Matches 'n Mates
television series
Matches 'n Mates is an American game show hosted by Art James that aired in first-run syndication from 1967 to 1968.
Developed by Taft Broadcasting and produced by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir, this was the first of four programs Nicholson and Muir agreed to make with the broadcaster. Unlike most syndicated game shows of the era which were normally filmed in Los Angeles or New York City, Matches 'n Mates was taped at WJW-TV in Cleveland, Ohio, and at WAGA-TV in Atlanta, Georgia, throughout 1967. The show was developed in late 1966 in a weekly format at WDAF-TV, Taft's station in Kansas City, Missouri. 20th Century-Fox Television served as distributor.
Personnel from WJW and WAGA assisted in the show's production. WJW announcer Bob McLean (later the host of a variety show for CBC Television) announced the Cleveland tapings, while WAGA announcer Dave Michaels announced the Atlanta tapings.
Gameplay
Matches 'n Mates was a word game in which two husband and wife teams attempted to match questions to answers in order to reveal letters of a mystery word called the "Hidden Item". One member of each couple, in turn, calls out a letter between "A" and "I" and an incomplete statement was read ("To paint a fence you would use..."). The other member called out one of twelve numbers, each representing a different answer.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Matches 'n Mates” as television series. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as television series. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6786257. The first chronological checks are 1967, 1968 and 1966.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Matches 'n Mates” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.