YMMV / Match Game

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Gene: Speaking of "bazzums"... Fannie, would you show us yours?
    
    Gene: Milk is the answer that Myron's looking for. Let's see if we can get a little milk from Patti here.
    Patti: I beg your pardon?
    
    Gene: Betty, show us your "G-string"! (Cue “The Stripper” music)
  • An early episode had Jaye P. Morgan complain about her match light not working and screamed out "I can't get turned on!"
  • In one 1978 episode, the sentences given to the contestant was "Jim the Cowboy is a cowboy through and through. Yesterday, his car got a flat tire so yesterday he blanked the car." to which the contestant answered "shot". Before revealing his answer, Charles said "I guess I'm more definite and rugged than I thought I was, because I'm like a cowboy too, Gene." upon which Brett erupted in laughter, cutting off Charles' punchline of "My car is shot too."
    Charles: The joke didn't work!
    Gene: That's because she started laughing in the middle of the setup!
• Adaptation Displacement:
  • Several fans of the 1970s version are unaware of the NBC version, which was a far more staid affair (as was the first season or so of the 1970s version).
  • Around the time the 1970s version premiered, the "HOW Y WAS X?!" routine (see Memetic Mutation, below) was already fairly well known from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (and is still in use today, in some form or another). You have Bert Convy to thank for its association with Match Game; he started doing it sometime in 1973 as a Shout-Out, and he and other celebrities kept using it so much the audience soon joined in.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Almost every Super Match/Head-to-Head Match that had Richard Dawson present. Contestants would always pick him for the Head-to-Head because he rarely mismatched. In mid-1978, the show added a "Star Wheel", which would randomize which of the six celebs the contestant would play with in the Head-to-Head Match. The Star Wheel did much to hasten Dawson's departure, and he became much more sullen over the seven weeks after the Wheel's debut (although, rather hilariously, he was the first one the Star Wheel landed on). Per several of the contestants who were interviewed, this is because Richard was known for actually working to try and match the contestant's answer vs. many of the others focusing on coming up with something funny.
  • Even during the Audience Match, there seemed to be a trend where quite a few contestants (usually female, it has to be said) would pick the answer that Dawson gave, whether or not it was likely to be the $500 response, simply because it was Dawson who gave it. That being said, Dawson also pretty reliably provided an answer that was sure to be on the board and the contestant was guaranteed at winning some money.
  • Dawson was so reliable at matching that even his one real whiff became a Memetic Mutation: when he said Adolph Menjou instead of Adolf Hitler.
  • ABC 2016 version: Rosie O'Donnell for the Head-to-Head. Although this is likely due to her celebrity factor.
• Fan Nickname: The 1990s revivals are usually referred to as Match Game '90 and Match Game '98 after the 1970s version's habit of adding whatever year it was to the show title. Even Game Show Network did this back when it was still running the former.
• Growing the Beard: At some point circa 1965-66, having been cancelled with six weeks left to make, the show turned into a comedy game with silly questions like "Mary liked to pour gravy on John's _____"...and quickly got renewed by NBC. The show returned to the "sterile" stuff in 1973, but changed within six months to include the likes of Dumb Dora, Old Man Periwinkle, and anything that would lead to an answer of "boobs".
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • During the first week of the 1970s version, Jack Klugman would frequently reference his then-wife Brett Somers who would emigrate to the show as a regular panelist. This would be harder to stomach after Klugman and Somers separated in 1974.
  • Gene and Jon "Bowzer" Bauman's banter following The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour.
  • The "Old Man Periwinkle" questions became this after an age reveal derailed Gene Rayburn's career.^note Rayburn, who was born in very late 1917, was 64 upon the end of the '70s run.
  • A '77 episode featured a question that joked about "Old Man Rayburn" hosting Match Game '99. Not only did Old Man Rayburn end up not hosting Match Game '99 (Michael Burger hosted instead), but Gene Rayburn passed away in 1999.
  • A pair of 1978 episodes saw no fewer than four tiebreaker rounds being played. During the fourth, Richard Dawson displayed two cards, one during each contestant's question, with the first reading "Here We Go Again!" and the second reading "I'm getting sick of this!!" Funny in context, but when one considers how Dawson would leave the series later that same year, it's hard not to wonder if he was trying to tell us something with that second one...
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Both 1990s hosts, Ross Shafer and Michael Burger, would eventually end up working together on the informative Web Original series, Relevant Report.
  • Alec Baldwin impersonated Charles Nelson Reilly for a sketch on Saturday Night Live in 2001, 15 years before he became the host of Match Game. Making this a little less hilarious is the fact that, according to Reilly's longtime partner Patrick Hughes, Reilly himself hated the impression, especially how it had made him into a "sissy".
• LGBT Fanbase: The show (especially the '70s version) has always had a large gay following, due to its inherently campy nature, the larger-than-life presence of Charles Nelson Reilly, and the constant bashing of anti-gay country singer Anita Bryant.
• Memetic Badass: Charles Nelson Reilly, thanks to "Weird Al" Yankovic. "Giddyup, Gene!"
• Memetic Mutation: "X was so Y..." "How Y was X?!" A lot of younger people don't even know the source of this meme.
• Questionable Casting: Kukla and Ollie from Kukla, Fran and Ollie appeared on MG '79 and PM that same year (a few months before the "Cuckoo ____" fiasco), both staying in character (puppeteer Burr Tillstrom was a good friend of Gene Rayburn).
