The Match Game

The Match Game is the original version of the game show. Hosted by Gene Rayburn with Johnny Olson announcing, it ran 1760 episodes from 31 December 1962 through 26 September 1969.

Gameplay
Celebrity panelists captained a team of two other contestants. A team scored 25 points if two teammates matched answers, or 50 points if all three contestants matched. The first team to score 100 points won $100 and played the audience match, which featured three survey questions (some of which, especially after 1963, featured a numeric-answer format; e.g., "we surveyed fifty women and asked them how much they should spend on a hat," a format similar to the one that was later used in Family Feud and Card Sharks). Each contestant who agreed with the most popular answer to a question earned the team $50, for a possible total of $450.

The questions used in the game were pedestrian in nature: "Name a kind of muffin," "Write down one of the words to 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat' other than 'Row,' 'Your,' or 'Boat,'" or "John loves his _____." The humor in the original series came largely from the panelists' reactions to the other answers (especially on the occasional all-star episodes). In 1963, NBC cancelled the series with six weeks left to be recorded. Question writer Dick DeBartolo came up with a funnier set of questions, like "Mary likes to pour gravy all over John's _____," and submitted it to Mark Goodson. With the knowledge that the show couldn't be cancelled again, Goodson gave the go-ahead for the more risqué-sounding questions, a decision that caused a significant boost in ratings and an "un-cancellation" by NBC.

On 27 February 1967, the show added a "telephone match" game, in which a home viewer and a studio audience member attempted to match a simple fill-in-the-blank question, similar to the 1970s' "head-to-head match". A successful match won a jackpot, which started at $500 and increased by $100 per day until won.

Panelists

 * Alan Alda
 * Morey Amsterdam
 * Paul Anka
 * Lauren Bacall
 * Orson Bean
 * Ray Bolger
 * Joyce Brothers
 * Deborah Bryant
 * Abe Burrows
 * Kitty Carlisle
 * Joanne Carson
 * Peggy Cass
 * Bennett Cerf
 * Sydney Chaplin
 * Wally Cox
 * Bill Cullen
 * Selma Diamond
 * Phyllis Diller
 * Hugh Downs
 * Faye Emerson
 * Fannie Flagg
 * Joan Fontaine
 * Whitey Ford
 * John Forsythe
 * Arlene Francis
 * Joe Garagiola
 * George Hamilton
 * Florence Henderson
 * Skitch Henderson
 * Wayne Howell
 * Art James
 * Milt Kamen
 * Dorothy Kilgallen
 * Alan King
 * Carol Lawrence
 * Michele Lee
 * Jack E. Leonard
 * Sam Levenson
 * Robert Q. Lewis
 * June Lockhart
 * Sue Lyon
 * Gisele MacKenzie
 * Gordon MacRae
 * Meredith MacRae
 * Sheila MacRae
 * Jayne Mansfield
 * Mickey Mantle
 * Ed McMahon
 * Audrey Meadows
 * Jayne Meadows
 * Don Meredith
 * Dina Merrill
 * Mitch Miller
 * Sal Mineo
 * Rita Moreno
 * Henry Morgan
 * Chester Morris
 * Bess Myerson
 * Phyllis Newman
 * Pat O'Brien
 * Bert Parks
 * Tom Poston
 * Carmel Quinn
 * Joan Rivers
 * Cliff Robertson
 * Nipsey Russell
 * Soupy Sales
 * Rod Serling
 * Allan Sherman
 * Roger Smith
 * Y.A. Tittle
 * Vivian Vance
 * Betty White
 * Jane Withers