I’ve Learned [Blank]Watching the Match Game

In tonight’s episode of Match Game ’77 the host, Gene Rayburn, read off his card the following question: An African tribesman was asked why he was afraid of dogs. He responded, “Because the dog might [BLANK] the bone in my nose.”

Whoa…Tensing up while eating my dinner, I wondered how the two Black people on the show, one a contestant, and the other Nipsey Russell, the comedian, felt about the question. Back in the seventies, it was unusual to see even one Black person on a game show, so two was almost radical. I wondered if Nipsey would make one of his subtly facetious jokes or comments; to my surprise, he didn’t. But while the other celebrities and the audience roared with laughter, he wasn’t even smiling. I did notice a couple of twitches of his facial muscles.

Imagine if that question were asked today. Bye-bye Match Game!

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It’s never been more clear to me how much our lives are intertwined in a reciprocal relationship with the popular culture of our time. I haven’t indulged in as much popular culture as I might have, judging by the things people refer to on Facebook and other venues, but I did and do enough to provide me with insight both about myself and the era into which I was born.

These days, eleven years into retirement, much of what I do is routinized. I tend to accredit this mostly to my son, Raphael, who has Down syndrome. Like most people with developmental issues, and many without, he prefers things to be the same and repetitive, and has a hard time adapting to change.

One of our daily routines is having dinner between six and six fifteen p.m. while watching a game show. Until recently it was Family Feud with Steve Harvey. I finally insisted on changing the channel after we’d seen the same families at least three or four times and I knew what each person would say when. We switched to the other game show network, Buzz. This channel airs many game shows from the past. New to my son are shows like Match Game, Password and Concentration. When I first watched the Match Game in 1974, I was twenty-three, four years younger than Raphy is now.

In that year, my live-in boyfriend, Lenny, and I occasionally watched the Match Game if there was nothing better on. We didn’t watch much daytime TV or even evening TV in my tiny one room studio, perhaps because in those days of three to five channels, there wasn’t a huge selection. Plus, with Lenny being a junkie, and me not quite but close enough, in our zoned out state we didn’t really care about TV.

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I’ve just put my and Raphy’s dinner on the coffee table. As we start to eat, the show also begins with face shots of the two-tiered panel of celebrities, each grinning weirdly or making a face or holding up a card with a silly picture or words. Then, from backstage bursts forth the host of the Match Game: tall, lanky, and dapper Gene Rayburn runs, jumps, or even rolls down the orange-carpeted steps on his side, like a clown.

Everyone — the celebrities, contestants, and audience — claps and roars with laughter! They all seem to love Gene. He is grinning too, as if he’s having the time of his life. Turning to the celebrities, he reaches for his pencil-thin microphone that rests behind the lower tier first seat where a “new” female celebrity sits. If she’s young and sexy as she often is, Gene flirts with her. Then, after a spritz of breath spray, he’ll kiss her on the lips, announcing that this is a Match Game ritual. When the new guest is more matronly like Ethel Merman or Dr. Joyce Brothers, he tones the greeting down to a light peck on the cheek.

Then, almost as an afterthought, he turns to the contestants. With his back to the celebrities, he engages the contestants in small talk, thanking them for being there, and commenting on their appearance. To the women he might say, “You’re a very pretty lady.” Or, if a female contestant is clearly not too attractive he could say, “You seem like a very nice lady.” To the men he’s more specific, saying things like, “That’s quite a head of hair you’ve got there, Bill” or “I love that plaid, John.” With his own high cheekbones, glinting dark eyes, and clever repartee, Gene Rayburn is the quintessential host, totally in control.

He then announces a brief commercial break, and I press “Mute.”

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So much has changed in forty-five years, and watching this old game show is educative. Anyone wanting a crash course in clothing and hair styles of the seventies should watch Match Game ’74. The women’s hairdos are either big and bouffant, or else long and flowy. The men’s tend to be tastefully long-ish, styled and brushing the tops of their ears, or else long and shaggy.

