Switched to Press Your Luck next while I made my bed. The guys couldn't catch a break here. They kept getting hit with Whammys, including one who lost a car. He hit a Whammy on his last turn, allowing the one woman to pick up trips to Hawaii and Acapulco.
Let it run into Split Second while I took the laundry downstairs and went through clothes I was thinking about getting rid of. The lady champion just kept winning here. She barely got the first one, then turned down the vacation to make one last try at that car. She was second to the other woman going into the Countdown Round, but she came from behind to win the car outright.
Put the laundry in the dryer while Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was on. Coco the Monkey asks Goofy, Mickey, and Pluto to help pick up coconuts for "Coco's Coconutty Party." They follow a trail of tiny footprints through the jungle, helped along the way by their friends whom they end up inviting to the party, too.
Brought the laundry upstairs and put it away while watching Let's Make a Deal. This one began well, with everyone getting something from the opening deal. Two clowns and a lady went up for the Big Deal of the Day. No one got the deal, but the clowns got a high-end stereo, and the lady got money.
(Oh, and I saw the ads for Buzzr's next marathon during Deal. They've been hinting around online about doing something Price Is Right-related for their annual National Game Show Day marathons in June for at least two weeks. Not only are they celebrating with previously-unseen episodes all month, but the much-requested Bob Barker Price is finally making its way to Buzzr. No wonder we've barely gotten anything new from them since mid-April. I'm guessing the Barker Price will pick up from where the 24 hour Pluto/Roku channel leaves off, likely in the mid-80's right before Johnny Olsen's death.)
Caught most of Super Password while getting organized and having lunch. Richard Moll played with Florence Halop in 1986 to plug the new season of Night Court. Alas, it would prove to be one of Halop's final appearances on television outside of the series. She died just a few months after these episodes aired. At least they played really well, with the contestants and off each other.
Headed out after that to run some brief errands. Dropped a bag of clothes I didn't want, mainly shirts, in the bin behind Dollar General. I ran into one of my old neighbors from Hillcrest inside. At least, from what she says, the people who bought Dad's house are really nice. They apparently take care of the house and have kids who enjoy the pool. I can't bring myself to go back over there, though. It wouldn't be the same.
While I'm no longer angry with Rose over what happened in 2021 and early 2022, I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive my stepmother Jodie for her ridiculous and immature behavior. All she did was talk behind my back and Rose's and whine about how no one was respecting her feelings. What about me? The one who had no convenient aunt or husband to run to. The one who had no home of her own and nowhere to go. The one who actually got hurt. What about my feelings? If Jodie calls, I'll talk to her, but I won't be visiting her or initiating contact myself again.
At least it was a nice day for a quick outing. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and it felt more like a normal day in mid-May, breezy and in the lower 70's without a hint of humidity. I took a longer way across the neighborhood and past the book kiosk down the block going home, passing several dog walkers and kids on their way home from school.
Put on Vega$ after I got in. Dan and Phyllis are horrified when they almost literally run into a teenage girl who appears to have been battered. Her high school counselor (John Fielder) won't give out information, and the girl isn't talking, either. Dan is furious when he discovers someone blackmailing young girls at the school into working as prostitutes for him. A huge convention in Vegas has made a "Demand and Supply" for comely young ladies. He literally puts himself in the line of fire to make sure no other girls get hurt, or worse, after one of their clients end up dead.
Worked on job searching next. Checked The Sun Newspapers and Comcast. I can't find the job section at Sun, and Comcast doesn't really seem to have anything along the lines of what I'm looking for in Philadelphia at the moment.
Worked on writing next. Kathleen is surprised when the rabbit leads her to a kindly older woman. It's Mother Nature herself. She knows all, sees all. She knows why Kathleen is there, and what she wants. She also knows who the rabbit is...
Broke for dinner and Match Game '77 at 7 PM. David "Bosley" Doye made his first appearance in these episodes. He was an old drinking buddy of Brett's, and while he wasn't the best player, he always seemed to enjoy himself. He certainly had fun this week, including watching Gene joke that Richard's military-style shirt made him a member of the Nerdocrumbesian Army.
Finished the night on YouTube after a shower with popular panel game shows. Shows with celebrity panelists trying to guess something about a contestant or help them figure out a question go back a long way on television. Actually, they started on radio with the informal talk/panel show Information Please. That talk-heavy show didn't translate well to the visual TV medium, but other panel shows became the biggest hits of TV's formative years. What's My Line was one of the earliest panel shows to be a hit. An elegant four-person panel tries to guess a contestant's unusual occupation. It ran for 17 years and would prove to be so popular, it would be revived in syndication as a slightly less-formal affair in 1968.
What's My Line was such a hit, it spawned many imitations, including from its creators Goodson-Todman. The Name's the Same had the panel trying to figure out how two people with a famous name were connected, or what famous name the person had. Despite running for five years, this was a little too complicated. Robert Q. Lewis had early fame as the host here; this would also be some of the earliest TV exposure for Gene Rayburn.
Hollywood Squares and Match Game are two more long-runner panel show champs. They both began in the 60's, but while Match Game was a more staid affair for the first two years or so of its existence, Squares was raunchy from the start. The more familiar 70's revival of Match Game has two contestants trying to match slightly liquor-fueled answers to goofy questions from a six-person celebrity panel. The contestants in Hollywood Squares try to figure out whether the folks on a 9-person panel are bluffing or telling the truth.
I fell in love with the late 90's-early 2000's version of Squares during college. I used to flip back and forth between that and Jeopardy, then stick around ABC for Wheel of Fortune. I vaguely remember the 80's syndicated Match Game, but thankfully (unlike Squares), the vast majority of it survives and is easily found on Buzzr, GSN, and YouTube. I have one of the Tom Bergeron-hosted Squares episodes with Whoopi Goldberg here, along with two Match Game shows from its CBS 70's and nighttime syndicated runs.
Panel games largely vanished in the 1980's and early 90's. They were often too slow-moving, and the celebrities were out of the budget of many shows. One of the few new attempts at a panel show in the 80's was Battlestars. Heatter-Quigley tried this Squares imitation twice in 1982 and 1983, with the wisecracking celebrities in connected triangles instead of squares. Alex Trebek is the host. I have the debut of the revived Battlestars here, with Vicki Lawrence, Jm J. Bullock, and Debbie Reynolds among the panelists.
Wordplay was another good panel show from the 80's. Three panelists help two contestants try to figure out which description of a word is the accurate one. This show was a blast to watch, and Tom Kennedy seemed to really have fun hosting it. It only lasted a year, and I don't think NBC gave it a fair shake.
There was a minor panel game revival in the late 90's as game shows in general began to make a comeback. Along with the Berganon Squares, Nickelodeon got into panel shows with Figure It Out. Basically, this is Junior I've Got a Secret with slime. Four Nickelodeon celebrities try to figure out what a kid's unusual talent is. Summer Sanders is an adorable host, and both contestants and panelists seem to be very much enjoying themselves. It was so well-remembered, Nick briefly revived it in 2012.
See if you can guess these questions before the celebrity panel does in these hilarious and thoughtful episodes!
No comments:
Post a Comment