Match Game Trivia
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46 free Match Game trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Match Game started in 1962 with questions about muffins and got un-cancelled once the writers made them saucier. This Match Game trivia covers the Gene Rayburn years, the six-celebrity CBS panel with Richard Dawson, Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly, the Super Match, the Star Wheel, and the revivals hosted by Ross Shafer, Alec Baldwin and Martin Short. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Match Game regular Richard Dawson was once married to which British film star?
Diana Dors
Diana Dors was Dawson's first wife; he moved to the United States with her, and they had two sons, Mark and Gary, before divorcing in the 1960s.
Q 02Gene Rayburn took over the lead in which Broadway musical in 1961?
Bye Bye Birdie
Bye Bye Birdie needed a new Albert Peterson when Dick Van Dyke left the cast, and for a time Rayburn's understudy in the role was a future Match Game panelist, Charles Nelson Reilly.
Q 03Which production company made Match Game?
Goodson-Todman
Goodson-Todman rebuilt the show for its 1973 return, moving it from New York to Los Angeles, adding more celebrities and raising the prize money.
Q 04What is Match Game called in its British version?
Blankety Blank
Blankety Blank made a running joke of its cheap prizes on the BBC: every losing contestant went home with a Blankety Blank chequebook and pen.
Q 05The original Match Game premiered in 1962 on which date in the holiday calendar?
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve stayed special: in the 1970s the show's sign, which carried the year, was swapped on air each December 31 to the strains of Auld Lang Syne.
Q 06The 1960s Match Game used Studio 8H, now home to which show?
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live inherited a room built in the 1930s as a giant radio studio, where Arturo Toscanini conducted a symphony orchestra on air before television moved in.
Q 07What saved Match Game from its 1963 cancellation?
Funnier, more risqué questions
Funnier, more risqué questions came from writer Dick DeBartolo, with blanks like 'Mary likes to pour gravy all over John's ____'; the show had already been axed, so the producer had nothing to lose.
Q 08Which magazine was question writer Dick DeBartolo best known for?
MAD
MAD made sure DeBartolo had a piece in every issue for more than fifty years, and he kept mailing in Match Game questions from New York after the show moved west.
Q 09Which network revived Match Game in 1973 with a six-celebrity panel?
CBS
CBS put the year in the title, starting with Match Game 73, and the studio sign was changed on air, to Auld Lang Syne, each time a new year arrived.
Q 10Brett Somers joined the panel at the request of which actor, her husband at the time?
Jack Klugman
Jack Klugman, a panelist in the show's first week, insisted the producers try his wife; Somers stayed for the whole nine-year run.
Q 11Which M*A*S*H actor filled in for Charles Nelson Reilly on Match Game in 1974–75, then stayed as a semi-regular?
Gary Burghoff
Gary Burghoff, M*A*S*H's Radar, covered the seat while Reilly was in New York doing a Broadway play, and he kept coming back as a guest for years afterwards.
Q 12Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly usually sat in which part of Match Game's panel?
The top row
The top row seated the week's male guest, then Somers and Reilly, whose sparring side by side became a running act; Richard Dawson sat below, in the centre of the bottom row.
Q 13On the 1970s Match Game, the champion sat behind a red circle; which shape marked the challenger's seat?
A green triangle
Q 21Richard Dawson parodied his TV-host image as Damon Killian in which Arnold Schwarzenegger film?
The Running Man
The Running Man cast Dawson as the smiling host of a deadly TV game show, a villainous twist on his own persona that critics singled out for praise.
Q 22What was the weekly syndicated evening edition of Match Game called?
Match Game PM
Match Game PM ran once a week from 1975 to 1981, and because its games proved too short to fill the half-hour, a third round of questions was added.
Q 23Match Game's announcer Johnny Olson is best remembered for which game-show call?
Come on down!
A green triangle marked the challenger's seat on the network show; the syndicated versions had no returning champion, so a backstage coin toss decided who sat where.
Q 14Which recurring Match Game character had the audience shouting 'How ____ is she' back?
Dumb Dora
Dumb Dora questions began 'Dumb Dora is so dumb...', and the whole audience roared back 'How dumb is she?' before Rayburn could finish; a male twin, Dumb Donald, got the same treatment.
Q 15What was the name of the fictional sleazy country in many Match Game questions?
Nerdocrumbesia
Other stock subjects included Superman, King Kong, Tarzan, the Lone Ranger and Howard Cosell.
Q 16What was Match Game's 1970s bonus round called?
The Super Match
The Super Match came in two parts: first the contestant tried to match a studio audience's favourite answers, then faced one celebrity head to head for ten times the money.
Q 17Which hit show was spun off from Match Game's Audience Match round?
Family Feud
Family Feud turned the Audience Match's survey answers into a whole show in 1976, built as a vehicle for Match Game's most popular panelist, Richard Dawson.
Q 18In 1975, Match Game's producers briefly banned contestants from doing what?
Picking the same panelist twice in a row
Picking the same panelist twice in a row was outlawed because nearly everyone chose Richard Dawson for the big-money match; the rule was scrapped within weeks.
Q 19What device did Match Game introduce in 1978 to choose the celebrity for its Head-to-Head Match?
The Star Wheel
The Star Wheel was meant to spread the big-money match around the panel, yet on its very first spin it stopped on Richard Dawson, and his fellow panelists walked off in mock disbelief.
Q 20Which host taped the pilots for Match Game's 1990 revival but had to withdraw after falling ill?
Bert Convy
Bert Convy, a Match Game panelist since the 1960s, hosted a week of pilots in 1989 but was diagnosed with a brain tumour before the series began, so the job went to another host.
Come on down! was Olson's summons to contestants on The Price Is Right, and his successors there still shout it; he announced Match Game from 1962 to 1982.
Q 24In 1983, Match Game was paired with which other game show to fill a single hour?
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares filled the second half of the hour under Jon Bauman of Sha Na Na, while Rayburn ran the Match Game half; the hybrid lasted nine months.
Q 25Who hosted the 1990 ABC revival of Match Game?
Ross Shafer
Ross Shafer stepped in shortly before taping began and signed off the last show by promising a move to 'another channel, another time', which never happened.
Q 26Which Dallas actress hosted MG2, a 1996 Match Game pilot that never aired?
Charlene Tilton
Charlene Tilton, Dallas's Lucy Ewing and once a Match Game panelist herself, fronted a pilot that strayed so far from the old format that producers reworked it before the 1998 series.
Q 27Who hosted Match Game's 2016 prime-time revival on ABC?
Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin hosted and produced the revival, which brought Match Game back to New York, the city it had left for Los Angeles in the 1970s.
Q 28Who presents the 2025 ABC revival of Match Game?
Martin Short
Martin Short hosts and executive-produces the revival, which left the United States altogether: the previous version was taped in New York, his in Montreal.
Q 29Why did Gene Rayburn believe he was passed over to host Match Game's 1990 revival?
His age became public
His age became public when a TV reporter revealed that Rayburn, widely assumed to be younger, was nearly 70; he blamed the disclosure for costing him work from then on.
Q 30In 2013, which magazine ranked the 1970s Match Game No. 4 among the greatest game shows ever?
TV Guide
TV Guide put the 1973–79 version fourth on its list of the 60 greatest game shows, yet the show never won the Daytime Emmy for best game show despite two nominations.