Dear Match Game 2016: You [Blanked] Up

Dear Match Game 2016,

You’re missing the point.

You’re supposed to be funny, see? Make people laugh? The old 1970s Match Game excelled at that. It oozed with sexual innuendo and double entendre. INNUENDO. That’s key here. They couldn’t directly talk about body parts. They couldn’t draw such things on their cards. No, they had to use their wits. The joy of the show was in the cleverness of it all–puns, Freudian slips, that kind of thing. Wink-wink nudge-nudge say no more, say no more.

You’re trying to do the same, but you’re preening in your late prime time slot. You want to use that for all it’s worth–after all, other network dramas at that time revel in profanity and nudity these days. So sure, you want to bring out the sexual content, but you lost the thesaurus. The wit has atrophied, revealing a show that is often blatantly crude and obscene.

I’m not laughing. I’m cringing.

The old Match Game pushed the boundaries of obscenity, too. Here’s an amusing thing, though: often it’s even funnier when the content is blurred or bleeped out. We can fill in those blanks and make it into a Mad Lib with custom-tailored waggery. Your new incarnation of Match Game isn’t leaving much room for the imagination.

See, I’m not a prude when it comes to humor. I have many friends who can vouch for my public actions with a flaccid faux breadstick. But see, that breadstick is innuendo. The naughtiness is in the imagination of everyone who passes by. The breadstick itself is quite innocent.

Match Game, you’re not innocent anymore. I think you’re proud of that, too. It’s 2016, right? Damn the censors! We can say what we want! Okay. That’s fine.

I just wish what you were saying was funny.

~Beth Cato

#SFWAPro