Dating Game: Do They Work? Could They Work?

For anyone that knows me (or even thinks they know me from these blog posts), I’m kind of a sucker for a good romance. Whether it’s a romcom or drama, movie or anime, musical or otherwise… I’m always up for a good love story.

I’m also a sucker for game shows. I really blame it on my great grandfather (who I affectionately referred to as “Big Pappy”) who used to watch the Game Show Network nonstop throughout my childhood. Even after he passed, I still end up watching GSN almost all the time to this day. Seriously, as I stated before in my last blog post (hint hint: you should read it), I usually have it on in the background while I’m writing these posts.

Anyway, the relevance between these two. There’s a very interesting combination of romance and the game show known as the “dating game show.” Now, when I say dating game show, some people immediately think of shows like The Bachelor/ette, Rock of Love, or maybe even A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila (if you’re a fan of seeing social media personalities before they ended up being literal Nazis).

I wish this was a joke I wrote.

However, those are not the shows that I am referring to. In my mind, I tend to associate those more with reality shows due to the narratives and week by week process that the show tends to use. It feels more in vain with the narratives of shows like Big Brother or American Idol than the shows that I’m talking about. No, when I’m talking about dating game shows I usually mean 30-60 minute episodes that specifically deal with only one couple at a time. Usually, these game shows are then meant to decide on who the lucky bachelor/ette/divorcee/widow/cheating scumbag/etc. will select from the 3 contestants and then have a date paid for by the show afterwards. Some shows take some change with the form, such as having had the date already taken place and then using the audience to throw some wrenches into the equation, but usually they stay within the same format with some interesting caveats thrown in for entertainment and good measure.

But a question always occurred to me when I was watching these shows and wondering about the people on them. Just how often did they work? Do they even work at all? Most importantly, could they even work? For this post, I’m going to go in and discuss 3 of my favorite dating game shows and see how often they worked (if the data is available to me), could they work, and then finally how do dating game shows even work at all with putting couples together. That’s right, we’re about to take love and romance, a purely emotional thing, and whore it out for entertainment, while dissecting what actually makes it work through a “scientific” stance.

Lovely.

The Dating Game

Is that Jay Leno???

The namesake of this article and the dating game show that started it all. If you weren’t aware, The Dating Game was actually the first of these dating game shows on the air. The original format was to pick a young male or female and then set him/her up with 3 other contestants of the opposite sex (for a side note, most of these game shows have now had same sex options as well with some shows like Boy Meets Boy being based around gay relationships). However, the catch is that the main contestant cannot actually SEE the people on the other side. They must decide which contestant they would like to date purely off of their answers to the questions (which are usually pointed to refer to sex or at least genitalia) and potentially the sound of their voice (if you’re into that sort of thing). Once all the rounds of questioning are over, the contestant and their chosen match will finally get to walk around the wall or curtain and see who they have chosen. They would then usually embrace and then go on a date paid for by the show and then blow a kiss (along with the host) to the audience as the curtain metaphorically falls.

This is pretty much the dating game show in the purest form of the word. Essentially the contest has somewhat of a “blind speed date” with the potential suitors and then decides who they would like to go out with based on their answers. As I started writing this, the concept of these shows essentially being “speed dates” is what caught my attention. If you aren’t already aware, the idea of speed dating is where groups of single people will get together at an event (usually put on by a matchmaking business) and will then have quick introductions and “dates” with people in a 10-15 minute span. After time is up, they’ll rotate to the next person. Just like this show. Kinda.

As was somewhat expected, this show was a ratings hit. The show’s heyday and most popular period was in its original syndication from 1965-1973, but the show ran in some capacity all the way until right before the turn of the millennium on 1999. Whether people loved tuning in to see young attractive couples get together, the comedy from the embarrassing questions, or just because they wanted to live out some dating fantasies by screaming out which suitor the contestant should choose, everyone seemed to have some reason for enjoying The Dating Game.

After doing some research, there really isn’t any hard evidence to specify about just how many of these couples ended up working out. I don’t know whether it’s due to the age or the fact that the show never really kept tabs on the couples beyond making sure that the date actually happened, but there really isn’t much info on the success rate. I have to admit, I’m pretty disappointed because this show had one of the more storied histories out of all of the ones I watched, but I honestly didn’t expect there to be too much in the way of deep research for this.

On a side note, to end this little section on a positive spin, I did find out that a surprising number of celebrities appeared on The Dating Game. Usually they were appearing as contestants or potential suitors before they were famous, but sometimes they appeared as contestants while famous looking for a date of their own or trying to hook up someone else with a nice man/woman. On a sad note, there’s also the case of Rodney Alcala, who was a convicted murder, who appeared on the game show and actually won! However, the bachelorette who chose him found him creepy and offputting with his weird answers and (thankfully) decided to not go on the date with him.¹

What I would have given to see Casey Kasem do his spot using Shaggy’s voice.

Love Connection

Another favorite of mine is the originator of Chuck Woolery’s famous “two and two” line that he’d say at the middle break of the show.

