swingin safari tv show

‘Match Game’: What to know about the original game show

Brett Somers with Gene Rayburn and Charles Nelson Reilly on "Match Game." Credit: GSN

Alec Baldwin likes playing with matches.

The Massapequa-born actor is back — with his long, skinny mic in hand — Jan. 4 at 10 p.m. for a second season of “Match Game,” ABC’s revival of the classic fill-in-the-blanks game show of the ’70s. The reboot also may make you nostalgic for the previous version, which airs in reruns several times a day on Buzzr (channel 95 on Optimum).

Here are eight tidbits you may not have known about “Match Game,” its original host, Gene Rayburn, and the other crazies who appeared on the show.

1. BEFORE “MATCH GAME,” THERE WAS “THE MATCH GAME”

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Sure, you remember the 1970s version, but you’ve probably drawn a blank when it comes to NBC’s less risqué edition, titled “The Match Game,” which premiered on Dec. 31, 1962, and ran for seven years. Back then Rayburn asked far more generic questions (for example, name a big dog) than in later versions. The game also pitted two teams — each consisting of two contestants and a celebrity team captain — against each other.

2. THE “GODFATHER OF SOUL” WAS A CELEBRITY GUEST

The NBC version featured many A-listers as team captains, including James Brown, who competed against Rita Moreno in May 1969. Other curious celebrity matchups included Liza Minnelli and Dustin Hoffman; Barbara Feldon and Don Adams; and Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. On one occasion, Rayburn competed against Michele Lee and Ed McMahon filled in as host.

3. THE ’60S SHOW HAD A WILD THEME SONG

“A Swingin’ Safari,” a composition for tin whistle and trumpet, opened “The Match Game.” It was written by German orchestra leader Bert Kaempfert, who also composed the music for “Strangers in the Night” and “Danke Schoen.”

4. RAYBURN AND CHARLES NELSON REILLY WERE A MATCH ON BROADWAY

Rayburn, who was an accomplished actor, replaced Dick Van Dyke in the Broadway production of “Bye Bye Birdie” in April 1961. Rayburn’s understudy, who also had a small role in “Birdie,” was Reilly, later a fixture on the ’70s “Match Game.”

5. BRETT SOMERS BELONGED TO THE ACTORS STUDIO

She’s mainly remembered as Reilly’s sparring partner on “Match Game,” but Somers began her career on the New York stage and was a member of the Actors Studio from 1952 until her death in 2007. Though she played dramatic roles on many series including “The Defenders” and “Naked City,” her best-known TV role was Blanche, the ex-wife of Oscar Madison, played by real-life husband Jack Klugman, on “The Odd Couple.”

6. FUTURE STARS STRUCK IT RICH ON “MATCH GAME”

Long before everybody knew her name on “Cheers,” Kirstie Alley won $6,000 on “Match Game” in 1979. (The following year, she won $800 on “Password Plus.”) Other soon-to-be celebs who proved they weren’t Dumb Doras were talk-show host Jenny Jones, who won $5,000 in 1973, and “CHiPS” actress Brianne Leary, who scored $9,000 two years later. Leary is the only contestant to return as a panelist.

7. A DOZEN EPISODES WERE SHOT IN ONE WEEKEND

Rayburn lived in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and flew to Los Angeles every other Friday to film 12 shows over Saturday and Sunday.

8. THAT WASN’T WATER IN THEIR DRINKING CUPS

Filming days usually consisted of lunch and dinner breaks, and as the day went on, vodka usually ended up in the cups celebs drank from on the set.

And here are a couple of things we bet you didn’t know about these “Match Game” regulars :

RICHARD DAWSON WAS IN THE BOXING MATCH GAME

The Brit with a wit left his home in Hampshire, England, at 14 to join the Merchant Marines, where he worked as a laundry boy and waiter. He also earned extra money boxing his shipmates.

BETTY WHITE’S NOBEL PRIZED POSSESSION

Betty White and her late husband, “Password” host Allen Ludden, were good friends with John Steinbeck. The author gave White a copy of the Nobel Prize acceptance speech he was working on the day they met.

Daniel Bubbeo is an assistant entertainment editor and has been with Newsday since 2000. He edits Long Island arts and technology coverage.

