Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour
Two classic panel games combined into one hour-long show.
The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour was an American television panel game show that merged two classic panel games from the 1960s and 1970s—Match Game and Hollywood Squares—into a single hour-long format. It aired on NBC from October 31, 1983, to July 27, 1984, with Gene Rayburn hosting the Match Game and Super Match segments and Jon Bauman hosting the Hollywood Squares portion. The series was a Mark Goodson Television Production, with the Hollywood Squares format licensed from Orion Television.
Quick Facts
- Runtime
- approx. 44 Minutes
- Location
- NBC Studios; Burbank, California
- Creator
- Mark Goodson
- Bill Todman
- Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley
- Based on
- Match Game; Hollywood Squares
- Presenter
- Gene Rayburn (Match Game segments); Jon Bauman (Hollywood Squares segment)
- Announcer
- Gene Wood
- Johnny Olson
- Rich Jeffries
- Director
- Marc Breslow
- Producer
- Robert Sherman
Facts from the source article.
Rules
Each episode kicked off with two fresh contestants in the Match Game segment, hosted by Rayburn. Bauman occupied the bottom left seat on a six-person celebrity panel. The game consisted of three rounds, with each contestant answering one question per round. A coin flip decided who went first in round one; after that, the player with the highest score at the end of a round led off the next. If scores were tied, the contestant who hadn’t started that round would go first in the following one. Rayburn would present a funny fill-in-the-blank question, and each celebrity wrote down an answer. After the celebrities finished, the contestant gave a spoken response. Then the celebrities revealed their answers one by one, and every matching answer earned a point. Only celebrities who hadn’t yet matched a contestant on that player’s turn continued to participate in subsequent turns. The contestant with the highest score after three rounds moved on to face the returning champion in the second half of the hour, which was Hollywood Squares. If a contestant hit the maximum score of six during the first or second round, they sat out the rest of that game. In case of a tie, a single Super Match-style question was used, like “_, New Jersey.” Instead of writing answers, the contestants saw a board with four numbered responses chosen by the writers, hidden from the panel. A backstage draw before the game decided who picked first; each contestant chose a response by calling out its number. After both had chosen, Rayburn asked each celebrity for their answer one at a time. The first contestant to match any celebrity won. In the Hollywood Squares portion, hosted by Bauman, the Match Game winner competed against the previous day’s champion.
Broadcast history
The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour first aired on NBC on October 31, 1983, at 3:00 PM Eastern time, with earlier airings in other time zones. Both of its parent shows had previously run on the same network: Match Game from 1962 to 1969 and Hollywood Squares from 1966 to 1980. The only regular panelists were the co-hosts themselves. Bauman, appearing as himself rather than his Sha Na Na character Bowzer, took a seat on the panel during Match Game and the Super Match, while Rayburn filled that spot during Hollywood Squares. The semi-regular who appeared most often was actress Nedra Volz, who stayed for nine weeks. Leonard Frey, known for Mr. Smith, and Charles Nelson Reilly, a returning Match Game regular, each appeared for seven weeks. Other panelists who had been regulars or semi-regulars on the original Match Game included Fannie Flagg (four weeks), McLean Stevenson, Dick Martin, Jimmie Walker, Marcia Wallace, Fred Travalena, Soupy Sales, and Bill Daily. Bauman himself, as Bowzer, had also previously guested on Match Game. Only two former Hollywood Squares regulars returned: George Gobel and Abby Dalton, each for two weeks. As was the practice on both original shows, the same eight celebrity guests appeared for an entire week of episodes. Five of them were introduced at the beginning of each episode to play Match Game, and after that segment ended, the other three came out for Hollywood Squares. Apart from Rayburn and Bauman, the panelists switched daily, so different groups of three played only Hollywood Squares from one day to the next.
Aftermath
Peter Marshall, the original host of Hollywood Squares, wrote in his autobiography that when he learned the new show had secured Gene Rayburn, he assumed he would be asked to host the Squares segment, but no one ever contacted him. He admitted to feeling a bit of schadenfreude when the program was cancelled, confessing that he was almost embarrassed to say he was happy it didn’t even make it a full season. In a 2022 interview, Marshall clarified that he wasn’t upset about being replaced, and he approved of most of the later hosts—except for Jon Bauman. This particular version of Hollywood Squares was the last one to air on a broadcast network until 2025. A syndicated revival with John Davidson ran for three years starting in 1986, followed by another syndicated run with Tom Bergeron from 1998 to 2004. A hip-hop-themed spinoff called Hip Hop Squares aired on MTV2 in 2012 and was revived on VH1 in 2017. A country music-focused version, Nashville Squares, debuted on CMT in 2019. In 2023, a Black culture-themed edition titled Celebrity Squares, hosted by D.C. Young Fly, premiered on VH1. There have also been various parodies and one-offs, including Howard Stern’s Homeless Howiewood Squares, which featured Rayburn as a regular panelist. A new Hollywood Squares with Nate Burleson as host launched on CBS in January 2025, marking the first broadcast network version since Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour ended. Match Game itself didn’t return until a 1990 ABC revival with Ross Shafer, and then again in 1998 with Michael Burger; both lasted only one season. It appeared as a semifinal game on CBS’s Gameshow Marathon in summer 2006, hosted by Ricki Lake. A Canadian version ran for two seasons starting in 2012, and a prime-time ABC revival aired from 2016 to 2021 with Alec Baldwin, followed by Martin Short in 2025. After the show, Rayburn hosted two other game shows: Break the Bank, from which he was fired after 13 weeks, and the short-lived The Movie Masters on AMC from 1989 to 1990. Bauman, whose only other hosting credit was The Pop ‘N Rocker Game, has not hosted any game show since.
Reruns
For decades, the show was never rebroadcast because of a tangled web of rights holders: MGM, Fremantle, CBS Media Ventures (part of Paramount Global), and the original NBC distributors all had a stake. That changed in 2019 when Fremantle’s digital channel Buzzr aired four episodes—Tuesday through Friday of premiere week—on February 17. Buzzr said it would digitize and restore the original master tapes to add the show to its regular lineup later that year. Fremantle explained the move had two goals: to give Buzzr more Match Game episodes to rerun, and to bring some version of Hollywood Squares to the channel, which doesn’t own the rights to that series. Former host Bauman tweeted that this was “the only completely honest version of Hwd Squares ever,” because the celebrities weren’t given the punchlines in advance. On September 30, 2019, Buzzr began airing reruns of the program regularly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who created Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour?
Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour was created by Mark Goodson, Bill Todman and Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley.
How many episodes of Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour are there?
Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour has 191 episodes.
More in Television Series by Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions
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