Today's TV Game Show Almanac

[AaronHandy3]

DECEMBER 31, 1956

A nice young man would take the baton from Jack Bailey as emcee of the quiz show Truth Or Consequences. His name was Robert William Barker.

Or Bob, for short.

This was Bob Barker's first game show, which he would emcee for 19 years (right into its syndication years), from 1959-1975. He did the show while doing double duty on The (New) Price Is Right, which premiered in 1972.

DECEMBER 31, 1962


The Match Game, a new celebrity game created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, had its debut live @ 4:00p.m. (EDT) on NBC, hosted by Gene Rayburn and announced by Johnny Olsen.

The original MG bore little resemblance to the version we would all come to know and love. Two three-member teams competed, each consisting of a celebrity and two civilians. Gene would ask a simple question, such as "Name the word you think is used most often in everyday speech" or "Fill in the blank: To a rich man, ______ dollars is nothing." Each member of each team would write down an answer. If two members of a team matched, they received 25 points; should all three match, 50 points were awarded. The game continued until one team reached 100 points or, if both teams tie at 100 or more, whenever the tie is broken. The two players of the winning team split $1 per point won.

The winning team then played the "Audience Match," where they tried to predict how a previous studio audience (or, occasionally, special groups like 100 men, 100 teenagers, etc.) answered similar questions. Each member had a guess at each question, with the team winning $50 for each match (for a top possible payout of $450).

The debut celebrities were Arlene Francis and Skitch Henderson. Sometimes during the run, six celebrities (hint-hint!) would face off against each other for charity; the first such occurrence happening during the week of January 6, 1964, with stars Henry Morgan, Bennett Cerf, and Robert Q. Lewis playing for The Boy Scouts, and Joan Fontaine, Peggy Cass, and Betty White playing for The Girl Scouts.

The Match Game went on to its reward on September 26, 1969, after a hefty 7-year, 1,760-episode run on NBC (the same day Personality, Eye Guess, and You Don't Say! were axed), in favor of Letters To Laugh-In the following Monday. It was the last remaining daytime game show on network television to be produced by Goodson-Todman; save for first-run syndicated editions of What’s My Line?, To Tell The Truth, He Said, She Said and Beat The Clock, no new games from G-T would be shopped to the networks to add to their daytime schedules until the resurrection of Password on ABC in 1971. Sadly, what with it being a live show, a mass inventory of the videotapes became a tragic victim of The Peacock Network’s unfortunate inability to preserve many of its daytime shows, and as a result they have been wiped clean; only 11 episodes, including an original 1962 pilot featuring Peggy Cass and Peter Lind Hayes, are known to still exist today: 9 in The Library Of Congress, 1 in Museum of Television and Radio, and 3 in the trading circuit.

Fortunately for us faithful viewers, the last was not heard of Match Game, and so it has resurfaced in many updated incarnations many, many times over the years…the most popular and beloved one, as we well know, being its second, Match Game 7X, beginning on CBS Daytime July 2, 1973 and remaining on for 9 years, in daytime and nighttime!


DECEMBER 31, 1987


The $25,000 Pyramid experienced its first of two cancellations on CBS Daytime, following a 5-year, 1,339-episode run, with guests Anne Marie Johnson and Robert Hegyes. When its replacement, the Bob Goen-hosted Jay Wolpert Production Blackout, left much to be desired, The $25,000 Pyramid, by popular demand, returned to CBS after 13 weeks, thus making it the only game show in TV history to be replaced by another game and then in return replace that same game!