I don't know who at Warners decided to turn one of Seuss' simplest books into an animated miniseries version of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, but I hope they got a huge bonus. This was an unabashed delight, with terrific performances from Michael Douglas as Guy and Adam DeVine as Sam, colorful animation, and a script that is well-balanced between hilarious and heartbreaking. Even the theme song "Backflip" is both catchy as heck and nicely echoes the "look beyond appearances" theme. If you want to see some creative Seuss or a show you can share with your younger elementary school-age kids, this is highly recommended.
Switched to The Cat In the Hat Knows a Lot About That while I got organized for work to check out another really good Seuss TV show. Sally and Nick are getting a lot less rain in their yards than we've had lately. The Cat takes them to the rain forest to teach them about "The Rain Game." They encounter ants, toucans, and howler monkeys and learn how the huge trees shade the creatures on the ground from rain and provide an important ecosystem. Nick's having a hard time giving up his too-small lucky sweater. The Cat takes him and Sally to the desert to meet Clyde the Coral Snake, who teaches them that "No Sssweater Is Better" than shedding a too-small skin.
Headed off to work soon as the episode ended. Took the bike again. It's still windy, but this time, it was sunny with no clouds and a little bit warmer.
Spent most of my day in the floral department helping the manager refill all those empty bouquet buckets. We also rearranged the stuffed animals I put out the other day and decided what could be done with the rather plain-looking potted tulips, shamrocks, daisies, and hyacinths. I even got to make two arrangements. I think I should have taken a little more off the tulips - they looked too bunched. The bouquet of spring flowers, on the other hand, came out beautifully, and all I needed to do was trim it, add a white satin bow, and fluff it slightly.
Went straight home after I finished. Took the laundry downstairs and the trash and recycling outside while watching Vega$. Phillip Roth (Tony Curtis) isn't too happy about notorious white-collar criminal Christopher Vincente (Caesar Romero) staying at the Desert Inn. Turns out he has a reason to be concerned, but not the one he thinks. Vincente's latest scheme is kidnapping showgirls and selling them in a white slavery ring. After he's almost blown up in Vincente's mansion on Lake Mead, he manages to rescue one of the girls...but is reluctant to turn her over to Lieutenant Dave Nelson (Craig Morris) until he can get Vincente.
Put the laundry in the dryer, then did some job research. Applied for an appointment coordinator at a large remodeling company in Cherry Hill. They have a long list of benefits and decent pay, though I'm not entirely sure how well I'd handle scheduling a large company.
Worked on writing next. Nip-Tok (Nipsey Russell) is the hip poem-spouting head of the Oz Army. He leads them to the Wizard's home, but he can't tell them much about him. Seems he can appear to be anything, but hasn't been seen in the streets since the attack on the City.
Broke for dinner and to finally bring the laundry upstairs at 7PM. Watched Match Game Syndicated as I ate. Alan Oppenheimer is best-known to those who grew up in the 80's like me as the original voice of Vanity Smurf and Skeletor and Mer-Man on He-Man, among many others. He had a lot of fun during his only week on the show, which also included Dick Martin and Laurie Walters of Eight Is Enough. In the last episode of the week, Laurie shows off her sheer stockings and heels, while Betty White's not too happy when she's picked for the Audience Match and not her.
The second episode for some reason jumps right into the next week, with Fred Grandy and Phyllis Diller. Maybe they jumped ahead because this is one of the funniest episodes of the syndicated series. Gene gets a small shock from the question holder early in the episode. That escalates into a far bigger one, complete with wavy "shock" lines on the screen and Gene supposedly passing out. Charles insinuates he could take over Gene's hosting, but then decides it's not for him.
Finished the night on YouTube with another famous host, Jack Barry. Barry produced many shows with his partner Dan Enright, but I don't think many people remember that he also hosted several of them. He started out as the host of Juvenile Jury, their kid panel show. Very young kids, sometimes young as three, answered questions brought to them by other kids their own age. The kids were both intelligent and precious, and Barry worked very well with them and the other children they helped out.
Barry really hit it big as the host of Twenty-One. He managed to rack up the suspense as ordinary people answered questions posed to them in isolation booths. The first to make 21 points won. Unfortunately, it turned out that the wild success of this show was manufactured. Many of the contestants, including Charles Van Doren seen here, were given the answers here and on other game shows of the mid-late 50's.
Not only did that end Barry-Enright Productions for a decade, it badly damaged Barry's reputation, despite him having less to do with the scandals than his partner. Though the panel game High Low and the daytime Tic Tac Dough that Barry hosted weren't fixed, the shows were cancelled anyway. Barry-Enright were done by 1959.
Barry worked in Canada for most of the 60's before returning late in the decade to take over from Denis Whorley as the host of The Generation Gap, and then as the host of the short-lived movie quiz The Reel Game. He tried working for Goodson-Todman in the early 70's, but came to the conclusion that he preferred being his own boss and returned to producing. Alas, his two shows on his own, Hollywood's Calling and Blank Check, flopped, and he ended up returning to Enright.
The first show to come out of their revived partnership was The Joker's Wild. Barry hosted this lightning-fast quiz show were people push the lever on a huge slot machine to get the subjects and, if they're lucky, a Joker. If they can answer the question, they win the pot. The episode I have from early in the run features a hilarious and personable old gentleman named Tex who became the first person on the show to win a car.
Break the Bank never seemed to catch a break. It didn't run on ABC during 1976 with Tom Kennedy hosting, and it didn't last much longer in syndication with Barry at the helm, either. Too bad. This is a very funny show in the vein of Hollywood Squares, with celebrities tossing out quips on a huge board as contestants try to guess which is telling the truth about a question.
Barry continued to host The Joker's Wild until his death in 1984, even after CBS cancelled the show and they moved it to syndication. I believe his later seasons and Bill Cullen's two would later run on USA as well. The episode I have here from 1983 may be one I saw on USA as a kid, or even watched on TV with my parents.
Step out of the isolation booth to enjoy Jack Barry's world of huge slot machines, joking panels, and tense trivia confrontations!
1 comment:
Alan Oppenheimer was the original Rudy Wells on The Six Million Dollar Man. He's also in two Get Smart episodes, "The Man from YENTA" and the wedding episode "With Love and Twitches."
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