The Americans returns tonight! The Americans returns tonight! With another potentially big winter storm in the forecast, this is just the news I needed to get out of bed in the morning.

The AV Club says season two starts off quite well. Here’s a good look at where the series is as the new year kicks off with some interesting details about how the show is created.

The Americans aims to break the second-season curse

While you’re at the AV Club, here’s another one to add to your reading queue.

Reviewing episodes for 40-year-old game shows may not sound like a lot of fun. But I found this look back at Match Game fascinating. I loved that show back in the day.1 In college, I think I spent a lot of mornings when I was skipping class watching the updated version, hosted by Bert Convy, that often featured Brad Garrett and Marsha Wallace.

Anyway, if you remember the 1970s version, this article is funny and enlightening. There was a lot of wink-wink, nudge-nudge gay humor for example.

Somers sat in the upper tier next to, and mock-sparred with, Charles Nelson Reilly, who also joined in 1973 and continued through a 1990-91 revival. Not concerned with being recognized as gay, Reilly was a role model for a lot of youngsters who didn’t yet realize they needed one. In contrast to the misanthropic Paul Lynde on Hollywood Squares, Reilly was a “good gay” who winked at the audience and looked genuinely sorry when he didn’t match contestants. When the question is about a “really weird” woman who “keeps her husband in a blank,” Reilly responds with “closet.”

That’s brilliant! And I bet not everyone got it back then.

10 Match Game episodes that hit viewers right in the blank

  1. Top 5 favorite game shows, pre-puberty edition. Match Game, Tic-Tac-Dough, The Gong Show, Press Your Luck, and The Price Is Right. I say pre-puberty because I think most boys only cared about Barker’s Beauties once the hormones kicked in. ↩