Perfect Match

Perfect Match is an American game show that was hosted by Bob Goen and announced by Johnny Gilbert, which aired from January 13 to September 12, 1986, in syndication. The game featured three married couples answering questions about their spouses to win money. Perfect Match was Goen's first game show and the second game show to be distributed by Lorimar-Telepictures after Lorimar Productions purchased Telepictures in 1985. The show was also produced by XPTLA, Inc, whose show The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime launched one week before Perfect Match. The Perfect Match had also been the name of an earlier TV game show, which aired in syndication in 1967-68 and featured a computer dating theme. Development A year before Perfect Match debuted, Telepictures developed another game show, Catch Phrase, and sold it to stations with what they called an "insurance policy". The condition was that if a station wanted to buy Catch Phrase and the show was not able to make it through the 1985-86 season, Telepictures would give the station another program to air at no additional cost to it. Catch Phrase faced ratings trouble from the start, and in November 1985 Lorimar-Telepictures commissioned a pilot for what was initially called Make a Match, with Jim Lange hosting. The pilot was well received by company executives and Lorimar-Telepictures decided to put the series into production, but before production began the name of the show was changed to Perfect Match.