Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour

The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour
The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour logo.
Format	Game Show
Created by	Mark Goodson, 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)
Composer(s)	Edd Kalehoff
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	191
Production
Location(s)	NBC Studios Burbank, California
Running time	approx. 48 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 is an 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.^[1] 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.

Rules

Match Game

The show began with two new contestants playing a round of 1970s-style Match Game with a panel of five celebrities and Jon Bauman. The gameplay format was the one used on the syndicated Match Game PM; 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. After three rounds, the player with the higher score won the game.

In case of a tie, 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. Rayburn would then poll the celebrities for verbal responses one at a time, just as on the PM tiebreaker. The contestant whose choice was matched first by a panelist won the game.

Hollywood Squares

The winner of the Match Game segment of this show then advanced to face the returning champion in the Hollywood Squares segment. A third upper tier swung in to accommodate the three additional celebrities who were brought onto the stage for this round and Gene Rayburn assumed Jon Bauman's spot on the panel, playing as the bottom left square.

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.

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.

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. 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 a week in May 1984 featured NBC soap opera stars.

Aftermath

Original Squares host Peter Marshall expressed dislike of the Hour, saying that he was "happy" that it did not last more than a season.^[2] When the Hour was cancelled, plans were immediately made to revive both franchises as stand-alone programs. MG-HS was the last time that Hollywood Squares aired 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 to 2004.

However, this was the last time Gene Rayburn hosted any form of Match Game. Rayburn went 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 to 1990.

Match Game did 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.

Music

The theme of The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour was composed by Edd Kalehoff for Score Productions. The theme and the music played during the show's ticket plug was used for several years as prize cues on The Price is Right, as well as the 1986–1989 version of Card Sharks.

A revamp of the theme, "Lottery", was used by WNEV-TV/WHDH-TV in Boston during the late 1980s and early 1990s as well as several local Illinois game shows; it can also be heard at the stage show The Price Is Right Live!

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.

References

1. ^ McNeil, Alex (1996). Total television: the comprehensive guide to programming from 1948 to the present. Penguin Books. p. 531. http://books.google.com/books?id=dctkAAAAMAAJ&q=%22match+game+hollywood+squares+hour%22&dq=%22match+game+hollywood+squares+hour%22&hl=en&ei=VRg-Tq3eNsLn0QHhv4nfBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAg. 
2. ^ Marshall, Peter; Armstrong, Adrienne. Backstage with the original Hollywood square. Thomas Nelson Inc.. http://books.google.com/books?id=8MVE3aBas3MC&pg=PT191&dq=%22match+game+hollywood+squares+hour%22&hl=en&ei=VRg-Tq3eNsLn0QHhv4nfBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22match%20game%20hollywood%20squares%20hour%22&f=false.