Martin Brief takes on internet hosting duties for “Match Sport”
Any TV trivia particular person price their salt is aware of that Gene Rayburn hosted the unique “Match Sport.” It debuted so way back, 1962, TV was virtually nonetheless radio. Rayburn hosted a number of subsequent variations. However you’d need to be a devoted game-show watcher to do not forget that Alec Baldwin (!) hosted the final iteration. It ran on ABC from 2016-21.
Make that subsequent to final. “Match Sport” is again, additionally on ABC. The primary of six hourlong episodes airs Wednesday evening. As soon as broadcast, episodes can be found for streaming on Hulu. Internet hosting is — drum roll, please — Martin Brief.
Why a drum roll — or, on the very least, a sequence of rim pictures? We’ll get to that. First, there’s the matter of the sport itself. Right here’s the way it works. The host reads a phrase as much as the final phrase, which he leaves out. The problem then is to fill within the clean. (In reality, there have been Australian and British variations of “Match Sport” known as “Blankety Clean.”) Six movie star visitors provide their very own endings to the phrase. So do two contestants. The contestant who makes probably the most matches with the celebrities wins.
Company on the premiere episode are Selena Gomez, Cara Delevingne, Kevin Nealon, Anthony Anderson, Ziwe, and BD Wong. Wong performed Brief’s assistant in “Father of the Bride” (1991). Gomez has a stronger connection. She costars with Brief and Steve Martin on “Solely Murders within the Constructing.” Gomez makes certain, although, Brief doesn’t take credit score for her being a visitor. “I used to observe this present in my trailer, the ’60s model,” she teases him at the start of the episode. “I didn’t do that for you. I did it as a result of I’m a fan.” Sure, “Match Sport” looms that enormous within the game-show firmament.
Which brings us again to that drum roll (or sequence of rim pictures). Brief was born to soar in that firmament the way in which Joe DiMaggio was born to patrol middle subject or Toscanini to take the rostrum. All the way in which again to his “SCTV” days, Brief has been an unmatched grasp of honest insincerity and winkingly self-aware phoniness. His jokes are that a lot funnier for his all the time, all the time being in on them. He says on that first “Match Sport” “Wow, time flies whenever you’re phoning it in.” What different game-show host would dare say such a factor, not to mention be capable of get away with?
The basic game-show host is to smarminess as musicians are to excellent pitch or basketball gamers to top. It’s virtually a job requirement. Consider Rayburn, Bob Eubanks (“The Newlywed Sport”), Richard Dawson (“Household Feud”), Monty Corridor (“Let’s Make a Deal”), the record does go on. Even the sainted Alex Trebek, of “Jeopardy!” fame, had a streak of unction, nonetheless suave and statesmanlike. “All of them appeared like game-show hosts to me,” Sting sings in “If I Ever Lose My Religion in You.” Is there a extra scornful line in all of pop music?
Brief takes the trigger for such scorn, turns it inside out, and ties a bow on it. Enjoying smarm for laughs, he’s so excessive he’s simply the place he ought to be. It’s arduous to think about somebody higher suited to host a recreation present. Effectively, wait, there may be somebody: Jiminy Glick. But it surely’s a protected wager Brief will discover a approach to handle that competitors.
Mark Feeney is a Globe arts author.
Mark Feeney could be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.