Brett Somers, the witty, sharp-tongued queen; Charles Nelson Reilly, her flamboyant, over-the-top comic foil; and Richard Dawson, the charming one who was surprisingly good at the game.
The main game was a blast, but the bonus round, the Super Match, is where things got serious and where a pretty big feud started to heat up. In the Super Match, contestants first had to guess the top answer from an audience poll (the Audience Match). Then, for the really big prize money, they went head-to-head with one celebrity. For years, almost every contestant picked Richard Dawson because he was just that good at matching answers. That first part of the bonus round, the Audience Match, got so popular that producers spun it off into a little show you might have heard of called Family Feud. And guess who they got to host it? Richard Dawson
Even after all the 70s glitz and glamour faded, the spirit of this show lived on in ways you probably don't even realize. Match Game's influence is everywhere. It literally gave birth to the format of Family Feud. Its reruns are still on TV constantly. And if you have ever watched RuPaul's Drag Race, the entire Snatch Game segment is a direct, loving parody of Match Game. More than anything, though, it proved that a game show didn't have to be just a game show. It could be a full-on comedy riot, and that set a whole new bar for television. Was the crazy, chaotic charm of Match Game just a product of its time, a perfect storm of 70s culture that we can never get back? Or did they accidentally discover a timeless formula for fun that we are all still trying to recreate today? Something to think about.
