Match Game (1998)


Aired
Syndicated, September 21, 1998 – May 21, 1999
Run time
30 Minutes
Host
Michael Burger
Announcer
Paul Boland
Origination
Studio 33, CBS Television City, Los Angeles, California

This is chronicling the short-lived 1998 version of Match Game.

Game format[]

Two contestants, competed. The object is to match the answers of as many of the five celebrity panelists as possible on fill-in-the-blank statements.

The main game is played in two rounds. The opponent was given a choice of two categories. Burger then read the statement. While the contestant pondered an answer, the celebrities write their answers on index cards. After they finished, the contestant was polled for an answer. Michael then asked each celebrity — one at a time, beginning with #1 in the upper left hand corner — to respond. Each match was worth 1 point in round one and 2 for round two. After one contestant played his/her question, the other contestant played with the question unchosen. The player with the most points went on to player Super Match.

Super Match[]

Audience Match[]

A prior studio audience was asked to give its best response to a fill-in-the-blank phrase, and its three best answers were placed and hidden away on a game board. Each one was assigned a dollar amount according to the popularity of each answer; the top answer was worth $500, the middle answer was worth $250, and the least popular was worth $100. Once the question was revealed, the winning contestant selected three stars who gave their answers to help out the contestant. When the answers were given, the contestant then chose which answer to use or reject them all and give an answer of his/her own. When all was said and done, the answers were revealed one at a time starting with the least popular answer and ending with the most popular. If the contestant can match any of the answers, he/she won the money attached to the answer.

Head to Head Match[]

In the Head to Head Match portion, the contestant then had the opportunity to win a cash prize equal to 10 times what he or she won in the Audience Match (therefore, $5,000, $2,500 or $1,000) by matching another fill-in-the-blank response with a celebrity panelist of his or her choice. The winning contestant chose which star to play with, at which point the chosen celeb went to a separate podium instead of at their desk like other previous versions before this. Burger then read another fill-in-the-blank phrase after which the chosen star wrote his/her answer. The winning contestant then gave his/her answer after which the chosen star revealed his/hers and if they match, the winning contestant won the grand cash prize. If he/she doesn't make a match, the contestant also won a consolation prize. If they didn't match at all, they still played the Head-to-Head for $500.

In order to win the money, the contestant had to match his/her chosen celebrity's response exactly or it cannot be accepted; this meant that multiple forms of the same word, e.g. singular or plural, were usually accepted whereas synonyms were not.

Trivia[]

Some of the elements from this version (i.e. five celebrities, pun categories) came from the unsold pilot called MG2 or MG2: The Match Game hosted by Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing of Dallas fame) from 1996.
Rondell Sheridan was also one of the five panelist on the unsold pilot of MG2 from 1996.
In this version of the Head-to-Head match, the contestant along with his or her celebrity partner were allowed to make eye contact which was never allowed in other previous versions before it.
Just like the current syndicated version of Family Feud (Harvey), the question and answers can be "suggestive" and "raunchy".