Hurried off to work at quarter of 2. Got there just in time. Wish I hadn't. Work was a royal pain in the rear today. Every time I tried to sweep or get the carts done, I got pulled to do six other things. They wanted me to clean up a spilled fruit bowl by the carts next to the back door near the pharmacy...and I discovered something so disgusting over there, I didn't want to have anything to do with it for the rest of the day. I had to sweep under the carts on the other side. One of the flower buckets in the floral department fell over, and there's no one there on Sundays to clean up the mess. The drain in front of the employee lounge was overflowing and kept making a huge puddle there.
After all that, I was more than happy to rush home, jump in the shower, grab dinner, and spend the rest of the night watching today's Match Game marathon. This time, we jumped into the best episodes from 1975. In fact, some of the most memorable episodes of the entire series came out during that year. This is when Match Game cemented its status as the biggest hit show of daytime, pulling in better ratings than some prime-time offerings then.
I came in for the only week to feature Grand Ol' Opry legend Buck Owens and MGM musical legend Gloria DeHaven. Neither of them played especially well, though she seemed to get the show a little better than he did. Charles Nelson Reilly, who had been away from the show to direct a play on Broadway, made a memorable return a few weeks later via a wire and a stuffed bird. Johnny Olsen got to announce a hilarious question about the first game show featuring Cleopatra and the reptile that was usually the answer to anything involving her.
The show had it's share of memorable contestants in 1975, too. Handsome phys-ed teacher Ron Valenti turned a lot of heads during his run on the show, but especially Fannie Flagg's. She spent a hilarious episode flirting with him, including when she answered "Atomic __" in the Head-to-Head. Carol Bartos became the show's all-time biggest winner at that point, thanks to Fannie's Head-to-Head answer to "__ Tie." Poor Evie was so terribly shy early in the year, everyone had to spend her episodes coaxing answers out of her. One girl got so excited on the week with William Shatner and Julie Harris, Gene said she actually broke the set jumping up and down so much.
If anything, things got even crazier after Charles came back. There was the time Gene's boot broke, and he had to fix it on the air. Or when the contestant was supposed to belly dance, but the music department played the Star Spangled Banner. Brett and Betty had no trouble doing their own versions of belly dancing! Or when Betty rolled up Gene's pants legs, exposing argyle socks he eventually gave to a woman in the audience. There was also when Gene's microphone started acting up and they had to find his spare, or when he used a fancy glitter-covered microphone a fan sent him. And the time the panel all changed seats during the week with an otherwise-bored Alex Karras. Or when Joan Collins appeared, and Gene got mad at the cameraman and literally climbed over the audience to get at him.
Goodson-Todman debuted a nighttime version mid-way through the year that added even more chaos. There was the one where Charles and Richard turned up in wide-brimmed straw hats to promote "Your Basic Big Picture Hat Society." Or the time Gene bet Richard his "Admiral Color TV" answer wouldn't be on the Audience Match board for "Admiral __." Shatner also turned up with Lee Merriweather for one of the earliest PM episodes.
Keep matching in '75 with some of the funniest game show episodes ever on TV!
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