You all know how obsessed I am with the Match Game remake, right? Way back in January I was already asking for your suggestions for the inaugural panelists. Well, they've been announced, and in a way, they're as good as — if not better than — the ones I/we came up with. The initial sextet will comprise edgy Saturday Night Live veterans Sarah Silverman and Norm MacDonald, former Kid in the Hall Scott Thompson, Reno 911's Niecy Nash, Super Dave Osborne (aka Bob Einstein) and the lovely Rashida Jones, formerly of NBC's The Office. MadTV alum Andrew Daly will serve as the new show's Gene Rayburn.What do you think? Will this funny fraternity fill your blanks?— Mickey O'Connor
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The SNL writers really nailed it last week with this sketch. Fans absolutely loved the skit that spoofed the '70s game show, the Match Game, along with impersonations of celebs during the time such as Brett Somers and Paul Lynde. But the best part of the skit (besides how ridiculously spot-on it was) was host Shia LaBoeuf's impersonation of the flamboyant magician, Doug Henning. The old school SNL feel of the whole thing was just magic.
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Just as sister cabler TNT disclosed its own plan to pump up the volume of original content, TBS unveiled its own development slate. Among the series to one day join the ranks of My Boys, The Bill Engvall Show and Frank TV:• A sitcom based on Jane Ganahl's memoir Naked on the Page; The Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife. Betty Thomas (Dream On) will direct.• A series penned by Dave Caplan (The Drew Carey Show), about a jilted single mom with two kids and a struggling lumberyard. (Note to TV execs: Enough with the shows set at a lumberyard!!)• A domestic comedy about a low-level judge and her prosecutor hubby.TBS has also ordered pilots for a Match Game reboot (previously reported on here) and Stay Tuned, in which animated couch potatoes channel-surf through animated offerings.Late-night shows in development include a sketch series fronted by Robert Townsend and one puppet-ulated by The Jim Henson Company.
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As reported earlier today, the folks behind American Idol are reviving Match Game. I may be in the minority here, but my restrained response to this news was something akin to "Woo-hoo!" I loved that show — both in its heyday and in reruns on the Game Show Network — if only because it's the strangest anthropological documentation of 1970s comedy, sexual mores and substance abuse that you're ever going to find on network television. It was pretty subversive for a game show (see examples on YouTube), with more cigarette smoking, daytime drinking and winking sexism/sexual innuendo than your average episode of Mad Men.So we asked you who you'd put on the show's inaugural panel. Who are today's Richard Dawsons, Brett Sommerses, and Charles Nelson Reillys? And you responded in kind, with some very interesting suggestions. (Mario Cantone? Genius. Jimmy Fallon? Eh.) That said, here are my humble suggestions for the inaugural sextet. —1) Pamela Anderson: If anyone knows her wa...
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"The ongoing WGA strike has made producers so desperate, they've decided to revive _____ as a game show."Richard Dawson, winking at contestant Jeanine, raises his answer card to reveal: "Match Game."American Idol producer FremantleMedia North America is developing a contemporary version of Match Game, the quizzer created in 1962 and revived in several incarnations since. Gene Rayburn hosted the most-remembered version, in the '70s, and the panel of celeb participants was famously frequented by the likes of Charles Nelson Reilly, Brett Somers and Twiggy.Who would you select as the modern-day equivalents of Charles, Richard et al? Share your "dream panel" in comments!Update: Here is our dream panel for "Match Game 2008"!
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