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A Swingin' Safari by Billy Vaughn

Songfacts®:

• This song was written by German band leader Bert Kaempfert, and was released as the title track of his 1962 album. The album went Gold in his native country. Whereas Kaempfert's recording failed to chart, Vaughn's cover reached #13 on the Billboard chart. Vaughn was Dot Records' staff producer.
• The song and the album reflect the influence that Kwela music had on Bert Kaempfert. Kwela is a genre of music originating in Southern Africa, which prominently features the use of a penny whistle. This sound was also adapted in other successful Western music, notably Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland . In the liner notes to The Bert Kaempfert Collection , Ladi Geisler, the orchestra's bass guitarist, said: "Bert Kaempfert tried to swap the penny whistle for a piccolo. Now that was a real piece of innovation. Then, finally, it was all ready and Bert was really pleased, he had managed it, he had captured the sound of the penny whistle using the piccolo."
• This was the original theme of the TV game show The Match Game ('60s version). It was reused as a theme for several later game shows.
• More songs from Billy Vaughn
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• More TV show theme songs
• More songs from 1962

Comments: 7

• Night Heron from Etna Ca I can well remember this from the first version of The Match Game. Nice little song.
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny On July 15th 1962, "Swingin' Safari" by Billy Vaughn & his Orchestra entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #70; and on September 2nd, 1962 it peaked at #13 and spent 12 weeks on the Top 100... It reached #5 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary Tracks chart... Between 1954 and 1966 he had twenty-eight recordings make the Top 100; with four reaching the Top 10, "Melody of Love" at #2 (for 1 week) in 1955, "Shifting Whispering Sand" at #5 in 1955, and in 1958 he released a record were both sides made the Top 10; the A-side, "Sail Along Silvery Moon", peaked at #5 while the B-side, "Raunchy", reached #10... The week "Melody of Love" was at #2 on Billboard's Best Sellers chart, the #1 record was "Sincerely" by the McGuire Sisters... R.I.P. Mr. Vaughn (1919 - 1991).
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny In 1957 Billy Vaughn pulled off a feat that no other instrumentalist has ever matched; he had a two-sided Top Ten hit record. "Sail Along Silvery Moon" peaked at #5 while the flip-side, "Raunchy", reached #10!!!
• Steve Dotstar from Los Angeles, Ca cool little instrumental....
• Kelley from Hickory, Ky This song is vaguely similar to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokins though there is no direct connection that I know of. Lion was released earlier and may have been an inspiration for Kaempfert
• Murph from Peoria, Il This song was not used as an advertising jingle for Clark Teaberry Gum. The song was called "The Mexican Shuffle" (renamed for the ad campaign as "The TeaBerry Shuffle," and was played by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Incidentally, the exposure the song and band got through the TeaBerry gum ad is what propelled them to fame. Swingin Safari is similar enough to Mexican Shuffle that I think it would be easily confused. Murph
• Rato from Lisbon, Portugal The original version, by Bert Kaempfert (in the album of the same name) is much better than this cover. The single was released in March 2, 1962.

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Flammable Children

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Swinging Safari gathers an entertaining ensemble to offer audiences a messy yet ultimately endearing comedy rich with period detail.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Stephan Elliott

Kylie Minogue

Radha Mitchell

Julian McMahon

Asher Keddie

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Film Review: ‘Swinging Safari’

'Priscilla' director Stephan Elliott lets it all hang out in a cheerfully over-the-top slice of Aussie suburban life in the mid-1970s.

By Richard Kuipers

Richard Kuipers

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A cheerfully vulgar, consistently amusing and sometimes hilarious parody of life in a suburban Aussie cul-de-sac in the mid-1970s, “ Swinging Safari ” might just as easily have been titled “The Ice Storm Goes Berserk Down Under.” This partly autobiographical tale by writer-director Stephan Elliott (“The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”) misfires occasionally but rattles along so quickly audiences never have to wait too long before the next laugh-out-loud moment. With a terrific cast that includes Guy Pearce and Kylie Minogue giving it everything they’ve got, and lovely performances by Atticus Robb and Darcey Wilson as sensitive teenagers observing their parents’ irresponsible behavior, “Safari” should please plenty of viewers and appeal particularly to those in the Baby Boomer and Gen-X demographics when released locally on Jan. 18. International niche exposure is not out of the question.

As he did so winningly in “Priscilla” and 1997’s unfairly overlooked outback comedy “Welcome to Woop Woop,” Elliott celebrates Australian identity with genuine love while simultaneously roasting it over the coals of no-holds-barred satire and parody. Embedded within its caricatures and gaudy visuals is an accurate picture of the moods and mores of ’70s middle-class Australia, where a combination of high living standards, plenty of leisure time and a sense of liberation brought on by a socially progressive government inspired many suburbanites to indulge in behavior that seems positively bacchanalian by today’s standards. There’s deliberately no deep-and-meaningful sociology here but the framework is firm.

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The film gets off to a zippy start with an adult narrator (Richard Roxburgh) recalling his teenage years in the coastal suburb of Wallaroo, as 14-year-old budding filmmaker Jeff Marsh (Robb), who enlists local kids to perform hilariously dangerous stunts in front of his ever-present Super-8 camera.

