Match Game-related stories
Posted Oct 23rd 2009 11:35AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Video, Music and Variety, Celebrities, Obituaries, Children, Reality-Free
When I was a kid, I remember watching Soupy Sales. He had a children's show,
The Soupy Sales Show, on channel five in the New York area and he was a wacky, funny guy. He had bizarre creatures around him, puppets named Pookie and White Fang and Black Tooth. Soupy did outrageous things and often ended up with a pie in the face. In a lot of ways, there might have been no PeeWee Herman if there hadn't been a Soupy Sales. In my memory, I always liked Soup and liked his show. On Thursday,
Soupy Sales died at the age of 83.
In addition to
The Soupy Sales Show, Soupy was a comedian. He played clubs and did shtick, and all through the 1960s and 1970s he was a regular on game shows, including
What's My Line, To Tell the Truth, Match Game and
Hollywood Squares.
Continue reading Comic Soupy Sales passes away at 83
Posted Aug 6th 2009 9:02AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Music and Variety, Web, Celebrities, Reality-Free
He once saved a crowded school bus from falling off of a cliff ... using only a scarf.
Firefighters blamed him for the Laguna Wildfire when his Aviator sunglasses came in contact with the sun.
People stop and stare at every word he writes, particularly when he writes "boobs."
He is the most interesting man in the world. And his name is Charles Nelson Reilly. The actor, comedian, director and
Match Game fixture has been posthumously immortalized by comedy musician "Weird Al" Yankovic in
a new hilarious online single called "CNR".
Continue reading Charles Nelson Reilly kicked the holy living s*$& out of me
Posted Jun 29th 2009 3:06PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Late Night, Video, Celebrities, Obituaries, Game Show, Talk Show, Reality-Free
The sad news just keeps on coming: comedian and impressionist
Fred Travalena passed away yesterday, losing a battle with cancer at the age of 66. For those of you who have no idea who I'm talking about (and, believe me, those numbers are legion),
Travalena was big on the talk show and game show circuit in the '70s, doing impressions of everyone from Robert De Niro to George Burns to Jimmy Carter.
As a nerdly kid who rarely left the house after school, however, Travalena is best known to me as a panelist during the latter years of my favorite game show,
Match Game. After the jump is the only
MG-related clip I could find with Travalena, where he does an impression of De Niro on the short-lived
Match Game Hollywood Squares Hour in the early '80s. (Warning: you need to turn the volume up to hear it).
Continue reading A Match Game fan remembers Fred Travalena
Posted Jun 20th 2008 12:21PM by Brett Love
Filed under: TV Squad Polls, Celebrities, Game Show, Casting, Reality-Free
It certainly won't be the only factor, but the choices made for just who makes up the celebrity panel will go a long way in deciding the fate of this latest incarnation of the classic show. With that in mind, here is the celebrity panel from the recently taped pilot: Sarah Silverman, Norm MacDonald, Bob Einstein (Super Dave!), Scott Thompson (Kids In The Hall), Rashida Jones (The Office), and Niecy Nash (Reno 911). Andrew Daly (Crossballs) is the host.
How does that lineup grab ya? To me, it's not bad. The Reuters article asks if Sarah Silverman is the new Brett Somers or Norm MacDonald is the new Richard Dawson. In a word, no. You just can't fight that kind of nostalgia. So many of us have seen the classic episodes so many times, and have such fond memories of them, that I don't think there is anything they could possibly do to begin to live up to the original.
Continue reading The new Match Game celebrity panel
Posted May 25th 2008 9:56PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, Reality-Free
TCM has classic war/military movies all day and night. - At 6am, USA has an NCIS marathon.
- At 8, A&E has a marathon of City Confidential episodes.
- History Channel has a MonsterQuest marathon at 8.
- Sci-Fi has a Star Trek: Enterprise marathon at 8.
- Also at 8: TV One has a Day Break marathon.
- At 9, BBC America has a Monty Python's Flying Circus marathon.
- FX has a That 70s Show marathon starting at 9.
- GSN has a Match Game marathon at 9.
- Spike has a CSI marathon starting at 9.
