Patriotic Matches

Slept in after a late night last night. When I did get moving, I started the morning with breakfast and the Those Wonderful Years CDs I picked up at the Mt. Laurel Library last month. This is a 1990 collection of what appears to mainly be pop songs from the 50's and early 60's. There's a few instrumental titles, notably one of my favorite film themes, "Theme From A Summer Place," but it's mainly vocal numbers. Favorites include the Platters' gorgeous version of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," "Allegheny Moon" by Patti Page, "Standing On the Corner" by the Four Lads, "Rags to Riches" by Tony Bennett, "Marianne" by Terry Gilkyson and The Easy Riders, "Blueberry Hill" by Fats Domino, "It Takes Two to Tango" by Pearl Bailey, and the lovely "Vaya Con Dios" by Les Paul and Mary Ford.

Went straight to work after the second CD ended. On one hand, work went a little better than it did last Sunday. At least I wasn't ready to tear out my hair by the end of the evening. I did have to clean up two broken soda 12-packs early on that put me behind in gathering carts when we were still really busy. I wasn't able to catch up until the end of the night, and I never did get to the trash. 

At least it was a nice day for all this. It remains hot, sunny, windy, and very humid. There were dark clouds on the horizon, but they never did more than look threatening. No wonder it cleared out by 4 PM when everyone finally went to their barbecues and family get-togethers.

Rushed home as fast as I could after that. Grabbed dinner, took out the trash and recycling, changed, and dashed upstairs for tonight's Match Game marathon. This time, Match Game Productions honors the Armed Services with episodes featuring soldiers or sailors as contestants. Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour had a lot of service-people as contestants. One turned up for the tail end of a young Butch Hartman as champ. Another saw Arsenio Hall come onstage with a motorcycle helmet (despite not riding a motorcycle) while one of the soap stars played with a stuffed Frog (from the Frog & Toad books), and we see a photo of a young and gorgeous Nedra Voltz. 

They had fun on the original show, too. An Army Champlain heard Charles fuss about Brett's lacy poncho in episode from 1976, while an officer on a PM episode was so eager to greet Eva Gabor, he accidentally hit her foot and took her toenail off! Good thing she took it well. The Navy did well on PM episodes. One Naval officer played a pretty Israeli woman in a close game in 1979. Another played with a nervous Brian Patrick Clark in the second-to-last nighttime episode. Jack Klugman demanded gifts and got a jacket. He was so excited with the outcome of the Head-to-Head, he ran around the studio, hugging audience members, spinning the Star Wheel, and lifting the pretty fiancee of the Naval officer into the air! 

My favorite Match Game episodes revolving around service people came from Match Game '90. With Desert Storm raging even as they filmed the episodes, they not only had Marines as contestants, but in the audience. The boys in khaki were totally besotted with One Life to Live stars Karen Whittier and Fiona Hutchinson and cheered on every single thing they said or did. Karen showed why she deserved their cheers by doing well at the Head-to-Head three times, twice in a row. Fiona was happier flirting with Ronn Lucas and his dragon puppet Scorch, while Bruce Baum demonstrated his very weird inventions and showed off his "baby pictures." 

Honor the men and women who fought and died for our country with this patriotic marathon!

Match Game Sunday Night Classics - Memorial Day Celebration