In clothing the women go for large pointy collars, short sleeve jackets and sweaters, and short scarves pertly tied around the neck. The men wear various types of jackets, some with belts, some patterned; also, bell bottoms for all.

As I watch the Match Game now, I become aware of how much I’ve matured: I’m able to watch it and not focus on what gets on my nerves. Back in the seventies I literally would turn the TV off because I was so annoyed by some of the so-called stars. Especially in my mellow, narcotized state, there was no way I could tolerate all that incessant raucous laughter and blathering.

In particular, the one woman regular on the show, Brett Sommer, I found unbearable. Her constant loud, brash talking, rehearsed laughter, and non-stop pushiness, mostly toward the male celebrities on either side of her, caused me to turn off the show. In addition, two others frequently on the celebrity panel, Joyce Bulifant and Elaine Joyce, had high-pitched little voices like three-year-olds, that to me were like nails on a blackboard. Not to mention one orange-haired Kay Stevens who constantly burst into screechy, hysterical laughter whether something was funny or not. Where did Goodson and Todman find these people?

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In the early seventies, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll was still the order of the day, especially among the country’s youth, including me, in a kind of prolonged adolescence. I observe now how the Match Game reflects this: in addition to frequent references to drinking and sex, there’s an abundance of flirting. Not only does Gene Rayburn make suggestive comments to the women on the show, but also the men. He and Richard Dawson who was so fetching on the Match Game that he was given his own show, Family Feud, frequently tell each other, “I love you” or “Meet me backstage” and other suggestive phrases that make me think, “What’s with the gay act? Is it really an act?” The celebrities also exchange many double entendres and references to being gay, I assume because of Charles Nelson Reilly who was gay and out. With his pipe in hand, like an erudite professor, Charles smiles with aplomb and utters things in return that are dignified, witty, and appropriate.

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Many of the stars that appeared on Match Game ’74 I had never heard of then and even now I have to Google. Charles Nelson Reilly I learned from Wikipedia had an illustrious career as an actor both on Broadway and in films and likewise as a director. On the Match Game he was the smarter, more sedate half of the little comic duo composed of him and Brett Sommer: the distinguished academic and the alcoholic, hard-of- hearing fisherwoman.

I remember wondering when I saw the Match Game in ’74, “Who is Brett Sommer and why is she a fixture on the show?” When I started watching it recently, I Googled her, too. In addition to being an actress and comedian, she was also known for being the wife of Jack Klugman of The Odd Couple.

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Watching the Match Game today I’m constantly amazed, not only at how the folks dressed and wore their hair, but also at many of the things they said and did. Besides all the kissing and touchy-feely stuff, the stars smoked on the show. In addition to Charles Nelson Reilly and his pipe, cigarettes frequently were puffed and one male star actually lit up a cigar.

Ultimately, though, it’s the comments and language that have the most educative value in an anthropological way. For example, when Gene asks each new contestant to say a few words about themselves, almost invariably the women start off with, “Well, I’m married…” followed by (if they are married) “…and I have [three] wonderful children.” The male guests don’t start by stating their marital or parental status though they usually allude to them after saying what it is they do for a living.

Then, the language. Despite the licentiousness of society in general during that decade, on TV they were still expected to follow set rules of public etiquette. I find this particularly interesting because they were constantly making jokes of a sexual and/or scatological nature, but using euphemisms. For example, when the contestants gave an answer that referred to urinating they would say “tinkling,” usually while blushing and giggling. Anyone who has watched this show as well as today’s version of Family Feud will notice the stark contrast.

And then there’s this: Gene Rayburn referring to a contestant as “little girl.” He might say it directly as in, “How are you today, little girl?” or more likely, indirectly, referring to her as in “Come on, Charles, the little girl is waiting for your answer!” Any woman on the show under the age of, say, forty, might be described as or called “little girl.” On the other hand, I never heard Gene refer to any male contestant, no matter how youthful looking, as “little boy.” Which presents another phenomenon.