Jeff’s father Bob (Jeremy Sims, sporting world-class mutton chops) sells gadgets for the K-Tel company, while his mother Gale (adored local favorite Asher Keddie) “shops, plays tennis and chats a lot.” Across the road live Keith Hall (Pearce), a Funk & Wagnell’s encyclopedia salesman, and Kaye (Minogue), an alcoholic shut-in. The neighborhood’s alpha couple is Rick Jones ( Julian McMahon ), a peddler of trendy legal drugs and vitamins, and wife Jo (Radha Mitchell), a travel agent who affects the posh British accent that was so prevalent among socially ambitious Australians in bygone days.

After presenting rib-tickling snapshots of Aussie beach culture at the time (chain smoking, non-stop drinking, appalling sunburns, unsupervised children running amok), “Safari” gets to the swinging part of the title with gusto. A disastrous wife-swapping party triggers a war of words and comically violent payback. The coup de grace is a screamingly funny act of public urination that evokes memories of “Desperate Living”-era John Waters.

Balancing the antics of an agreeably grotesque gallery of adults is the sweet friendship of Jeff and Melissa (Wilson), the deep-thinking daughter of Rick and Jo. Both carry scars from being burned by flammable clothing (a reference to the film’s original title “Flammable Children”) and first connect when a 200-ton blue whale beaches itself on the local shore. Drawing a connection between the immovable beast’s tragic fate and their own desire to not get stuck in Wallaroo forever, the youngsters hatch a delightfully spontaneous plan to run away. This nicely written and very well performed story thread suffers only from its relative brevity in the overall scheme of things.

Reuniting with producer Al Clark and many other key “Priscilla” collaborators, Elliott elevates his rowdy and raucous tale with the help of Lizzy Gardiner’s magnificently garish period costumes, Colin Gibson’s supremely kitschy production design and a zingy score by Guy Gross. Art director Jodie Whetter and set decorator Justine Dunn must have had a ball trawling through thrift shops for items like Perkins Paste, a long-disappeared brand of non-toxic Australian adhesive that was famous for being eaten by schoolchildren. In one of countless small moments that older Australian viewers will particularly cherish, a school kid duly downs a dollop of the stuff before Brad Shield’s spot-on widescreen camera captures another delightfully over-the-top, color-saturated moment.

Reviewed at Hoyts Entertainment Quarter Cinemas, Sydney, Dec. 12, 2017. Running time: 97 MIN.

• Production: (Australia) A Becker Film Group release of a Screen Australia, Piccadilly Pictures presentation of a Wildheart Films, See Pictures production, in association with Son Capital, Screen Queensland, Screen NSW, Cutting Edge. (International sales: WestEnd Films, London.) Producers: Al Clark, Jamie Hilton. Executive producers: Robert Whitehouse, Christopher Figg, Lisa Lambert. Co-producer: Ester Harding.
• Crew: Director, writer: Stephan Elliott. Camera (color, widescreen): Brad Shield. Editors: Sue Blainey, Laurie Hughes, Annette Davey. Music: Guy Gross.
• With: Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue, Radha Mitchell, Julian McMahon, Asher Keddie, Jeremy Sims, Atticus Robb, Darcey Wilson Jack Thompson, Chelsea Glaw, Jesse Denyer, Jacob Elordi, Stephan Elliott, Al Clark.

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Swinging Safari

Cast & crew.

Kylie Minogue

Radha Mitchell

Julian McMahon

Asher Keddie

Chaotic, '70s-set coming-of-age tale has tons of iffy stuff.

• Average 6.3

Information

© 2017 Flammable Children Holdings PTY, Screen Australia, Screen NSW and Screen Queensland PTY LTD

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1975: A 200-ton blue whale gets washed up on a local beach and the kids think it’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened in Australia. Behind closed doors, the Mums and Dads of a quiet suburban street are going to celebrate in their own special way, by joining the sexual revolution and throwing a wife-swapping key party. And like the rotting whale, it’s all about to go spectacularly wrong.

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Product Description

1970s Australia: A 200-ton blue whale washes up on a local beach and it's the biggest thing that's ever happened in the lives of the local kids. Behind closed doors, the parents of this quiet suburban cul-de-sac celebrate in their own special way... It's a time of boxed wine, bad hair, bad styles, bad choices, but good times. And like the rotting whale, it's all about to go spectacularly wrong.

Product details

• MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches; 2.54 ounces
• Item model number ‏ : ‎ unknown
• Director ‏ : ‎ Stephan Elliott
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ NTSC
• Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 37 minutes
• Release date ‏ : ‎ January 1, 2019
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue, Radha Mitchell, Julian McMahon, Asher Keddie
• Producers ‏ : ‎ Al Clark, Jamie Hilton
• Studio ‏ : ‎ Blue Fox Entertainment
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07S98GPPW
• Writers ‏ : ‎ Stephan Elliott
• Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ USA
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
• #15,304 in Comedy (Movies & TV)

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Kylie Minogue on Swinging Safari: ‘So much of what we were doing was so non-PC'

Director Stephan Elliott and Minogue talk about the making of the Priscilla director’s latest risqué take on Australian culture

Kylie Minogue appears as you have never seen her before in the rambunctious Australian comedy Swinging Safari : as an alcoholic agoraphobic living in a sex-obsessed neighbourhood.

