Hosted by Jim Lange from 1965-1973 on ABC, “The Dating Game” was the grandfather to the 1980s syndicated game show, “Love Connection”. The premise was that a single guy or gal would ask questions to three members of the opposite sex from behind a partition and, based on those answers, pick the one that they felt gave them the best responses to their questions. In 1972, a 14-year-old Michael Jackson made his appearance on the show. After asking the allotted questions, Michael chose contestant Number One, Latonya Simmons, to go on a date with him, which was a trip to New York to see the Jackson Five in concert.
