Match Game

Celebrities, double-entendres, and the impossible art of matching answers with six panelists you've never met. Match Game is a fill-in-the-blank word game wrapped in a mid-century talk-show vibe — contestants compete to match the answers of a celebrity panel on deliberately open-ended questions.

Match Game debuted on NBC on December 31, 1962 with Gene Rayburn, then returned in its most iconic form as Match Game '73 on CBS on July 2, 1973 — a run that peaked at more than 15 million daytime viewers and became famous for its risqué humor and the chemistry of regular panelists like Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Richard Dawson. Alec Baldwin hosted an ABC revival for six summer seasons (2016–2021). The current ABC revival hosted by Martin Short premiered on July 9, 2025, featuring rotating celebrity panelists including Rosie O'Donnell, Kenan Thompson, Amy Sedaris, and Jane Krakowski.

What makes it unique: Match Game's engine is intentional ambiguity. Questions are deliberately open-ended ("Dumb Dora is so dumb, she thought ___") and the writing room optimizes for double-meaning answers. The celebrity panel — half comedians, half talk-show regulars — plays both with and against the contestants, and the show's loose, cocktail-party atmosphere has made it one of the most-quoted and most-imitated game-show vibes of the 1970s.

Quick Facts

• Host: Martin Short (ABC revival, since July 2025)
• Network: ABC
• Premiere Year: 1962 (NBC original); 1973 (classic CBS run); 2016 (ABC revival)
• Seasons: Baldwin revival: 6 seasons (2016–2021); Short revival: launched July 2025
• Filming Location: Los Angeles

Learn more: abc.com/match-game · Wikipedia