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The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour
The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour | |
Premiere | October 31, 1983 |
Finale | July 27, 1984 |
Creator | Ira Skutch (Match Game), Bob Noah (Hollywood Squares) |
Host | Gene Rayburn (Match Game), Jon Bauman (Hollywood Squares) |
Network/Provider | NBC |
Style | 60-minute game show |
Company | Orion Television, Mark Goodson Productions, (The MG-HS Company) |
Seasons | 1 |
Episodes | 191 |
Origin | USA |
The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour is a game show that aired on NBC. It was comprised of the fifth version of Match Game and the second version of Hollywood Squares.
Essentially, though it was The Match Game with a tweaked Hollywood Squares thrown in as a side game. Two contestants played three rounds of Match Game (CBS rules apply), with the winner graduating to Squares playing against a returning champion as three additional panelists on an added upper tier are employed. The questions were multiple choice (which cut down on gag answers and eliminated the need to be briefed before airtime about bluff answers) and each square captured was worth $25 to that player. A tic-tac-toe won $100.
The winner of Squares played the Super-Match, where the audience match answers were now worth $250, $500 and $1000. Whatever was won was multiplied by whatever number a chosen celebrity held on a concealed card, one of which was 30 (meaning a potential jackpot of $30,000) which was what the contestant vied for in the head-to-head match.
The Telephone Match, used late in the run of the original 60s Match Game, was revived for the week of June 4, 1984. Viewers submitted post cards and a telephone call was made to a viewer whose card was drawn for that day. That viewer played a head-to-head match with a celebrity for a $5000 cash prize and an appearance on an NBC soap opera.
This version was getting hammered in the ratings at 3 PM by CBS's Guiding Light and ABC's General Hospital. Some NBC affiliates ran it on tape-delay to the next morning while others blacked it out altogether. Presumably all episodes of the show exist but has not been screened on GSN. Accounts differ as to why; some say because of clearance issues with Orion (rights holder of Squares at the time) while others say co-host Gene Rayburn insisted on not re-airing it due to some presumed difficulty working with Jon Bauman. The diginet Buzzr aired shows 2 through 5 on February 17, 2019; the series started regular airplay on Buzzr on September 30 weeknights at 10 PM ET.
Contents |
Cast
Person | Role |
---|---|
Main Cast | |
Gene Rayburn | Match Game host |
Hollywood Squares panelist | |
Jon Bauman | Hollywood Squares host |
Match Game panelist | |
Gene Wood | Announcer |
Seasons
Season | Premiere | Finale | # | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
NBC | ||||||
Season One | October 31, 1983 | July 27, 1984 | 191 |
In-Depth
- At a Glance: Additional information about the series
DVD Releases
There are no DVD releases for this show.