Refers to two minutes and two seconds, which is the time for a commercial break (including fade-out and fade-in to the show).

Love Connection was a variation from the standard dating game show fare. Instead of this being based more around the contestant and the suitors completely, this show was more about the audience interactions. This show had the contestant brought on and then the three suitors introduced through video recordings. These look almost like the ones that people would send into matchmaking companies on those VHS tapes way back in the day (yes I used VHS tapes). The audience would then vote on which suitor they thought the contestant should date based on those excerpts. The contestant would then reveal that they had already gone on a date with one of the three chosen people and then the rest of the segment would be focused on talking about how the date went and if both people considered it successful or not. If both thought it was successful, they were invited to take a second date at the show’s expense and then have a follow up interview at another point.

This show revived Chuck Woolery’s career. I’m not kidding.

But then there’s a catch.

Remember that part I mentioned about the audience polling? It wasn’t some useless thing they did just to see what the audience was feeling. If the couple agreed that the date was successful and the audience also voted that they believed that the chosen date was the one they would have picked, then the host would usually congratulate them on making a “love connection” and the segment would end. However, if the audience chose someone OTHER than the suitor the contestant chose, then there would be a choice. Regardless of if the date was considered successful or not, the contestant then had a choice. They could either give the original person a second chance and go on the show provided date… OR they could go on that same provided date with the audience selected suitor. It created a bit of suspension and drama to the show that wasn’t there originally since technically the original date had already happened. Shows like The Dating Game were more focused on just getting that first date at all.

As a side note, this show was revived in 2017 with Andy Cohen as the host. They kind of changed the format by having the contestant actually go on a date with all 3 suitors, and then rank them by certain factors they decided were important. The audience would then vote. In season 1, the contestant was given a chance to switch if the audience vote and their choice didn’t match up. In season 2, the decision to switch was no longer included but there was a $10,000 prize if the contestant’s and audience’s choices matched up.

Thankfully, there was actually an interview that Chuck Woolery did with Entertainment Weekly back in 1993 that gave some insight into just how successful this show was. When asked “what are the show’s love stats?” Woolery answered “There have been 29 marriages, 8 engagements, and 15 children. When you think that it’s someone in our office putting people together through questionnaires and tapes, it’s incredible that one couple got married, much less 29.”²

To be honest, that is kind of incredible that many couples ended up getting married when it was just from a show made to have some entertainment value at the expense of people trying to find love in (somewhat) desperate ways. In an even deeper bit of research, there was an ad in the Daily Variety that stated there were “35,478 taped interviews, 2,120 episodes, 31 marriages, and 20 babies.” Unfortunately, I cannot find an online article of this ad or a scan of this specific issue, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Doing some quick and most likely inaccurate math, let’s try to see the success rate based on that information. There was usually 2 contestants per episode of Love Connection. In the original run there 2,120 episodes, which means we can assume there were 4,240 contestants overall. Obviously this number isn’t exact because there were some episodes that were based around reviewing previous couples, but let’s go with 4,000 just to be safe. If there were 31 marriages from these 4,000 couples that were made from the show, that means the show had a success rate of 0.775% over its lifetime. That’s either very impressive or a huge failure depending on how thorough you think the crew of the show went into deciding if these were true matches or just good ones for television.

Baggage

Alright, this one is definitely my favorite on the list. It’s got everything that makes these types of game shows great. Back to the speed dating style? Check. Embarrassing questions? Check. Good host? Check (it’s Jerry Springer!).

Embarrassing secrets spread out for the whole world to see?

That’s a big fat check right there.

Baggage is a show that only someone like Jerry Springer could host. The show involves a contestant and 3 suitors (starting to see a pattern here?). However, instead of doing the usual question and answer routine that has become commonplace, here we learn about each suitor’s “baggage” before they even go on a date with the contestant! All those annoying little things that would jump up and potentially kill a relationship are suddenly out in the open immediately. The game goes through 3 rounds, with the first round involving small baggage. These are usually little idiosyncrasies that everyone has or weird habits that people would find offputting. Usually these serve to just break the ice since they aren’t really deal breakers.

Haven’t we all?

Then the next round is the medium baggage mystery round. Here all 3 medium bags are opened, but the contestant doesn’t know which bag belongs to which person. The medium bags are full of things that are actual issues that might cause conflict in a relationship. Once again, it’s nothing that is impossible to work through or a complete showing of a psychopath, but it is something serious that would need to be worked through. From here, they have to decide which bag is the “deal breaker” and then it is revealed with suitor owns the bag. They then have to “pack their bags” and leave. This is then followed up by a small question and answer segment with the two remaining contestants, where they’ll talk a bit of trash on why they should be chosen instead of the other person (usually based on the baggage revealed).

Haven’t we all though?

