Game

In most provinces it’s illegal to sell the most local of meats. Jacob Richler says it’s time to rewrite the rules

The government is subsidizing hunters to return to the land

This falls into the category of “yes, this show really existed.” After ABC did a successful made-for-TV movie where Jan and Marcia Brady both got married (not to each other), the network greenlit a spinoff where Marcia, Jan and their wussy husbands all have to share one house to save money. Shot before a live audience and full of cutesy innuendo, it was like a bad late ’60s sitcom had a bastard child with a bad early ’80s sitcom. Eve Plumb and Maureen McCormick looked good, though. In this episode, creator/showrunner Sherwood Schwartz goes back to that old sitcom standby, “characters appear on a popular gameshow,” with disastrous results! Oh, and with special guest star Bob Eubanks, host of The Newlywed Game.

It was inevitable, wasn’t it? After they revived Password and announced plans for new versions of Celebrity Family Feud and The Something-or-other-Dollar Pyramid, I thought: “When are they gonna revive Match Game?” Well, now, that’s when. TBS is shooting a Match Game pilot with Andrew Daly as the host, Sarah Silverman and Norm MacDonald and two familiar Canadian entertainers (Scott Thompson from Kids in the Hall and “Super” Dave Osborne) among the panelists, and Robert Smigel as the executive producer.

To give an idea of what Saturday Night Live was parodying last week, here’s a clip from the original Match Game.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people seem to have fond memories of Match Game. It was a little bit before my time (not as much before my time as I’d like to pretend it is), but people who grew up watching it are quite fascinated by it, and can still remember the quirks of all the regular panelists.