The first Australian version of the popular American game show Match Game 73 (1973).
The first Australian version of the popular American game show Match Game 73 (1973). The game is played by two contestants, a champion and a challenger, who were always of opposite genders (one man and one woman). They played two rounds of the main game. The first round began with the challenger selecting between two statements identified as A and B. After they made their choice, host Graham Kennedy would pull out the card from the corresponding pocket and read out the statement that was written on it. The statement would always have one word replaced with 'blank' or an extension thereof, for example "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary couldn't make her garden grow with water, so she used 'blank' instead". The six celebrities would then try to fill in the 'blank' by writing their answer on a card and then locking it in (when they had done so, a bell would sound and their name would light up). After they had put their answers in, the statement would be read out to the challenger who would then give their answer. Kennedy would then get the celebrities to reveal their answers in turn, starting in the top row and going from left to right, then doing the same in the bottom row. For each celebrity whose answer matched that given by the challenger, the challenger would score one point. If it wasn't clear whether a celebrity's answer was a match or not, then producer Tony Connelly, dubbed "Tony the Moustache Twirler" by Kennedy, would have the final say on this matter. After all of the answers had been revealed, Kennedy would take the card not selected by the challenger, and the champion would play in the same way with that card's statement.
Two new statements would appear in the pockets for round 2, and unless the challenger matched all six celebrities, they would again choose between the two statements. This time, only the celebrities who had not matched the challenger in round 1 would play. If the champion had more matches than the challenger in round 1 and the deficit became greater than the number of celebrities remaining, the champion would win the game at that point, otherwise they would receive the other statement and play in a similar way with only the celebrities they didn't match playing. If the champion scored enough matches to pass the challenger's round 2 total or their deficit became greater than the number of celebrities remaining, then the contestant with the greater score either became or remained the champion, but if both contestants ended the round with the same score, then one or more tie-breaker rounds was played with another two statements for the challenger to choose between. The scores would be reset to 0-0 and every celebrity would play, in a similar way to the previous rounds in a process that was repeated until the two contestants received different scores, with the higher scoring contestant becoming or remaining champion.
The winner went on to play the Super Match round. In this round, the contestant had to fill in the 'blank' of a phrase, such as "'blank' time", with a one-word answer that matched one of the three most popular answers given by a recent studio audience. The contestant would ask three of the celebrities for their suggested answers. After they had done so, the contestant could either choose one of the celebrities' suggestions or give an answer of their own if they had what they thought was a better option. After they made their choice, Kennedy would get crew member Peter Hough, whom he dubbed "Peter the Phantom Puller", to "pull" the top three audience responses from his position behind the set, from the third most popular to the most popular (what Peter actually "pulled" was the levers that uncovered each of these answers).
If the contestant failed to match any of the top three answers, the bonus round ended at that point, but if they succeeded, they would win $25 if they matched the third most popular answer, $50 if they matched the second most popular answer or $100 if they matched the most popular answer, and would then have an opportunity to play for 10 times the amount of money they had just won by matching one celebrity of their choice on another phrase with a 'blank' to fill in. After the phrase was read out by Kennedy, the chosen celebrity wrote their answer down, and after it was locked in, the contestant gave their answer. If the celebrity's and contestant's answers matched, the contestant would win the extra money.
Regardless of how much money, if any, the contestant won, they would continue to play until a challenger defeated them. An episode could begin or end at any stage of the game.