No matter how offensive I might find someone or thing, if the people involved are no longer alive, they can’t be informed about their offensiveness and/or taught to be otherwise. The something in me that wants to fix problems and/or let people know my opinion on an issue I feel strongly about, has often led me to do so, usually in the form of letters.

Each time Gene Rayburn refers to an adult woman as “little girl” I compose an irate letter in my head. Or, another behavior that bears mentioning is when the celebrities, who are supposed to be providing answers that will match the contestant’s, give an answer that they know won’t match but is cutely clever and will get a laugh. This feeds their ego, but diminishes the contestant’s chance of winning!

So I remind myself — nope, no letter! The show took place almost fifty years ago, and none of the people to whom I would address it are still around. I’m left feeling strangely frustrated that I have to keep my opinions to myself and can’t try to effect change! (Obviously, Social Media is not one of my go-to’s!)

There’s another reason why the people on the Match Game being dead can be a bit trying for me. It’s in great contrast to how loud, colorful, and larger than life they are. The truth though is that their lives continued on and ended, all during the decades that passed between then and now. As I watch them now I try not to think about all those years they had not yet lived, nor all the events that haven’t yet taken place in their lives, but in actuality by now are already past tense. It’s an odd paradoxical construction. I can know what happened to them in the decades that hadn’t yet happened when the show was originally taped.

At the same time, when I would see Betty White on the Match Game prior to her recent passing, I felt happy, not only because of the special person she was, but also because often she was the only one still alive. (Actually, a few others are still living such as Fannie Flagg and Jimmy Walker.)

When I ponder why the duality of past/present or alive/dead is meaningful, I think it’s because of what it says about generations and how we get attached to people, places, and things that are part of our lives at a given time. The people on Match Game are part of my life at two separate times, only in one of those times they were alive and in the other they’re dead. Surely a statement on the passage of time!

It’s interesting to note that even though I’ll watch movies that are “old” in which the starring actors are not alive, I don’t have the same odd feeling as I do with the Match Game. In a game show the players are not portraying anyone other than themselves, compared to actors in a fictional film playing fictional roles. So the actors on a game show or talk show are seen more as “real” people.

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The bottom line about routines like watching a particular show on TV is that if I’m not into it, I can turn it off. But now when I watch the Match Game I tend not to. I actually laugh at times. The celebrities are all trying hard to come up with jokes and one-liners. Like one day Brett, in the sing-song voice of a little girl telling on her brother, announced, “Charles is wearing socks today.” Charles chimed in, saying yes, he was wearing socks and they were black. Brett came back with, “But they didn’t start out black.” Also, I’ve come to understand that beneath all her bluster and carrying on, much of which was intentional, Brett Sommer was a warm, kind and caring person (based on comments she made to contestants).

I’m similarly impressed when Gene Rayburn empathizes with a contestant’s nervousness and helps them to relax, either by giving them suggestions such as taking a deep breath, or putting his arm around them and holding them close if they are anxious, and female.

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When I watched the Match Game in ’74, at times I literally could not understand what was being said because of static. My color TV was big, old and clunky, perched on a table at the foot of the bed beneath a pair of largely ineffective rabbit ears. Cable TV had just started and while Lenny and I discussed it, we ultimately didn’t get it because we didn’t watch TV that much, nor did we have the money. So we basically had three channels to choose from. The only ones I remember liking and watching with any regularity were “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” and “Saturday Night Live” when it began in ’75. So it really didn’t matter that we had neither cable nor a remote.

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One of the consequences of watching TV while stoned is there’s a lot you don’t remember. But that can be a good thing; I watch the Match Game now as though I’ve never seen it before. There’s much to learn from a new perspective on a past era and its cultural phenomena. It’s edifying to observe how the world has evolved over these decades along with my own emotional growth, the latter evidenced by my responses to the Match Game of the seventies, as seen from the third decade of the twenty-first century.