I checked, and the show hasn’t been produced since 1991, with the final rerun airing in 1993.
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I remember the old 60s version with a big mechanical display revealing the prizes and puzzle. Thought the home version was incredibly cool, with the rebus puzzles on a roll inside a thing that effectively simulated the TV show: http://artskooldamage.blogspot.com/2011/09/game-on-concentration-1962.html
I always liked the daytime show when I was a kid (was there a nighttime version?) and had the board game. I had no idea it was still being produced through the 80s.
In this case, that’s the point. The man in question is being depicted as developing dementia.
I know “Classic” Concentration best through the 1980s computer game. It was far more fun to play than the Family Feud and Wheel Of Fortune games of the time and far less time consuming to play than Oregon Trail, and thus was the game of choice to play on our lone classroom computer during my elementary school days in the early 90s.
There was also an old card game “Concentration” (or maybe I should call it a parlor game using playing cards?). I always assumed the TV game show was an elaboration from the card game, but I suppose it could have been the other way around.
I don’t remember the details, but the whole deal with the puzzle was absent from the card game. It was just a matter of laying out the cards face-down, then taking turns turning two up. Remove (and capture as a score) if they match, and tqake another turn — but turn back down and pass the turn along if they do not match. (Matching I think is by rank and color, so each card has a unique partner in the layout. Or it could be by rank alone, to make things a little easier.)
Back to the comic strip. Grandpa is playing a possibly dangerous game of partial bluffing. He makes his symptoms look worse than they really are, then springs a “Just kidding!”. Then when he has a genuine lapse, the family (and now the professionals) may be led to pass it off as just another bluff.
Comics I Don't Understand 
I remember the old 60s version with a big mechanical display revealing the prizes and puzzle. Thought the home version was incredibly cool, with the rebus puzzles on a roll inside a thing that effectively simulated the TV show:
http://artskooldamage.blogspot.com/2011/09/game-on-concentration-1962.html
I always liked the daytime show when I was a kid (was there a nighttime version?) and had the board game. I had no idea it was still being produced through the 80s.
In this case, that’s the point. The man in question is being depicted as developing dementia.
I know “Classic” Concentration best through the 1980s computer game. It was far more fun to play than the Family Feud and Wheel Of Fortune games of the time and far less time consuming to play than Oregon Trail, and thus was the game of choice to play on our lone classroom computer during my elementary school days in the early 90s.
There was also an old card game “Concentration” (or maybe I should call it a parlor game using playing cards?). I always assumed the TV game show was an elaboration from the card game, but I suppose it could have been the other way around.
I don’t remember the details, but the whole deal with the puzzle was absent from the card game. It was just a matter of laying out the cards face-down, then taking turns turning two up. Remove (and capture as a score) if they match, and tqake another turn — but turn back down and pass the turn along if they do not match. (Matching I think is by rank and color, so each card has a unique partner in the layout. Or it could be by rank alone, to make things a little easier.)
Back to the comic strip. Grandpa is playing a possibly dangerous game of partial bluffing. He makes his symptoms look worse than they really are, then springs a “Just kidding!”. Then when he has a genuine lapse, the family (and now the professionals) may be led to pass it off as just another bluff.
@Mitch4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_(card_game)
Wikipedia agrees the card game came first, which is also my impression:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_(game_show)
My own favorite solitaire card game is Calculation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculation_(card_game)
At least he did not telephone the police at 4 am and tell them he heard his neighbors plotting to kill him as someone’s mother did.