- At 10, TNT has a Law and Order marathon.
- At 11, G4 has a Cops marathon.
- Lifetime has a bunch of "sex" movies starting at 11.
- At noon, GSN will have a special GSN Live from Iraq, featuring ex-game show contestants who are stationed there.
- There's a Top Chef marathon on Bravo starting at 2:30.
- At 4, Discovery has a Deadliest Catch marathon.
(Thanks to Interesting Pile)
Posted Mar 26th 2008 1:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Programming, Cable/Satellite, Celebrities, Game Show
The summer schedule on NBC won't be filled with just reruns, apparently. The network wants to up their game quotient. That said,
American Idol's producer, FremantleMedia North America and NBC are planning a
celebrity version of Family Feud. Although there have been multiple variations of the
Feud -- daytime, syndication, board game, internet edition, et. al -- this will be the very first time the game show will air as a regularly-scheduled primetime network show. John O'Hurley, who is the current host on the syndicated
Family Feud, could be anchoring NBC's primetime celeb affair, but that has not been announced as yet.
Continue reading NBC plans celebrity Family Feud for primetime
Posted Mar 16th 2008 2:04PM by Richard Keller
Filed under: Programming, Game Show
Back in January we reported that the still popular 70's game show Match Game was ready to be revived once again by Fremantle Media, which pretty much owns rights to every single game show on the planet. In that report we mentioned that Fremantle was talking to a number of cable networks about this project, but no permanent home was established yet.
That problem may have rectified itself in the last few days, though, as a pilot has been commissioned by...Ah, you thought I was going to say GSN, didn't you? That would seem the most logical place since reruns of the 1973-82 version of Match Game have had a successful run for years on that network. Unfortunately, that is not the case. This time around the cable network requesting the pilot is TBS (as Bob mentioned earlier this month in a post about Turner's new shows).
Continue reading Pilot for a new revival of Match Game commissioned by BLANK.
Posted Mar 4th 2008 1:40PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Industry, Programming
It's always intriguing when a cable network has two or three original shows they're working on. But TNT has gone project crazy this year, with a whopping 14 shows in development.
It's an interesting mix of shows too. You have your dramas, including a mystery series set in Boston, based on the novels of Tess Gerritsen; a drama about a family in 1950s Indiana; an espionage drama titled Leverage; a drama from Robert Redford titled Generations, which focuses on several families who have lived in the same house over the decades; and Truth In Advertising, which sounds a lot like a modern-day Mad Men (not that I'm complaining) and stars Eric McCormack, Tom Cavanagh, and Monica Potter. Comedies include a show about a single, middle-aged woman, from Betty Thomas and Elaine Pope.
Continue reading TNT has 14 new shows in the works
Posted Jan 31st 2008 9:31AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Industry, Game Show
Interesting story in
The Hollywood Reporter today: Fremantle Media, who owns
American Idol, The Price is Right, and a number of popular game shows,
is looking to revive Match Game.
That's right folks: in this era where no section of TV history is left unscathed, everyone's favorite shag-carpeted, wokka-wokka game show from the seventies might be coming to a TV near you soon. Fremantle is currently talking with cable networks about a revival of the show and is also looking for an executive producer, and will hire talent after the EP is brought on board.
Continue reading Is a new Match Game on the way?
Posted Sep 17th 2007 3:36PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Celebrities, Obituaries, Game Show
Veteran Match Game panelist Brett Somers has died at age the age of 83.
I was going to say that Somers "was" married to Jack Klugman, but an interesting fact: even though they separated in 1974, while The Odd Couple was on the air, they never divorced! Somers played Klugman's ex-wife on the show.
Besides her many game show appearances, Somers also guest starred on The Love Boat, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Love, American Style, Barney Miller, Battlestar Galactica (the original), The F.B.I., The Defenders, Ben Casey, Naked City, and many other shows.
Somers died of cancer in Westport, CT on Saturday. Her co-star Charles Nelson Reilly died earlier this year.
Update: GSN is having a marathon this Saturday from 9am to 4pm, featuring Somers' Match Game appearances and a Password where she guested with Jack Klugman.