“I loved the script, and I thought this is so exciting – I can be back in Australia, I can do some acting again,” Minogue tells Guardian Australia.

“Then once we were on set, oh boy. So much of what we were doing was so non-PC. We would say, ‘Are we going to get away with this?”

The answer depends, of course, on what one makes of the writer/director Stephan Elliott’s raucous satire, which sets its body fluid-splattered sights on white-bread Australia in the 1970s. But Minogue and her co-stars, including fellow Neighbours alum Guy Pearce, must have had some idea what they were getting into, given the auteur’s notorious record of risqué humour, evidenced in The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert and Welcome to Woop Woop .

Swinging Safari has a sight gag depicting a teenage boy being impaled by a beach umbrella, because why not? Also, during one of its lighter moments, a grown woman (played by Asher Keddie, star of Offspring ) urinates on a child in public.

Minogue says her character – the taciturn, mousy, hard-drinkin’ Kaye – was originally even wilder than the version that made final cut.

“There were parts which kind of got changed around in the edit, about how she would pass her time in the bedroom,” Minogue recalls. “That took a tiny bit of convincing on Stephan’s part. He said, ‘Trust me, trust me!’ So I went for it, and just let everything go south.”

What exactly are these other vices the character had? Elliott explains: “She was addicted to porn. She had this drawer full of toys and spent a lot of time in her bedroom. I remember when I came up with the idea, I rang Kylie and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this great idea! Kaye keeps herself really busy up there!’ She said, ‘I already know what you’re about to say. I figured it out, Steph.’

“She wasn’t comfortable but she did it. God bless her, she absolutely did it.”

The story of how the pop superstar became involved in Swinging Safari goes back to the making of Priscilla, which arrived in cinemas in 1994. Few people know that the film’s soundtrack, which famously features drag performances of immortal dance hits such as Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive and CeCe Peniston’s Finally , was originally intended to be full of Kylie Minogue songs. Elliott had made a deal with record producing trio Stock Aitken Waterman, “the English label who were making all those shitty late-80s dance tracks”.

The director continues: “I went to them and said, ‘Our film is pretty draggy and gay, can I use your library?’ They loved it and said, ‘We’re there,’ When I said, ‘Who are your biggest stars,’ we looked at them all. They had 22 number ones with Kylie. So I said, ‘OK, why don’t we do a drag attack on Kylie?’”

But when Polygram Entertainment bought Priscilla, the conglomerate insisted the director use only songs from its music library. Years later, Elliott was writing the Priscilla stage show adaptation – “and guess what came back in? Kylie.”

Swinging Safari was originally intended to be released with the more provocative title Flammable Children. Elliott fended off numerous attempts to change it – feedback from colleagues telling him potential buyers were mistaking it for a horror movie.

“I put my little foot down and said, ‘Not going to budge, you can deal with it,’” he recalls. “Then: Grenfell Tower, London. The tower block went up. Many kids burned to death. So at the eleventh hour, after everything was finished – the title card was in, the posters were printed, everything done – we changed it. I caved, and I’m glad I did now.”

Like all of Elliott’s comedies, Swinging Safari is caustic but kind of sweet, a big heart evident beneath the soiled bed sheets. The story, a semi-autobiographical account of his upbringing, is likely to particularly resonate with people who remember life in Australia in the 70s. There are references to raunchy productions such as Number 96, and visions of carnage-strewn backyards and beach visits.

Minogue says it connected with her memories: “In the film, definitely large parts of my childhood come to life – though I don’t know about the parental side,” she says, laughing. She’s alluding to the rowdy behaviour of the adults in the film, from participating in key parties to the aforementioned urination. “I also remember childhood being slower, more languid ... this is on roids. A pumped-up version of childhood.”

So pumped up in fact, and with such a furious hell-for-leather pace, that Elliott took the unusual step of stretching out the film following feedback from test audiences.

“I put an extra five minutes in to slow it down,” he says. “People were saying, ‘It’s too fast! Too fast!’ I was saying, You bet it is! Let’s assault them!

“But during test screenings people, including kids, were saying, ‘We can’t remember anything, it’s just too fast.’ When enough young people said that I said, OK, we’ll slow it down a little. Hey, it’s the YouTube generation. Everyone can keep up, can’t they?”

• Kylie Minogue

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