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.

Richard Dawson, the sarcastic British comedian best remembered for his stint as the host of TV’s Family Feud, being a regular on the WWII sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, and playing a dark, sadistic game show host in the sci-fi vehicle The Running Man, died yesterday at the age of 79 from complications stemming from esophageal cancer.

Dawson found his first success as the slick character Newkirk on Hogan’s Heroes, the long running CBS-TV sitcom which starred Bob Crane and ran from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. Afterwards, he found greater success as a regular panelist on the long-running 1970s game show Match Game, also airing on CBS. His irascible style, jack of all trades Groucho Marx-esque wit and lovable charm made him a fan and contestant favorite. He used those traits when he became the host of the original version of Family Feud, a stint that lasted from 1976 to 1985 and was a show that won him a Daytime Emmy Award for his work in 1978. He’s best remembered for especially two things from that program: notoriously kissing every female contestant he encountered on the show (something which he once said he did “for love and luck”) and his bombastic, over the top catchphrase of Survey Said!, which became part of the American pop culture lexicon soon after he did it. On Feud, he parlayed a very decidedly English style and swagger, and the program was watched and beloved by millions of stalwart viewers of daytime television.