Editing Gene Rayburn (section)

===''Match Game''===
{{main|Match Game}}
[[Image:Gene Rayburn on MG76.jpg|thumb|left|275px|Rayburn on the set of ''Match Game 76'']]
From 1962 to 1969, Rayburn hosted ''[[The Match Game]]''. In the original version, which aired from New York on NBC, Rayburn read questions to two panels, each consisting of a celebrity and two audience members. The questions in the original game were ordinary, like "Name a kind of muffin," or "John loves his ____________."{{citation needed| date=December 2021| reason=Prove this was used or if it's an illustration}} Rayburn usually played it straight, though he would make jokes as the situation warranted. Very few episodes have been preserved; only four are known to exist. The show was canceled in 1969 to make room for the topical, short-lived game show ''[[Letters to Laugh-In]]''.

Goodson-Todman revived ''Match Game'' in 1973 for CBS, this time as a California-based game show. Rayburn returned as host and introduced a new format in which two contestants tried to match the responses of six celebrities. Writer [[Dick DeBartolo]], a veteran of the original show, created funnier and often risqué questions ("The big bad wolf said: I just came from a house where this old lady had the biggest ____________s I ever saw.")("After it was run over by a steamroller, Norman was able to slide his ____________ under the door.")<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=635180269002183|title=Match Game Episode 158 - 1974|access-date=March 18, 2025}}</ref> Rayburn reveled in this freewheeling new approach and often indulged in funny voices, banter with the celebrities, and mock arguments with the technical crew. It soon became the highest-rated show on daytime television.<ref>{{cite book| last=Skutch| first=Ira| title=I Remember Television: A Memoir| page=224| publisher=Scarecrow Press| edition=1st| date=January 1, 1990| isbn=978-0-8108-2271-9| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6WjLfn9sylgC&q=highest+rated+show|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

From 1973 to 1977, ''Match Game'' was number one among all daytime network game shows—three of those years it was the highest rated of all daytime shows. The daytime revival of ''Match Game'', which featured regular panelists [[Richard Dawson]], [[Brett Somers]], and [[Charles Nelson Reilly]], ran until 1979 on CBS and another three years in first-run syndication. A concurrent nighttime version, ''Match Game PM'', aired in syndication from 1975 to 1981. Rayburn was nominated three times for the [[Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host]].

During the years when ''Match Game'' was taped in Los Angeles (1973–1982), Rayburn lived in [[Osterville, Massachusetts]] on Cape Cod. He commuted to California every two weeks to tape 12 shows over the course of a weekend (five daytime shows and one nighttime show per taping day).<ref name="Times"/>

In 1983, a year after the syndicated ''Match Game'' ended, the show was revived as part of the ''[[Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour]]''. Rayburn hosted the ''Match Game'' and "Super Match" segments and sat on the panel for the ''[[Hollywood Squares]]'' segment, which was hosted by [[Jon Bauman]]. This show lasted nine months on NBC. Rayburn, by most accounts, was disappointed with how the show turned out.<ref name=behindtheblank>{{cite AV media| title=The Real Match Game Story: Behind the Blank| publisher=Game Show Network| medium=TV Production| date=November 26, 2006| url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJHICKg2Mkg&ab_channel=CHiggins| via=YouTube}}</ref>