Woke up at 7. Closed my eyes for what I thought would be five minutes. When I opened them, it was 8:30! I had to be at work by 9! I rapidly dressed, hurried downstairs, shoveled shredded wheat in my face, and dashed out the door. Just barely got in on time.
After all that, work could have been worse. I did end up in a register twice, once briefly to cut down on the line, once to go in for someone's break, but I mainly did carts. We had more help bagging for once, and it just wasn't that busy. I even had time to round up the outside trash and recycling. It was a nice day to gather carts, too. While still windy and a bit chilly, it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been the past few days. In fact, by the time I finished, it had turned into a beautiful, sunny spring day.
Went straight home after work. Changed and put on Match Game '77 while I had a snack. The first one had Richard drooling over a pretty contestant while giving "Age of Consent" as his answer for "Age __" in the Audience Match. He and Gene do another bet as to whether or not it would be on the board...and for once, Gene won.
For some reason, Buzzr skipped the next episode and went straight into the one after that. We kick off with a joke about the name of a disease that makes you bounce up and down. There were many answers...but the contestant and Brett got the best by far, to Brett's delight! Brett came up aces again when the Audience Match was right up her alley, "__ Gin."
Had leftover chicken soup while watching Match Game PM. The show opened with a couple of gags about Charles having friends in the audience and his cowboy hat and some audience members being very disappointed that a handsome Navy man was taken. Charles had even more luck in the Audience Match with "Vacuum __."
Finished the night online after a shower and retrieving my laundry. Found The Snoop Sisters on YouTube. This short-lived NBC Mystery Movie series had two elderly mystery-writing sisters, Gwendolyn (Mildred Natwick) and Ernesta Snoop (Helen Hayes), who solve crimes with the help of their cop nephew Steve (Bert Convy).
In honor of March Madness, I went with "Fear Is a Free Throw." Gwendolyn is the prime suspect when a basketball star is poisoned by the antacid tablet she gave him. Ernesta is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, but the suspects are myriad. His secretary liked him, but wished he would settle down. His teammates just wanted the kind of money he made, and the team's owner knows he's the star and wouldn't hurt him. Ernesta finally realizes what's going on after realizing one of his teammates is a former magician, and that's before the basketball star takes off from the hospital.
Oh boy, this one was fun. Really enjoyed the interplay between the sisters, Convy, and their jack-of-all-trades Barney (Lou Antonio) who drove their antique roadster. It's too bad this one only lasted four movies, plus the pilot. I would loved to have seen more of the ladies' adventures.
Switched to The Ghost and Mrs. Muir after the Password Plus premiere on Match Game Productions. "Captain Gregg's Whiz-Bang" is a nautical romance Carolyn wrote from Gregg's notes. She tried to dial down the hotter aspects, but he puts them back in. That does sell the story, but it also makes every man in town - including Claymore! - think that Carolyn is an easy catch.
All the Captain wants is to share "Madeira, My Dear?" with Carolyn, but her chores make that impossible. She's raising two children alone, and Gull Cottage is not in the best shape. While Gregg laments the fast pace of modern life and Carolyn wonders why women have to rush and have no time for being dainty, Martha wonders how she can keep the plumbing working and the roof from leaking.
Went to the Roku Channel for more magical antics from the 60's with I Dream of Jeannie. Major Bellows is thrilled when Jeannie gives Tony an operatic voice that makes him "My Master, the Great Caruso." Tony thinks it's cute as a one-time-only trick and makes her promise not to do it again. Trouble is, Bellows put him in the Armed Forces Talent Show, which will be shown live on TV. While Jeannie agonizes over whether to break her word and give Tony the operatic singing voice back, Roger has something important to tell Jeannie...
Ended the night back at YouTube. Sid and Marty Kroft's kid show productions in the 70's were strange at best, completely and utterly over-the-top bizarre at the worst. Lidsville is absolutely the latter. A boy named Mark (Butch Patrick) falls into a huge magician's hat and lands in a looney world where hats move and talk. The evil head of this world is the green-faced Great HooDoo (Charles Nelson Reilly) who commanded the army of Bad Hats. Mark steals the ring that has control of Weenie the Genie (Billie Hayes) and fled to Lidsville, where the Good Hats promised to help him find a way home.
Dang, this was weird. There must have been some powerful stuff going around Kroft Productions in the mid-70's to produce this free-form nuttiness. Reilly often complained about the complicated makeup he had to wear later in life, but he did look like he had fun when he got in at as the vain and arrogant ruler. Patrick did all right as the kid caught up in the lunacy, but Hays was just annoying as the child-voiced genie. If you have fond memories of this show from your childhood, great. Otherwise, don't come here unless you're in the mood for wondering if you really hallucinated talking hats or not.
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