Nothing short of amazing how comfortable Richard Dawson is with hosting this show. Totally in command, gracious to the guests and in full kissing mode! 😄 Probably would’ve guessed CNR had I not heard the audience reveal, but was stumped on the rest (even Shatner at first!) Is it likely this and Match Game are the only two games that involved smoking AND drinking on set? 🤔 Another awesome post, Wink! Thanks for sharing all this great TV history with us!
At age 4, this is literally the first game show I remember ever seeing on TV, "Masquerade Party" with Richard Dawson. My parents watched it, so I would see it on occasion. I remembered virtually nothing about how it played, I just remembered famous people tearing rubber masks off and Dawson as the host. Thanks for posting this!
Mark Goodson knew he had more than a star. He had a franchise in Dawson. This gig won Dawson Family Feud. Dickie had a brutal taping session when he hosted Family Feud and still with Match Game. Bags under his eyes during that time are proof. Dawson gets roasted for being distant during his final year on Match Game. I think he was just beaten down by the schedule and disenchanted with his role on Match Game after Ira rolled out the "spinning wheel" big money match. Ira took away Dawson's big moment on Match Game. Rayburn wrote a book about that era, too bad Dawson never put down in words his version of events.
It's always cool to pull back the curtain and see how these games shows are produced. Makes you appreciate how good a lot of these editors are in piecing things together.
OMG I haven't seen this since I was 11 years old watching it on KNXT 2 in Los Angeles friday night at 7:30 1974. Interesting to note that Stan Winston was one of the make up artists. He went on to become a big name in the Hollywood Horror genre. Blessings to you Wink. Thanks for the wonderful memories.
This was a lot of fun to watch, especially since it's a studio master complete with the bits that would have been edited for broadcast. I had seen the Charles Nelson Reilly portion before, but that was all! The show itself is a strange concept, but Richard Dawson rose above the material--he was such a gracious and witty host and the panelists and guests were a lot of fun. He does a fantastic Groucho... and he had good chemistry with several of the participants. Does anyone know if he was good friends with BIll Bixby? It seems like it from this video and also from watching them on Celebrity Password.
In the '50s version of the show, the would introduce the host (Peter Donald, ABC, and Eddie Bracken NBC) as "Your Genial Host" It's a wonder they did not do the same for Richard Dawson! If the show ever returns, they NEED to use this introduction to give it a real "party" feel!
Oh My God. You mean all those times on MG when Richard would mention Masquerade Party, it was REAL? I always thought it was a joke, like him appearing at Newberry's.
wink, another nice programme that I remember fondly, as I believe that it DID get out of the pilot stage...The producers could NOT go wrong with Richard hosting
This was a neat show...it would have ventured into I've Got a Secret territory. The Let's Make a Deal music (Stan Worth/Sheldon Allman?) and the celebrities were worth it!
William Shatner, perhaps the, as far as I know, only performer to appear on both Masquerade Party and The Masked Singer. (He was a riverboat captain in this and a knight on Masked Singer.)
This game (along with the Concentration game with Jack Narz and Body Language with Tom Kennedy and some other shows) were not shown in the region in which I'm living. As a kid about to turn 12 years old when this show aired, (at 21:11) I dreamed of having that Electrophonic stereo (or something similar)!!
Never knew Richard hosted always thought he was a panelist with Bixby in this. I think I confused this with Steve Allen’s version of I Got A Secret where Dawson was a panelist and think Bixby was too at some point with his wife at the time Brenda Benet
Even though Sheldon Allman was the show's music coordinator, Stan Worth (his partner) composed and conducted the various cues heard during the program.
I'm not sure if this was real or a Nelson Mandela Effect Experience: On TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes (I don't know the year), at the end of the show, Dick Clark would have a mystery celebrity come out and the audience try to guess who it is; I can remember only two of them. One was Don Adams as Sherlock Holmes, another was Adam West and Burt Ward as The Keystone Cops. I thought of this because it sounded like a tribute to Masquerade Party. A favorite game show of mine, Face the Music, with Ron Ely followed sort of the same pattern. At the end of the show, they would show the baby picture of a celebrity and with musical clues, the contestant would try to guess who it is.
Hi, Wink. I am a long time fan of your game show contributions. I enjoyed Tic Tac Dough and many of your other shows. I was very pleasantly surprised that you were able to find this show Masquerade Party. I saw 2 episodes. Do you or anybody else you know know what happened to the other episodes of the show? I think there was 39 total? Thanks.
Gasp! Three (four, sorta) Batman villians! Carolyn Jones "Marsha, Queen of Diamonds", Howard Duff "Cabala", Lee Meriwether "Catwoman" and William Shatner "Two-Face" (voice in an animated movie).
To anyone here who remembers watching this series back when it was on TV: did girls in the audience ever scream and swoon at any of the masqueraders when Jay Stewart secretly revealed their identity or when the masquerader unmasked?
How is it that I missed this show completely? Maybe I was in a market in which it was not syndicated. I mean, I remember the original Masquerade Party, with Ilka Chase, Bobby Sherwood and Peter Donald. It was one of the first game shows I watched when I was a little kid. It was pretty easy to see that Howard Duff was Howard Duff, even with the makeup on. Shatner was wonderfully manic. I didn't recognize CNR at all, nor Carolyn Jones. Meriwether and Shatner are still with us. Hard to believe this is 46 years ago.
Say Wink, do you have any episodes of the 1973-4 revival of "It Pays To Be Ignorant" hosted by Joe "Old Lead Bottom" Flynn from McHale's Navy? Also from Stefan Hatos-Monty Hall.
Watched this when I was ten, but I wouldn't say it was anyone's favorite. It was interesting to see the actors in costumes, but there were also shows that were off-putting to me as a child. The one I recall the most had actor Andy Devine dressed as a huge Queen of England - his voice was so distinctive, they guessed it immediately - which led to nearly an entire segment of filler-talk till the next commercial.
What kind of prizes to the contestants win ? Washer-dryer, Trip to Italy , a new Area Rug ??? Lol !! I don't know, this seems like it would be boring watching a second episode. I guessed Charles Nelson Reilly right away due to his flat lips ,remembering the opening of The Ghost and Mrs Muir tv series. Notice how it was set up so that each celebrity on the panel guessed one correctly ? Fun for me only once.
William Shatner complaining about having to sit in a makeup chair for an hour and a half? If Leonard Nimoy ever saw this he'd had never let him hear the end of it!
@charles allan Only two are known to exist (the pilot and final episode). The two syndicated nighttime version whereabouts are still not known. Perhaps Wink Martindale can find that one out.
What a stupid stupid show. I knew C N Reilly immediately znd supposedly 3 people he had worked closely with didn't recognize him? Give me a break. Bad acting. Bad jokes. As intelligent as Richard Dawson was, I bet this was one of his most embarrassing career moments in his life.
