Match Game, the quintessential 1970s kitschy, bawdy game show, with its double-entendres and loose, goofy spontaneous and hilarious abandon from the six celebrity panelists on the show, celebrates the 40th Anniversary of it’s debut on CBS-TV back on July 2nd, 1973.

The show, which was a retread of a more pedestrian and straight faced version which aired throughout most of the 1960s, did a 180 by the time it premiered in its second and extremely well known incarnation and went on to become the number one daytime program during the mid 1970s, and became an absolute staple of 1970s camp. With its funky theme song, which was bass heavy and replete with repetitive wah-wah guitar, to the bright orange shag rug which covered the stage, to the wide lapels, and bell bottoms and plaid pleated suits and blue eye shadow which was the fashion order of the day, to the loose, almost inebriated ribald one-liners, jests, ribs and sarcastic commentary from the panel, mostly made up of B-list celebrities who in a way became even more famous by way of association on the program, (people like Brett Sommers, Charles Nelson Reilly and Richard Dawson, were the main regulars and people like Fannie Flagg, Betty White, Orson Bean, Bill Daly and scores of others made up the semi-regulars) and commandeered and presided over by gawky, gangly and outgoingly spunky and funny host Gene Rayburn, with a microphone that was as tall and thin as he was, the show was unlike anything seen before, and in a way seen not seen since in the game show spectrum on American television.

The cocktail party atmosphere was the main appeal of the program, and as the show’s years went on and it started to find its stroke and peak, especially by the mid 1970s, the show’s main focus, the game itself, was really secondary. A week’s worth of shows were filmed daily and by the fifth show, most of the cast were reportedly a little tipsy and it certainly added to the knock down, slapdash, kooky style the show manifested. The questions that the contestants (who definitely seemed like deer in headlights comparatively to the proceedings going on, although some of them were loose and tried to hold their own in the hilarity of the show) were asked and the celebrities tried to match were mainly written by Mad Magazine’s long time writer Dick De Bartolo and kind of went along the lines of “Mary felt apprehensive about her wedding night because she discovered her BLANK was missing.” The fun came in everyone, including the audience at home and in the studio, thinking of the dirtiest word to fill in the blank. The level of these questions stayed there throughout the shows run, originally from 1973 to 1979 and then also during a nighttime version from 1975 to the early 1980s. A syndicated version also aired around this time.

Since the show left the air in its original incarnation over 30 years ago, it has bridged together generations of fans via it’s consistent and successful airings on Game Show Network, where it’s still one of that network’s flagship programs. Multiple airings of the program daily (there are over 5,000 episodes in total) are still enjoyed and laughed at by millions of people, who now see the program not only as a fun diversionist form of escapism, but also a visual time capsule of what a major facet of the 1970s sported pop culturally.

So here’s to celebrating 40 years of Match Game, a show for everyone, a fun romp emanating from the cathode rays, beaming into the homes of Americans coast to coast, promising a BLANKING good time for all. In today’s serious, button down world with its myriad of problems, a get lost and get loose for 30 minutes show like Match Game is like a metaphoric quick fix tonic and a highly welcome one at that.