  • In the 2016 revival, Sarah Palin.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • When Richard Dawson left the panel, his chair went to several rotating panelists. Eleven weeks into the final season (1981-82), McLean Stevenson permanently took that place. He, of course, was no Dawson.
  • Much like the rest of Game Show Marathon in 2006, Ricki Lake was seen as one of these.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Kirstie Alley was a contestant during the fourth week of the daytime syndicated version.
  • As was Brianne Leary of CHiPs (MG '76; she appeared on the celebrity panel in '79).
  • Former Baltimore Ravens head coach Brian Billick was a contestant on PM.
  • As a panelist in 1978, Patty Duke held up a card saying hi to her kids, Mack and Sean.
  • When Greg Morris appeared as a panelist, one of the Audience Match games was [Blank] Morris. "Greg" was chosen (by a different audience) but an understandably more popular answer was "Phillip". Greg remarked that he actually had a son named Phillip. About 20 years later, that Phillip memorably portayed the Johnnie Cochran inspired character of Jackie Chiles on Seinfeld.
  • Author and TV personality Aphrodite Jones was a contestant on Match Game '78.
• Seasonal Rot: Many fans think that the show started going downhill after Richard Dawson left in the latter half of the 70's, in part because none of his successors had the chemistry. Also, the question writing and general silliness were a bit more toned down in later seasons.
• Special Effect Failure: The toaster button which lowered to reveal the questions was often prone to malfunctioning. On several occasions, Gene would pound the button with his fist to make it work. Then there were times the prop would come down with the cards still on it, leaving Gene to retrieve it to read the questions.
• Spiritual Sequel: The 2024 Game Show Network original Blank Slate, with Mario Lopez at the helm, is basically an Expy of the 60s version.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The 1998-99 revival's theme started out almost identically to the 1973-82 one, complete with the scratchy guitar work, but then went off in its own direction. Almost a spoof, really.
• That One Level: "Match-Up" in the ABC daytime and Canadian versions, a ham-fisted attempt to add an actual sort of "game".
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The 1979-82 daily syndicated run had two contestants play two games, after which they would both retire, instead of returning champions. The $100 bonus for winning games was also retired, leading to at least one player who won both games going home with parting gifts having struck out in both Super Matches.
  • The 1990-91 version had each episode be self-contained, but unlike Match Game PM, it had returning champions. The scores were cash-based, however, and the game hinged on the second Match-Up rather than the second pair of A-B questions. Only the winning player on each show kept the money; departing contestants received standard consolation prizes (and any money accumulated if it was a returning champion); this was temporarily averted during one week when Marines were contestants (both players kept whatever was scored, including the runner-up [a refreshing change, because if a Marine went on there during that week and did not win, and only got the standard parting gifts like everyone else, that would be some thanks for their service to this nation— in essence, not much]).
  • Later in the 1990 run (after the value of Audience Match questions was raised to $500-$300-$200), if a contestant struck out, they could still play the Head-To-Head Match for $1000 (or $2000 if doubled).
  • The 1998-99 version got rid of Match-Up, which could've given the panelists more time to be funny. Unfortunately, this version failed to live up to its predecessors — the questions went from suggestive to offensive and tasteless under a Hotter and Sexier guise, the panel was reduced from six celebrities to five, the returning-champion aspect was eradicated, the payouts were cheap (reduced from $10,000—plus front-game score—during the '90-'91 run back to $5,000), there was no chemistry whatsoever, and some of the guests were very bored. None of the panelists from the 1970s version, save for Vicki Lawrence, were invited back.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Gene's perverted antics with female contestants were already pushing the envelope back in the 70's, but nowadays they would have landed him in major hot water. Same would go with his tradition of kissing new female celebrities on the lips.
  • Similarly, Richard Dawson kissing the female contestants after getting a successful Super Match, though it's not as looked down upon as it was on Family Feud due to most of the instances being initiated by the contestant themselves rather than Richard.
  • In one episode, Gene jokingly threatened to send Black panelist Greg Morris "to the back of the bus"; in another episode, he made the same comment to a Black contestant. Such comments were off-color back then (considering that the Civil Rights Movement had ended less than a decade prior), but they would absolutely get Gene branded as a racist today.
  • In general, there was an expectation that minority panelists would "play along" with the abundant racist jokes to prove they were "good sports" — Asian panelists may have had it even worse than Black ones did in that regard. Several of them would gently attempt to steer the discussion towards something a bit less inflammatory, but usually with little success.
  • One episode from '76 had a prompt featuring a 102-year-old talking about demands from a 17-year-old fiancée. Such a prompt would be unthinkable today.
  • A lot of prompts in the ‘70s version engaged in Native American stereotypes and used a lot of Tonto Talk. Neither would fly today.
  • In an oft-recycled blooper, Gene attacks a cue card guy for being late on a commercial cue. At the time, this was an amusing form of retribution. Today, Gene would think twice before doing this while the cameras are rolling, as he could face assault charges.

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