Okay, gang . . . I told you
I'd be weighing in on my pop culture obsessions, so today a few thoughts on
Match Game. (But first a few thoughts on the Game Show Network. . . I want to
meet and thank the evil television mastermind who came up with the idea of
running reruns of the old '70s and '80s game shows. Who knew I'd be sucked
right in? He did, apparently. Genius, I say, pure genius!) So yeah . . . that
Match Game. With Gene "Lurch" Rayburn, the freakiest looking game
show host ever. Not only is the guy about 7 feet tall, he's sort of stooped,
the way really tall guys can be, and, to add to the general sense of
elongation, he uses this impossibly tall, skinny microphone the likes of which
I've never seen before. (He also seems like a real pussy cat, by the way.)
Why
am I obsessed with this show? Hard to say. Is it the orange shag carpet set? Is
it the funky, waa-waa-pedal-heavy "concentration" music? Is it the
contestants, and their fabulous parade of '70s wardrobe misdemeanors? Is it the
show's "naughty" cavalcade of double entendres? More likely, it's the
regular panelists, who always look like they've had a few highballs before (and
perhaps during) the show, who SMOKE on the air (god bless the '70s), and who,
if you listen closely, are often heard hacking up loogies during the show.
You've got Brett Summers, who has this fabulous, "I've been around the
block a few thousand times" whisky-soaked voice and wears these giant
glasses that dwarf her entire face and who is/was famous for some indeterminate
reason. (She was married to Jack Klugman, I'm told. . . so there's that) You've
got Charles Nelson Reilly, who makes Nathan Lane look like Gary Cooper. And
you've got my fave, Richard Dawson, who WAS Simon Cowell long before Simon
Cowell . . all British and smug and flirty (he went on, of course, to launch a
thousand kisses on Famly Feud, which was a spin-off of Match Game! You see the
useless information you get by reading this blog?) For whatever reason, God, I
love this show. If I didn't have to see all these dang movies, I'd watch it
every day.
2 comments:
Words can't express how much I loved Match Game and Dawson on it. There's this (cheap) DVD boxed set of the best of the show and it's so worth it.
It's funny/sad how the producers hated that Dawson was so good at the game that they went to such lengths to mitigate against his helping contestants win. In fact, it was those moves that so pissed him off that he left the show for Family Feud eventually. Of course, the show was never the same without him.
- Dumb Dora
I love that you share my Match Game love, Cliffie!
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