Posted Jun 2nd 2007 3:01PM by Richard Keller
Filed under: Celebrities, Retro Squad
We all remember Charles Nelson Reilly, who passed away early this week, from his days on Match Game. Even people who weren't alive during the original run of the show (surprisingly, there are so many of you) know how good he was on that program from the repeats that are shown on GSN. But, what you may not know, or may not want to remember, is that Mr. Reilly was also a star of Saturday morning kids fare back in the early 1970's.
His biggest role was as Hoo Doo, the evil magician from the Sid & Marty Kroftt psychedelic extravaganza Lidsville. Hoo Doo was the nemesis of young teen Mark (played by Butch Patrick) who landed in Lidsville, a land populated by living hats, after falling into the magic hat of one Merlino the Magician. In each (or nearly each) episode Hoo Doo tried to thwart Mark's attempts to return to his home with the aid of Weenie the Genie (Billy Hayes, Witchiepoo of H.R. Pufnstuf) and various good hats.
The show ran on ABC from 1971 to 1973, and then on NBC from 1973 to 1974. A year later Reilly returned to Saturday Morning television with Uncle Croc's Block, where he hosted live-action scenes between three Filmation cartoons. I couldn't find any video of Uncle Croc, but I did find the groovy opening to Lidsville on, wherelse, YouTube. You can enjoy the very long intro after the jump.
Continue reading Charles Nelson Reilly, Saturday morning kids star -- VIDEO
Posted May 28th 2007 8:01AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Celebrities, Obituaries
Aw, this is sad news: longtime Match Game panelist Charles Nelson Reilly has died at the age of 76.
Of course, he was known for a lot more than that. He won a Tony Award in 1962 for his work on Broadway in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Reilly was also an acclaimed director, directing such plays as The Belle of Amherst and The Gin Game. He also directed several episodes of the TV show Evening Shade. He was a regular on The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and appeared on many other shows, including Hollywood Squares, Love Boat, Nanny and the Professor, Lidsville, Here's Lucy, Love, American Style, Amazing Stories, Family Matters, The Drew Carey Show, SpongeBob SquarePants, and The X-Files.
He died of pneumonia in Los Angeles on Friday.
Posted Mar 12th 2007 7:20PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: TV on DVD
New TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.
- Bosom Buddies - Season 1
- Cool McCool - Complete Series
- Loonatics Unleased - Season 1
- The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour - Seasons 7, 8, and 9
- Match Game 73 - Dumb Dora Set
- The Pretender - Movies
- Robin of Sherwood - Seasons 1 and 2
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Season 4
- Without A Trace - Season 2
Posted Feb 13th 2007 12:30PM by Brett Love
Filed under: OpEd, Game Show
There is an interesting post over at
YesButNoButYes on ten infamous game show moments. There are a couple good ones, like the guy who lost on the first question of Millionaire, and a couple classic
Family Feud and
Newlywed Game answers.
Unfortunately, it's more a good idea for a list than an actual good list, because their definition of "Game Show" is insane. I just don't get the reasoning behind adding moments from
The Bachelorette, Big Brother, and
Top Chef. Especially when there are so many great moments from actual game shows that could have been added.
Some non-reality show contenders for such a list: From
The Price Is Right, recently there was a guy who kept bidding 420 (video after the jump). Going back in the
TPIR archive there was the time when a rather buxom woman was so excited to be comin' on down that she didn't realize her boobs had bounced right out of her tube top.
Continue reading Ten infamous game show moments... kind of - VIDEO
Posted Nov 21st 2006 9:31AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: TV on DVD
Ali G Show - Complete Series - Alias - Season 5 and Complete Series sets
- Boston Legal - Season 2
- Dr. Katz - Season 2
- Family Affair - Season 2
- Get Smart - Complete Series
- How I Met Your Mother - Season 1
- Kenny vs. Spenny - Season 2
- Match Game '73 - Best Of
- NoTORIous - Season 1
- Perry Mason - Season 1, Vol. 2
- Seinfeld - Vol. 6
- Star Trek Animated - Complete Series
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