Gene Rayburn - The Match Game

From 1962 to 1969 Rayburn hosted The Match Game. In the original version, which aired from New York on NBC, Rayburn read questions to two panels, each consisting of a celebrity and two audience members. The questions in the original game were ordinary, like "Name a kind of muffin," or "John loves his ____________." Rayburn usually played it straight, though he would make jokes as the situation warranted. Because it was a live show, very few episodes were recorded for posterity; only four are known to exist. The show was cancelled in 1969 to make room for the topical, short-lived game show Letters to Laugh-In.

Goodson-Todman revived The Match Game in 1973 for CBS. Gene Rayburn returned as host, and introduced a new format in which two contestants tried to match the responses of six celebrities. Writer Dick DeBartolo, a veteran of the original show, created funnier and often risqué questions ("After being hit by a steamroller, Norman had to slide his ____________ under the door.") Rayburn reveled in this freewheeling new approach, and often indulged in funny voices, banter with the celebrities, and mock arguments with the technical crew. Millions tuned in, and it soon became the highest-rated show in daytime television history.

From 1973 to 1977, The Match Game was #1 among all daytime network game shows — three of those years it was the highest rated in all of daytime shows.

The daytime revival of The Match Game, which featured regular panelists Richard Dawson, 1973 to 1978, Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly, ran until 1979 on CBS and another three years in first-run syndication. A concurrent night-time version, Match Game PM, aired from 1975 to 1980. Rayburn was nominated for two Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Host or Hostess in a Game or Audience Participation Show.

During the years when The Match Game was taped in Los Angeles, Rayburn lived in Osterville, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, and would commute to California every two weeks and tape 12 shows over the course of a weekend (five daytime shows and one nighttime show per taping day).

In 1983, a year after the syndicated Match Game disappeared, the show was revived as part of the Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour, with Rayburn hosting the Match Game segment and sitting on the panel of the Hollywood Squares segment. The show lasted nine months on NBC.

Rayburn knitted socks as a publicity stunt during his time on Rayburn and Finch and later became avid in needlepoint, and filled the long plane rides from New York to Hollywood with his hobby. In 1974, Goodson made a surprise on-air appearance to congratulate the host on making the show #1 among daytime television programs and gave Rayburn a needlepoint bag as a gift.

During his time in the Air Force, Rayburn was trained in meteorology and occasionally demonstrated his knowledge of the weather on Match Game.