Monday, February 15, 2021

Winter's Rain

Desperately needed to sleep in this morning after my long night yesterday. Celebrated my President's Day off with Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood when I did roll out of bed and have breakfast. Teacher Harriet has Daniel and his friends make their own dragon for "The Dragon Dance." They have to work as a team to make it really come together. It's "Teacher Harriet's Birthday," and the kids and Mrs. Tiger want to hold a classroom party. Mrs. Tiger shows them how to work together to create a crepe paper rainbow and a "cake" made of different colors of clay.

Switched to Muppet Babies while doing the dishes. Kermit's blue frog friend Carlos is scared to go into space to see Henson's Comet up close. The kids put him through "Muppet Space Camp" to show him that space isn't so scary. Piggy's looking forward to "The Best Best Friend Beach Day" with Summer and taking new photos for their Best Friend Book. She's upset when nothing she suggested goes as planned. Summer and the boys remind Piggy that a spontaneous outing can provide just as many memories.

Moved to Match Game '79 as I took down the Valentine's Day decorations. For some reason, Buzzr skipped waaaaayyy ahead to the end of the CBS run to show off the episodes where Carolyn Reisner became the all-time Match Game '70s champ. Brianne Leary of CHIPs, Orson Bean, and Dick Martin joined Gene, Brett, Fannie, and Bill Daily as first Brett, then Bill answered tense Head-to-Heads. Bill was so excited after his, he almost stripped in front of everyone! 

Worked on writing for a couple of hours before breaking for lunch. Made a Banana-Carrot Smoothie while watching the newest episode of Mickey Mouse: Mixed Up Adventures. "Dale's New Pal" is Gordy the Groundhog. Chip thinks he's replacing him and tries to show off at the boat show. When both their boats sink, the trio have to figure out how to team up and create one big one. Cuckoo Loca wants to visit her cousins at the beach and help Minnie and Daisy with a wedding. She uses "The Cuckoo Turnstyler" to be in two places at once. 

Caught the tail end of Super Password after the cartoon ended. Started making Double Chocolate Chip Mint Cookies as I ogled Robert Walden, who joined Lauri Hendler to guess Password puzzles. All of the couples - Milton Berle and his witty wife Ruth, Glenn Ford and his then-girlfriend Cynthia Heyward, and perfectly nutty pair Donald Ross and Patti Deustch - did well on Tattletales. They each got at least one question right and all ended up winning in the end. 

Slid the cookies in the oven as Press Your Luck came on. Honestly, no one did very well. The contestants couldn't get answers right and didn't pick up many spins, and then they kept hitting low numbers. That changed in the second round. One of the guys picked up 11,000 in cash and one Whammy, more than enough to win.

Returned to writing after the show ended. Gene and Bill Daily go down to the main deck to release Charles, who is tied to the mast. The Nartz's are just about done dealing with Goodson, but Goodson has reinforcements. Good thing Gene does, too...

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Had leftovers while watching Match Game '74. Goofy Kaye Stevens of the noisy laugh happily flirted with a handsome male contestant during the first half of the show. She was absolutely over the moon when he asked her to be his partner for the Head-to-Head. 

Match Game PM also jumped far back, in this case to 1977. This was the panel from the week of the "lower tier plays upper tier" episode, so it was already guaranteed to be funny. JoAnn Pflug got a rare chance to help a contestant win 10,000 with "Boo __."

The contestants were a lot closer on Sale of the Century than they have been in days, if not weeks. No one was far ahead for too long. The champ bought one Instant Bargain; a lady bought the try at the Instant Cash. Once again, the champ pulled ahead on the Speed Round. Didn't have nearly as much luck this time at the Bonus Round cash, though.

Finished out the night on Tubi with The Bold Caballero. This 1936 Republic western was the first Zorro movie filmed in color and sound...but we didn't really see much of Zorro. Don Diego Vega (Robert Livingston) courts the Governor's daughter Isabella (Heather Angel). His attempts to woo her and continue his activities as Zorro go off the rails when her father is killed by a man who marks him with a "z." Isabella, now the governor of California, demands vengeance from her boastful Commendate (Sig Rumann). She gets more than she bargains for when she discovers Don Diego's real identity...and who really killed her father.

Angel's the stand-out here as the feisty and determined young woman who is strong enough to rule all of California and do better tracking down Zorro than most of the men in Zorro films. Livingston, on the other hand, makes a better impression as foppish Don Diego than his few moments playing Zorro near the end. Rumann does better as the blustery captain whose bragging hides a coward's heart. Not the best Zorro movie in the world, but worth checking out of you love the character or western swashbucklers.

It was cloudy the entire day. The rain didn't arrive until late tonight...and when it did arrive, it was rain. Not ice, snow, wind, or anything else. It's still going at press time. 

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