Rhyme and Reason

William T. Naud liked that Game Show called Match Game,
So he decided to make something that was almost the same.
Instead of matching words in statements this time,
He gave the players poetry and made them rhyme the last line
And hoping the three celebrities they chose would end the poem with the same word
First to three points won a $250 award.
But the best of three was the thing to catch,
Since $5,000 could be won by the winner of the match,
If they could make three rhymes the same
With a chosen person of fame.

Unfortunately, this show's ratings ended up being dreck,
So on the last show the panel made the set such a wreck!
But what would give away from this show so crude,
Was the premiere of the Family Feud!

---

Game Show Tropes in use:

• Bonus Round: One more set of poetry, come up with three rhymes for the ending. Earn $1,000 for each match with a single celebrity, win $5,000 if all three were matched.
• Game Show Winnings Cap: Five wins.
• Personnel:
  • The Announcer: Johnny Jacobs.
  • Game Show Host: Bob Eubanks.
  • Studio Audience
  • Regular Panelists: Included Nipsey Russell (who was known to do ad-libbed poetry during his game show appearances to begin with), Charlie Brill, and Mitzi McCall.

Tropes used in Rhyme and Reason include:

• Die Hard on an X: It's essentially Match Game WITH POETRY! To be fair, Match sometimes did questions involving rhyming couplets.
• Grand Finale / Trash the Set: Oh, did they ever. According to The Encyclopedia Of TV Game Shows (co-authored by David Schwartz, Steve Ryan, and Fred Wostbrock), Rhyme's finale was rather unique as panelists Charlie Brill, Mitzi McCall, Jaye P. Morgan, and Pat Harrington made it clear that the show was canned...by destroying the set. Throughout the taping they tore up the carpet, smashed lights and signs, and as Eubanks did his signoff at the end they managed to knock down his podium!
  • ...But regardless of how Schwartz, Ryan, and Wostbrock got to the above, it's wrong. Morgan was not present during the final week (neither was Russell, who was out sick), and based on the extant audio the carnage didn't start until Eubanks signed off.
• Pilot: The one that circulates has a clip at the beginning from either a run-through or previous pilot — the clip uses a different panel (Mitzi McCall, Nipsey Russell, Jaye P. Morgan, Jack Cassidy, Adrienne Barbeau, and Charlie Brill), different contestants (wearing nametags), and score displays that lack their "1-2-WIN" markers.
• Precision F-Strike: "When Nipsey tells a poem, it's usually a ZINGER..."

Jaye P. Morgan: We didn't give him a hand, but we gave him the finger.

• Recycled Soundtrack: The pilot's reveal cue for the rhyme is straight from The Jokers Wild, among other things.
• Second Season Downfall: Just barely — it ended two days after its first birthday. Rhyme inherited a timeslot (2:30 PM Eastern) which hadn't done too well for game/audience participation shows (The Big Showdown, The Dating Game) and even a non-game (The Girl In My Life). Soap operas dominated the airwaves in that slot, so Rhyme was moved to 1:30, displacing Let's Make a Deal...which didn't help.
• Urban Legend: For many years, fans thought William T. Naud (who also worked on Blank Check) was either Dan Enright (the rhyme reveal cue on the pilot was from Jack Barry's Joker, and Check was a Barry show) or Chuck Barris (some of Rhyme's staff also worked for him). In reality, Naud was a real man who wrote, produced, and directed a few low-budget films (including 1972's Wild In The Sky, co-written by Peter Marshall and co-produced by Ralph Andrews).