Flip Your Wig

Started off the morning with breakfast and PAW Patrol. "The Pups Save a Melon Festival" when the giant beach ball Mayor Humdinger painted gets out of control and starts bouncing into everything. The pups have to stop the ball, then prove it's not a giant melon like Humdinger keeps protesting. Farmer Al and Yumi are taking their prize cow home when their truck gets stuck on a bridge that broke while opening. "The Pups Rescue the Cow" when Skye has to keep her from falling out, while Chase, Marshall, and Rocky get the truck down.

Switched to Match Game Syndicated while I got organized. Today was Buzzr's "Big Wig Day" marathon, with episodes of shows featuring wigs or toupees all afternoon. This much later episode from 1981 featured McLean Stevenson wearing a blonde wig in imitation of the sweet older contestant and Leslie Easterbrook from the Police Academy series, who sat next to him that week. 

Tattletales was one of the earliest episodes from 1974, when they still had the celebrity couples try to figure out which spouse related a long story to a certain subject. They started doing the "Quickies" questions that involved all the couples permanently a little later that year. Bert was a little mean here. He wanted a cameraman named Curly to show how he got that nickname...then grabbed off his toupee and mustache when he refused to! (And he wore the mustache - or tried to - for the first question.)

Made the bed during Body Language. Comedienne Phyllis Diller was known for her wigs, and fitness guru Richard Simmons was known for his big curly hair. They lent their own brand of lunacy to this charades show that has celebrities acting out words that the contestants guess. If they get enough words, they'll be able to guess a puzzle. Though Phyllis is great at physical comedy (and actually looked pretty good in her cherry-red wig), Simmons wasn't a well-known exercise teacher for nothing. He easily led his lady to the bonus round. Tom Kennedy kept things from getting too wild. 

The What's My Line shows from 1968 and 1971 dealt with several folks who had crazy hair in one way or another. The first episode featured a wig salesman who showed off his product on Gene Rayburn and Alan Alda. (Gene actually looked pretty good in his Beatles-esque longish brunette wig. Alan just looked silly as a blond.) In the second, Gene, Arlene Francis, and Anita Gillette were joined by a panelist who has some pretty wild hair himself - critic Gene Shallit of the bushy eyebrows and mustache. We also had a young woman who was a men's barber, and another who owned a gas station. Wally Bruner made a rare appearance on Buzzr here. (They tend to run the later episodes with Larry Blyden more often.)

I moved into the bedroom to do some work after that. Richard Dawson also tried on a wig in a syndicated episode of Family Feud. His bright red curly wig made him look more like a clown, but it didn't stop him from helping a family get to the Fast Money.

By far the funniest episode of the afternoon came from Super Password in 1988. Bert Convy returned, this time joined by Patty Duke and Rip Taylor for an episode that went off the rails in spectacular fashion. About mid-way through the show, Rip had no idea how to describe "testimony" to his contestant. He went for "Episcopalian," which, as you can imagine, didn't work. Patty outright blurted out the word...and not only was she terribly embarrassed, Rip got so annoyed, he tore off his toupee and threw it across the desks! Bert grabbed it and held it to his chest, saying he always wanted chest hair. 

(Oh, and they ran commercials for their next marathon during the later shows. For Valentine's week, they'll be running marathons of the late 90's Newlywed Game in prime time. I'm not the biggest fan of that show. I think I'll pass on that one.)

Focused more on job hunting and writing after that. Marcia, secretary to Match Up Network manager Allen Ludden, finally lets Richard in. Allen's a lot kinder than his secretary or his boss. He's impressed with Richard's work, despite the stories he's heard about his temper and tendency to show up late. He wants someone to work with long-time host Gene Rayburn on their morning show.

I also went on the Acme's website to get next week's schedule. I have slightly more hours than this week...which is to say, not enough. Thursday is the only weekday I work this time. I'll hit the library and talk to PNC this week, plus my rooms desperately need to be swept and dusted. 

Broke for dinner at 7. Returned to Buzzr for more Match Game Syndicated, this time from 1979. When Patty Duke complains about banging her knee on the desk in the first episode, Gene gets the physical therapist contestant to help fix it. Patty stuck around for the second episode, joined by Donna Pescow, Bill Daily, and Joe Santos. Patty's delighted to get a kiss when she helps the contestant with "Smash ___" in the Head-to-Head, while Joe argues for his weird answer to whom the world's oldest reporter interviewed. 

Finished the night online after a shower with Murder She Wrote. It's "Murder With a Jazz Beat" when Jessica is in New Orleans to promote her book and she witnesses a popular jazz clarinetist drop dead onstage during a show. While the host of the show squabbles with his manager for showing the death footage on his network, Jessica tries to figure out if the man was done in by a certain rare poison, and how the poison got into him.