Since I'm reading the second book about the American Girl 60's character Melody Ellison, I dug around in my record collection for real Motown. Melody's brother Dwayne forms a group and cuts a record for them. Found a two-disc greatest hits set I forgot I had, 25 U.S #1 Hits From 25 Years. It's a good collection of some of the most popular songs from the country, ranging from the Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman" to the massive hit duet "Endless Love" by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross. Each of their big acts have at least two songs (and the Jackson 5 have three). Favorites include "You Can't Hurry Love" by the Supremes, "You are the Sunshine" and "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder, "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" by the Temptations, "What's Goin' On" by Marvin Raye, "Don't Leave Me This Way" by Thelma Houston, and "Still" by the Commodores.
Worked on a little bit of writing after cleaning up from breakfast. Goodson's men have Robert and Gary, and no one knows were Betty and Allen are. Goodson thinks he has the upper hand as he tries to use the younger men to force Gene to surrender, but there's still one last ace left...
Got off at quarter after 10 to get ready for work. No trouble getting to or from the Acme today. The Uber rides took under 6 minutes to arrive, probably due to the nice weather. The lady who drove me there took the long way across Audubon, for some reason, but she was pleasant and chatty. The guy who drove me home went way too fast, especially in family-oriented Oaklyn, but he did get me and my bags home in one piece.
That nice weather may also have been why we weren't that busy today, especially for a Sunday. It was steady around noon, and again around 3. Other than that, we were pretty quiet. If people didn't do their big shopping before the last few storms, they're waiting for the beginning of the month, or just decided to get out and enjoy the sunshine. Not to mention, we're between holidays, and the storm we're supposed to get tomorrow is only supposed to bring rain and a tiny bit of snow.
Since I got off at a relatively early 5 PM today, I did my own shopping this evening. Made use of online coupons to get Edy's ice cream, butter, laundry detergent, and free eggs and almond milk yogurt. Found more of those fruit leather snacks and the yummy After Eight Mints on the clearance shelves and breaded fillets of fish with manager's coupons in the seafood section. Restocked milk, powdered sugar, baking powder, vanilla extract, honey, frozen berries for smoothies, bananas, oranges, and broccoli.
Had a delicious dinner of crusted fish fillet, roasted broccoli, and sweet potato fries with honey while finishing the Motown greatest hits LPs. Switch to the Donna Summer album Once Upon a Time while cleaning up from dinner. Donna Summer was one of my favorite singers when I was very little, but I never heard of this disco take on Cinderella until I found the two-disc set at a thrift shop ages ago. By far my favorite number from this one is the adorable uptempo dance song "Fairy Tale High."
Finished the night on YouTube. While many game shows have had board games based after them, there's been a handful based after or inspired by board games. Video Village had a two-year run in the early 60's, switching coasts and hosts mid-way through the series. No wonder it spun off a kid version. The adult show is adorable, with its short but winding board and the bridge contestants hope to cross on the way to winning prizes. A young Monty Hall was the "mayor" by the time of the second-to-last episode. (By the way, Hall proved to have a fine singing voice when he joined a contestant in performing "People Will Say We're In Love" from Oklahoma!)
The late 70's-early 80's Canadian game show The Mad Dash is similar. Here, though, we have two teams playing. One contestant answers trivia questions and throws dice. The other moves around a less-elaborate board. It was so much fun to watch the contestants hurry across the board and go back when they landed on a bad square, I really wish more of this existed. Most of it was apparently a victim of tape reuse.
Scrabble was a game show twice, in the late 1980's and in 1993. I opted for an episode of the 1980's show from one of their weeks with game show hosts as players. Bill Rafferty got so noisy after he lost to Tom Kennedy, Peter Tomarken, Jamie Farr, and John Davidson had to drag him out. Kennedy proved to be a far more gracious winner...as did host Chuck Woolery when Marc Summers took over hosting so he could play, too.
Monopoly had a short run of 13 episodes during the summer of 1990...and I watched almost every one. It was either that, or re-runs. There just wasn't much on in the middle of July. Three people answer trivia questions in order to earn money and buy a property. If they get two or three of the same kind of "properties," they get a monopoly and can build hotels. Most game show fans seem to think this was way too complicated for its own good, but I remember really enjoying it as a kid.
Pictionary was also a game show twice. I can't seem to find much of the original 1987 run, so I went with the first episode of the 1997 show. Alan Thicke hosts; Caroline Rhea, Kelly Packard, Michael Gelman, and Brian Austin Green are the celebrities helping their contestants to guess what they're trying to draw.
Scattergories had a very short-lived run in early-mid 1993. Two teams of five women and men guess which words can fill a certain category. Five "judges" have to decide if those words are acceptable. Five celebrities who were videotaped earlier are shown to describe the words on a list. If they describe words not on the list, the team gets a point. If they do get the words on the list, the team loses a point. Yeah, this is the one that's way too complicated, with too many people onstage and just too much going on. Dick Clark tries to make sense of it all.
Boggle returns us to Wink Martindale and The Family Channel's "interactive games" of 1994. Here, people can call in and guess the clue leads to a word made from the letters on an (older) phone's key pad. It begins with four players and gradually cuts it down to a winner. The "interactive" component is much stronger here than it was with Trivial Pursuit the year before, with game play stopped several times so people can call in at home and answer their own clues.
Ended with the The Game of Life from The Hub (now Discovery Family). Here, a parent and two kids "drive" through a colorful cartoon landscape, occasionally stopping to answer trivia questions and earn points. If they get the question, they drive through the tunnel. If they don't, they're stopped briefly and could run out of gas before they can earn enough points. After the Life runs, they all play a Double Dare-esque stunt before the winning group gets to spin the wheel and win a trip to Space Camp. While the animation on the "drives" is pretty dated and the show frankly doesn't have that much to do with the board game, this is still pretty cute and a lot of fun to watch.
Keep yourself from getting "board" during bad weather with these board game-based game shows! (And look for the original commercials on Scrabble and Monopoly!)
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