Headed off to work shortly after the CD ended. We now have to clean the bathroom every hour on the hour after we finish sweeping, and that's with everything else baggers do! Good thing the bathrooms didn't really need much done. Two baggers were there when I arrived, including a teen girl who was just hired, allowing me to focus on the carts. I did have to take over everything else after they left, and I never did catch up with the carts again.
Went straight home after that and into a more recent album by a rock legend from New Jersey. Although Wrecking Ball apparently didn't do quite as well as Bruce Springsteen's previous albums Magic and Working On a Dream financially, it still has a lot to recommend. "We Take Care of Our Own" was the hit single, but I prefer the title song, "Land of Hopes and Dreams," and the haunting "Jack of All Trades."
Worked on the inventory briefly after I ate dinner. Just had enough time to find the S titles and add the original Sweet Charity with Gwen Verdon, a truncated studio version of the operetta Sweethearts, and Take Me Along, a 1959 musical version of Ah Wilderness with Walter Pidgeon and Jackie Gleason. I've had all three for a long time. Found Charity at a now defunct Collingswood thrift shop in 2009 and Along at Collingswood's town-wide yard sale in 2011. I think Sweethearts came from one of the Philadelphia stores sometime between 2007 and 2009, but I don't remember anymore.
Finished the night on YouTube with the Sunday Match Game marathon. Tonight, we looked deeper into Richard Dawson's acrimonious exit from the show in mid-1978 with one episode from every week leading to his departure. Truth be told, he hadn't been happy since at least late 1976-early 1977, but it didn't really boil over until 1978. He was doing Match Game and Family Feud and was just plain tired. Family Feud was beating Match Game in the ratings by 1978 as well, and Richard had more control over the proceedings there.
Richard still had some fun moments early in the year. He saw Betty White scold Gene for swatting a fly, and Gene attempt to swat it with a stick full of holes. A handsome young wrestler shook Richard's hand so hard after he got the Audience Match answer, Richard had Marcia Wallace write out the Head-to-Head answer for him. Gene at one point tried to force him to smile in a bizarre sequence at the end of an episode. Another episode ended with Richard and Charles playing tic tac toe on Gene's windowpane check suit, much to the annoyance of the latter!
Richard saw the arrival of the Star Wheel that contestants spun to choose which panelist they'd play with in the Head to Head round as the last straw. He was the panelist who had been the most often chosen for the Head-to-Head before that and considered it to be his time in the spotlight. He did get one last good moment after it came, arguing the difference between "toes" and "feet" with Ira, but the damage had been done.
Between his exhaustion and an eye infection that forced him to wear glasses (he also wore them on Feud), he simply didn't do much of anything on his final week. He left after his last PM episode and refused to come back. Gene was reportedly so furious with him for his poor behavior, he never spoke to him again, and Brett and Charles weren't happy either.
It's a shame nobody - Gene, Goodson-Todman, Ira, or even Richard himself - handled his departure well. Richard was such a big part of the show for so long. They should have either given in to his demands, or let him go when he originally asked in 1976. I don't think it would have effected the show as much as most people think, and it would have been far more professional than what ultimately happened.
At any rate, see how all of this went down for yourself in this marathon!
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