Matches In the Rain

Started off the morning with a quick breakfast and The Busy World of Richard Scarry. "Ambulance Cake" is the huge strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla cake Mrs. Cat made for the bake sale to earn a new ambulance for Busytown. When the wind blows it over, Huckle, Hilda, Lowly do their best to replace it. Sam and Dudley find themselves embroiled in "The Supermarket Mystery" when the owner asks them to find out who is stealing food from his store. Dudley keeps questioning the wrong suspects dressed as a female pig...but Sam's costume is a little too good and ends with him getting stolen! Bananas is charged with cleaning up Mr. Gronkle's car, but it's "Big Trouble for Bananas Gorilla" when he makes more of a mess than cleaning anything.

Dashed off to work after that. It wasn't busy when I arrived, but by the time I went on my break at 11:30, we had long lines and no carts. I kept getting pulled to do everything else but the carts. I had to sweep and put away unwanted cold items and take the trash in the back and clean the bathrooms. They originally wanted me to shelve other loose items too, but I plain ran out of time. It showered lightly somewhere around noon too, and has continued to rain in one way or another for the rest of the day. 

Went straight home after that. I saw a fair in Oaklyn's municipal parking lot on my way down West Clinton. I suspect it was Tonewood Brewery's annual beer-selling festival, which they usually hold around this time of year.

Went straight upstairs and into job research and The Sword In the Stone when I got home. I go further into this Disney animated retelling of the early years of King Arthur at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog. 

Animation Celebration Saturday - The Sword In the Stone

Listened to classic jazz while I worked on the review. Kind of Blue by Miles Davis is one of the great jazz albums of the mid-20th century and is considered to be a jazz landmark today. I just thought bluesy numbers like "So What" and "All Blues" made for great background music on a gloomy day.

Finished the night at YouTube with the Match Game Saturday Classics marathon. Character actor Robert Walden is best known today as cocky reporter Joe Grissi on the newspaper drama Lou Grant in the late 70's-early 80's and as one of the title characters in the early Showtime sitcom Brothers. I suspect a big part of the reason he was on the show was Charles Nelson Reilly was his friend and mentor; he'd been a student in his acting classes. He also played very well, and was certainly easy on the eyes.

Robert got caught up in some of the most memorable episodes of the later CBS run and the first year of syndication. He was on that wild week with the contestant named Ginger, who gave some of the craziest answers ever on the show. In fact, he was the one who had the dubious honor of trying to match her insane answer to "Cuckoo ___" in the Head-to-Head. According to Match Game 101, everyone laughed so hard, they had to briefly stop taping. Bill Daily remembered that incident well even 40 years later. There was also the series of weird wigs Joyce Bulifant wore that week to distinguish her from the other goofy blonde on the show with a similar name, Elaine Joyce.

He also got to see Patty Duke's name as part of the Audience Match (though misspelled, to her amusement), and he showed off the numbers on a sweater he'd apparently found laying around. A handsome Naval officer went up against a pretty Israeli woman in a PM episode and won on a tie. Marcia Wallace was thrilled to match a not-so-obvious answer for "He's So __" in another memorable Head-to-Head.

Get the full scoop on this disco-era hunk in this "cuckoo" marathon!

Match Game Saturday Classics - Featuring Robert Walden On the Panel