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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: December 22, 1917
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: If you don’t know the name Gene Rayburn right away, migrate yourself to the Game Show Network, where invariably they’ll be airing a rerun of the classic ’70s game show Match Game. Gene Rayburn hosted Match Game from 1962-1968 and again from 1973-1984, and he presided over the lunacy with an impish glee and a refreshingly impatient attitude. Match Game could be a circus. Six celebrity panelists trying to give the same answers to cheeky fill-in-the-blank questions as the two contestants, most often with the most bawdy results possible. But with panelists like the ever irascible Bret Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly, nothing ever ran quite smoothly. The secret of Match Game is that it is almost impossible to be good at it. Unless a question is really pointing a big neon light at what answer it’s looking for, the contestants and panelists don’t end up on the same page very often. Which is where Rayburn’s invaluable presence came on. He’d give an incredulous look to a bad answer, an exasperated sigh to a worse one. He had the vibe of your uncle who showed up slightly hungover; up for fun but impatient with the getting there.
Of course, he could get as goofy as anyone else on the panel.
When Match Game got revived on ABC, there was a high degree of doubt that host Alec Baldwin would be able to live up to the show’s high historical standards. That was purely based on respect for Gene Rayburn and the place that his hosting held in TV fans’ hearts.
Baldwin pulled it off, though. Match Game is back for a winter run, and the revival is a credit to Rayburn’s legacy, at least every time Baldwin looks sideways at a contestant’s answer.
