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.