1

Man, now I'm all depressed.

I love Match Game, I watch it whenever it's on and I loved it back in the day. I watched it from its beginning as "Match Game", on through "Match Game 7X" and on to "Match Game PM" where they wore suits.

The beauty of that show was that you had a bunch of likable people (and Richard Dawson, who played one on TV) sitting around getting drunk and having a good time. As Brett said in an interview once, you could always tell which was the second show taped that day because they were all hammered by then. Or as Charles Nelson Reilly supposedly said, "This isn't a job, it's a social engagement."

The new one is going to suck. They're not going to be able to have fun, most jokes will be off limits except for sexual ones. Back then, it was always almost naughty but generally clean and pretty darn funny. Now? The answer to every "blank" will be "private parts" or "sex", count on it. It'll be "faux-edgy" which is the most annoying type of edgy.

I bet a dollar they won't be able to get drunk so they'll all be doing lines in the bathroom. And cocaine doesn't lead to teh funny. Pot, lsd and alcohol (for example, SNL, SNL and Johnny Carson respectively) make teh funny.

And... they'll never be able to replace Gene Rayburn, the way he could keep things rolling along as it got really drunk out or Charles Nelson Reilly who was flamboyently gay long before it was allowable to be gay on tv.  

Oh well, hopefully they'll still show reruns on the Game Show Network and I still have the Match Game dvd.  

As a related aside, Hogan's Heroes has been on TV Land lately and, unlike many sitcoms from back in the day like Welcome Back Kotter, it's still darn funny. Count on it being made into a sucky movie.

2

This is one show very well worth bringing back.  Leave it to TV execs to ruin it by picking the wrong people, however.  Some people think Silverman is hilarous, but even then, this is not her type of show.

A fun thing to do would be to pick the panel you'd like to see.  I think one of the keys is to stay away from people who are too famous or they'd take over the show.  My list:

Stewart French (great sarcastic wit)

Paula Poundstone (Brett Sommers type)

Scott Thompson (really like this choice for the CNR type)

Jessica Simpson (token dumb hot blonde)

Gary Busey (insane, but funny and pretty smart)

Parker Posey (enough said)

3 I'm gonna go ahead and join the shun list.  I like Sarah Silverman.

BUT...I think that this project isn't good for her, because she'd have to censor herself. 

I'd be all about watching Norm MacDonald on Match Game though.

4 Norm MacDonald may be able to salvage it for me.

5

Possibly, I know I was happy to see him there.

But... you know he's been neutered and "calmed" down. He keeps getting kicked off TV so they might have him on a short leash.