RIP Betty White: Good in Match Game's "Hard Seat"
Plenty has been written about the recently departed Betty White. She earned a mantal full of Emmys for Mary Tyler Moore, Golden Girls, and even one for an S.N.L. episode she guest hosted in 2010 at age 88.
What has not been mentioned was her appearances as a semi-regular on Match Game in the seventies occupying the last seat on the bottom row, or what Brett Somers called “the hardest seat, because by that time everyone had said everything,” as A. Ashley Hoff cited in his book Match Game 101: A Backstage History of Match Game.
Hoff devotes a chapter to Somers, a Match Game mainstay perched in the second row, middle seat, calling her “The Elizabeth Taylor of Seventies Game Shows.” Somers continued, “Betty and Marcia (Wallace) and Fannie (Flagg) and Patti (Deutsch) too, they were all good at it. They were all good on the last seat. But it was a tough seat.”
The author describes the last seat occupant as “a strong character,” women celebrities “with an offbeat imagination whose function on the panel [was] to conclude with an original remark.” Betty White was perfect for the role, being “game show royalty” having appeared in numerous Mark Goodson-Bill Todman shows over the years.
The first seat on the bottom row, Somers called “The Dummy Seat,” “because they always put the ingenues there, who were doing a series.” Producer Ira Skutch called the seat “the sexpot” or the pretty starlet, who typically wasn’t a good player but had the show’s anchor and best player, Richard Dawson, next to her.
The top row started with a new player, with Brett seated next and mainstay Charles Nelson Reilly next to Somers. If the “new kid” provided a dull answer, Somers and Reilly would “improvise something witty to ease the conversational flow down to the second row,” writes Hoff.
From 1973 to 1977 Match Game was the highest rated game show in daytime TV and for three of those years it was the highest-rated of all daytime shows. Match Game came in fourth in a list of the 25 best game shows of all time. “Perhaps the most irreverent game show of all time,” Susan Pennington wrote in 2021. “‘Match Game’ has been delighting audiences for the better part of 60 years. Gene Rayburn hosted the first two versions, brilliantly bouncing double entendres in a time of strict censorship and memorably bantering with celebrity panelists like Richard Dawson, Charles Nelson Reilly, Brett Somers and Betty White.”
The show’s success can be attributed to the casting of the panel. Mr. Skutch is quoted by Arby, “Putting together a panel is like casting a play–each member has a different role to play–and the collective chemistry must be just right. [Host] Gene Rayburn instinctively knew how to encourage the panel to participate, while at the same time keeping tight control.”
If you catch Match Game on the Game Show Network, at times, Rayburn’s control seems anything but tight. More so for the episodes filmed after lunch. Rayburn said, “We’d tape two or three shows, then take an hour off, have a little lunch, a little vino, sit around and gossip and tell some jokes.”
According to Rayburn, Howard Stern “watched Match Game every day of his life.” Stern booked the Match Game host for his radio show, just to meet Rayburn.
There were later versions of the show, but as Betty White said, “when they tried to do it as a more or less straight game show I think it lost some of its charm.”
While she’s sadly passed, thankfully, Betty’s charm will always be available on the tube. RIP Betty.
