Jenny Jones on Match Game

There was a Future Celebrity sighting on Match Game this morning. Jenny Jones, future talk show host, appeared in today's 1978 episode and won the grand prize. Interestingly, she stated she was born in Bethlehem (Palestine) to Polish Catholic parents.

Match Game: No Blonde Jokes Please (even if warranted)

In honor of Ginger's birthday, here's a Match Game contestant whose real name is Ginger - and her answers are so bad she dang near stops the show in its tracks. What's scary is that the second half of the clip is her in the bonus round, meaning she won her game. Who the heck was her opponent?

"And I was all ready to say thank you!" - classic Match Game moment

The wonderful Charles Nelson Reilly brings the show to its knees with this one, an unexpected response to a Match Game question about Snow White. ROFLMAO, as the kiddies say with their fancy-dancy new text machines.

You're telling me this would happen on Jeopardy?

Here's where I waste far too much time dissecting six minutes of game show history. But hey, it beats following politics - at least in Game Show Land capitalism is still en vogue.

In the 1977 season a contestant on the Match Game had to complete the following statement: "Dumb Dora was so Dumb she sent her cultured pearls to BLANK". His answer: "school".

The first two panelists answered 'college' and were awarded a match. Charles Nelson Reilly was then rejected for the answer "Scuba Diving School" but when he complained the contestant got a point.

Follow me so far?

Then we get to the bottom row of contestants. A celebrity is awarded a match for 'Finishing School' but its quickly reversed without explanation. Then Richard Dawson's identical answer was rejected outright, and all hell broke loose.

Like the title of the post implies, you ain't gonna see this schtuff on Jeopardy. Pure. Unscripted. Unrehearsed. Genuine. Mayhem.



My take on it? The game had a longstanding rule against matching what they termed a "specific" with a "general". Meaning if you said Notre Dame and the celebrity wrote down "Cathedral", you were S.O.L. In this case "college" should have been rejected outright. The other answers could have gone either way, but by that point the judge just plain lost control.

Thus, the "School Riot".