Classic Television - Weekdays

Three on a Match

Original channel

NBC

Original run

August 2, 1971 – June 28, 1974

Presented by

Bill Cullen

Narrated by

Don Pardo

Three on a Match is an American television game show created by Bob Stewart that ran on NBC from August 2, 1971 to June 28, 1974 on its daytime schedule. The host was Bill Cullen and Don Pardo served as announcer on most episodes, with Bob Clayton and NBC staffers Wayne Howell and Roger Tuttle substituting at times.

The series was produced at NBC's Rockefeller Center in New York City. The program's title is wordplay on the superstition of the same name.

Three contestants competed to determine who could answer the most true-or-false questions in one of three categories. After Cullen announced the categories, each contestant bid a number between one and four based on how many questions he or she desired to answer on that turn.

A player could win the bidding in two ways: either by having the highest bid or by having his or her opponents bid the same number, which canceled out their bids. If all three players chose the same number, another round of bidding was conducted to break the deadlock. If that failed, the categories were discarded in favor of new ones, and the process began again. The pot for the round was calculated by totaling the number of questions bid by all three contestants and then multiplying by $10 (for example: 4, 3, and 2 totals 9, which becomes $90), making for a maximum possible pot of $110.

When one contestant won the right to answer questions he/she selected one of the categories. If a contestant failed to correctly answer as many questions as he/she bid, control passed to the next highest bidder, then the lowest bidder if the second player was unsuccessful. If the two contestants matched bids and canceled each other out, and the remaining contestant failed to fulfill his/her bid, the canceled players were given a chance to re-bid, with the higher bidder having a chance to answer questions from the two remaining categories. If they canceled each other out again, the game moved on to a new set of categories. When a contestant fulfilled the bid, the contestant won the pot.

Some categories had a special feature hidden behind them, which was revealed when it was selected. The most frequent was "Double Pot" which doubled the value of the pot the contestant was playing for (up to $220). Another offered "One Free Box", "Two Free Boxes", or "Three Free Boxes", which gave the contestant extra free selections on the game board. However, the contestant could only take the free boxes after buying as many boxes as possible with his/her money. Creator Bob Stewart devised these to help speed up the pace of the game by enabling a lucky contestant to win more easily.

After winning a pot, the contestant kept the money and continued playing, or could use the accumulated money to try to win the game at the bonus board. If the contestant won any free boxes in the previous round, they had to be used immediately after winning them, or the free boxes were forfeited. The minimum amount required in a contestant's bank to play the board was $90, unless the contestant had earned free boxes during that category.