Glitched Matches

Spent most of the day at work - today was my 8 and 1/2 hour day. Work was as much of a pain in the rear as it has been for almost a week. I keep trying to clean, and I keep getting disrupted. At one point, they even very briefly put me in a register because they simply didn't have enough help. We weren't even really that busy. I was very tired and frustrated when I finally rushed home.

(One good thing about being inside today - I avoided weird weather. Awoke to pouring rain, but it vanished just as I left for work. By the time I finished, the clouds were off and on, and it was much colder. It even spit a little as I headed into Oaklyn.)

Rushed straight home and picked up two DVDs from the mailbox on the way. Rise of Skywalker was cheap on Amazon, and I'd wanted that from the start. To get free shipping, I picked up two more musicals I wanted to review that were cheap, The Gang's All Here with Alice Faye, and Footlight Serenade with Betty Grable. Look for both on my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog later this month!

Finished the night with the next Match Game marathon. The new set that debuted in 1978 proved to be no less capricious than the old set. Bill Daily and Bob Barker had problems with their seats breaking on two separate episodes in 1979. The turntable went the wrong way at least twice, then got stuck all together at the start of a 1980 episode. Gene loved his extra-long microphone that could telescope up and down, but it was fragile at best. They finally replaced it with a shorter microphone in one episode.

In a later syndicated show, the eternally malfunctioning "toaster" that held Gene's questions wouldn't work right, and then gave him a shock! Charles joked about taking over his hosting job while he "recovered." On another syndicated episode in 1981, a light popped behind Gene as he asked a question, disrupting the panelists. Charles dug up a giant prop bulb and joked about selling it. At the end of the episode, all of the panelists were seen trying to screw it in.

Here's the entire marathon, so you can see what happens when a popular syndicated game show deals with some really crazy malfunctions! Tune in tomorrow for the next semi-regular in the spotlight, grumpy Ed Asner.

Technical Difficulties on Match Game Marathon 1978 - 1981