Including the Acme. We were off-and-on steady, fairly quiet for a Sunday. Either they're all waiting for their day off tomorrow, they shopped before the Super Bowl last week, or they went away for the weekend. There were a few people with those darn government cards they rely on to pay for their groceries, without knowing what groceries they can buy on the card. I wish the government would give them a straightforward list of what they can buy. We have no clue, and they end up putting back a quarter of their order because it wasn't on their card and they didn't have any other way to pay...and I end up panicking because they're holding up the line and I have to call a manager and baggers to put away cold items. One group almost made me late leaving; a manager had to finish them so I could get home.
Picked up a few things after work. Got tasty Sunbelt Granola Bars. I haven't seen them in years...and finally found them a few months ago near the Little Debbie snack cakes at the Acme. There's more grapes on sale, too.
Soon as I got home, I went upstairs, changed, and worked on writing. With the superhero story stalled, I decided it's too busy and complicated. I'll completely redo that eventually to be closer to what I originally had in mind. Ended up resuming the Match Game western instead. Richard's still dreaming, this time of being a Zorro-type hero in a wild west town. Mayor Allen Ludden just made him sheriff. Ira Skutch of the Goodson-Todman Railroad tells him to stay off his land, but Richard is seemingly more interested in admiring his suit. Gene and Ira offer to put him up, but Richard decides to get a room in town until his boys come out west.
Broke for dinner at 7. Listened to the 1969 original cast album of 1776 while I ate a sandwich and vegetables. William Daniels is even more of a firebrand here than he is in the film version. His "Is Anybody There?" is especially impassioned. Clifford David also gets an impressive "Molasses to Rum," while "Mama Look Sharp" is almost hauntingly beautiful.
Finished the night online with Match Game Production's extra long Black History Month Match Game marathon, then with a short history of the ultimate romantic game show, The Dating Game. After his success with The Newlywed Game, Chuck Barris came up with this even simpler format. One young woman chooses a date from among three men behind a barrier. She can only hear their voices and doesn't know their names, only that they're Bachelor 1, 2, or 3. After a series of questions, she chooses one of the young gentlemen to go out with. We may hear about their date and how it went on a later episode.
This is pretty much the format the show had through its first twenty or so years on the air. San Francisco disc jockey Jim Lange was the amiable host until the 1986 syndicated revival, when he was first replaced by Elaine Joyce, then Jeff MacGregor. Unlike most shows of its era, most of the original daytime Dating Game and all of its syndicated versions survive, but they're still hard to find online. Here we have a 1968 episode in black and white, despite ABC having switched to full color broadcasting by that point.
Celebrities lent themselves well to this show. In addition to stars-to-be like Terri Copley appearing well before they were famous, celebrities would come on either as bachelors or to choose a date for someone else. Dick Clark appeared on the 1973 syndicated show to choose a date for one of his American Bandstand dancers, and didn't do too badly for her, either.
Like they did with The Newlywed Game, the 1996 version made changes...and also as with The Newlywed Game, those changes were not well-received. By the time of its second season, they'd gone back to the original format, but this time, bachelors could now choose from three bachelorettes. Chuck Woolery, fresh off of Love Connection, took over for the second season. Michael Bolton and Zoey Deschanel hosted a short-lived Celebrity Dating Game from August 2021 to April 2022 back on its original channel ABC.
Come and see which lucky guy these gals will choose in one of the wildest game shows about love on the air! (And almost all of them come with their original commercials.)
And here's tonight's Match Game Black History Month marathon, too!
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