Finally, there is the large baggage round. These bags are SERIOUS issues. They can range from anything to the person is actually jobless and/or homeless, to the fact that they have done something seriously messed up to a previous ex of theirs. This is where you finally start to wonder if the person is really safe to even be outside of their house for this long. Sometimes. These are the major deal breakers that could honestly end relationships before they get the chance to start. The contestant then chooses which baggage they cannot accept and they are then united with the suitor of their choosing.

Uhhh…. Haven’t we all???

HOWEVER, there is another catch. The contestant has had a big red bag during this entire show. During this final segment, the contestant then reveals what’s in their bag (usually it’s equal to a medium to large bag, something that could be a deal breaker). The suitor then gets to choose if they can actually accept the baggage of the contestant, and if they can then the couple gets a nice first date complements of the show.

Her face reads “Come onnnnnn. Ah, come onnnnnn.”

Unfortunately, there isn’t really any deeper details on how successful this show is from major reputable sources. However, there was a small post on r/AMA on Reddit that was a request for information on the show, and there was a response from someone who claimed they worked for 3 years on the show. They claimed that after about 300 episodes of the show, only about 5 of the couples actually went out, which is astonishing considering that the show itself was actually meant to create more dates since everything was out in the open. However, I guess that would also make sense as to why almost none happened. From what this person also claimed, most of the people on the show tried to go out with crew members instead for some reason? They also claimed that men tended to have more crazy daily baggage, but women had more crazy sexual baggage. As I said before, I have nothing reputable and no proof, but this is interesting information if it is in fact true.³

“Could These Dating Game Shows Work?”

This is the final section I’m going to work on, and I hope to answer just how these game shows could in fact work and some of the theories behind them. For some aspects of the research, I’m going to use information from speed dating, since essentially these game shows are just speed dates but on television and with some different caveats. I’ll try to keep this brief and not too boring since I know analyzing how love works isn’t exactly the most fascinating thing to most people.

According to a study I found in Psychology Today, I learned that from a study done from speed dating events in Europe some interesting numbers related to how successful the events were. According to this research, the chances of a speed dating couple having intercourse (sex, for all the people that want to hear the dirty words) was about 6%, while the chance of having an actual relationship was around 4%. These numbers fluctuated based on if both the man and woman were looking for a short vs. long-term relationship and other factors such as how “choosy” the man or woman was (for those interested, older woman = less choosy; older man = more choosy). To put it in perspective, the researchers said you’d have better luck if you spent a few hours in a cafe or even at a bar. The money and time involved is also a factor since attending the events, which can take a few hours, also cost money. According to this article, finding a partner through speed dating could take up to 75 hours and almost $1,000.⁴

Honest to god, this looks like my nightmare.

So in the end, could these dating shows work? Yes they could. Will they work consistently? Almost assuredly not. There’s a lot of factors that go into it that make these shows a flawed premise from the start. First of all, like a true speed date, all of the people chosen are from a third party. Sure, the production company for the show might put into account an actual true match potential when they decide the suitors for each particular contestant, but a lot of it is due to entertainment factors for the viewing audience. There were times that Woolery mentioned they had to throw out entire potential contestants because they were really flat and just didn’t suit television. There’s also the chance that the contestant might not really be into any of the suitors and the date never happens. Speed dates aren’t perfect things that work every time. Hell, even first dates tend to not work that often.

Dating game shows are a lot of fun and can provide some good entertainment. It’s a way for some random people to try and find love and maybe a little bit of fame and fun on the way with the show. But it is by no means a science, and it can be argued that matchmaking isn’t really the point of the show either. People are expected to link up from a 30-60 minute show. The thing that dating reality shows like The Bachelor/ette have on these shows is the fact that the contestants and suitors actually spend time together and get to know one another. By the time the final rose is given, the couple has grown together as people and have actually spent weeks with each other. It comes down to the idea of propinquity, which is the idea that people will form friendships or romantic relationships with people that they are closer to in physical and/or psychological proximity. It’s the reason why people from the same schools, work places, or similar hobbies always tend to get together. They spend a lot more time together and thus not only become more used to the other person, but just get to know them better.

AV/TV Club said it best when they said that dating games didn’t really change, we just got meaner. People like to see more drama and more of the dirty details, which explains why shows like Baggage even exist.⁵ But I hope you enjoyed reading my love message to dating game shows. I’ll take any excuse to talk about game shows, and it was interesting to research speed dating and some of the dating game shows that always stuck out to me. Look forward to my next post, where I’ll either do my first post on games or an anime series analysis!

You’ve probably noticed little superscripts throughout the post. Those are for the Sources below. I know it’s not necessary for blogs, but the academic side of me feels it is needed. Plus, it can be nice to read if you want to look further into some points I touched upon.

As always, if you have any comments, questions or concerns, feel free to use the Contact link and I’ll get back to you about it. Or you can leave a comment! I appreciate all the readers who have stuck with this list and I hope that my content is good enough for you to maybe drop a subscription. Either way, this was very good for me to get my thoughts out and I hope you enjoyed the ride nearly as much as I enjoyed putting you on it. From one fan to another (or a prospective new fan). This is for you.

~Jer

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