Got a quick start this morning. We had just enough time for breakfast and two cartoons. The Disney characters are on a "Hawaiian Holiday" that has Donald and Pluto tangling with a crab and Goofy attempting to hit the surf, only for it to hit back. Donald's "Beach Picnic" also gets out of hand when he first tries to ride an inflatable horse, then chases off the ants who have invaded his meal.
Called Uber to get us to Lindenwald. The last time I took two trains to Atlantic City, I almost missed the second one. I wasn't taking chances this time. The driver arrived in 7 minutes. We were there in 15, with 15 minutes left to buy tickets.
Ironically, for all the rushing, the train to Atlantic City wound up being 7 minutes late. Thankfully, we encountered no other trouble. The train wasn't anywhere near full. We slid into one of the two-person seats near the middle. Lauren spent most of the trip sleeping. I watched the scenery, mainly pine trees and houses, fly by. We got into Atlantic City by quarter of 1.
I took Lauren straight down Michigan Avenue, past the Outlet Mall, AtlantiCare Hospital, and Bally's, right up to the boardwalk. It wasn't a bad day to explore the boards. Though it was cloudy, cool, and windy, that's not necessarily a bad thing in largely shade-less Atlantic City. The sun was even starting to come out a bit as we strolled past Bally's, Peanut World, the gray Korean War Memorial, and many seedy-looking souvenir shops. The boardwalk was busy, but not overwhelmingly so, nothing like Cape May and Wildwood on Saturday.
My original thought for lunch was the little gyro place I ate at last year, but Lauren wanted a real lunch that amounted to something more than pizza. She was the one who spotted the Landshark Bar and Grill, a blonde wooden structure hugging the beach and dunes. It was a brilliant idea. We got to sit outside, right along the beachfront. She had an Asian chicken, noodle, and vegetable bowl. I had a fried cod sandwich with zesty jalapeno tartar sauce that melted in your mouth. We shared a plate of fried pickles that were even better than the ones at Friendly's yesterday.
Our plans got a check when we made it to the Hard Rock Hotel. Alas, it would seem that Steel Pier is currently open only on weekends, and the observation Ferris Wheel only after 4 on weekdays. Lauren's not really all that fond of heights anyway and gets motion sickness. We ended up turning back.
Good thing I found out online that Central Pier had been remodeled and reopened after its devastating fire last year. I wonder if the fire mainly effected the back area with the raceway. That was closed, and I saw carpenters working there. The front rooms with the arcade seemed largely the same.
Central Pier's real main attraction is its long rows of cranes, all of them with good stuffed animals. Lauren still didn't have any luck, but I won Hello Kitty dressed as an alligator for my niece Finley. It doesn't have a lot of other games, but it does feature ski ball, along with the usual mainstays like coin push games, ball drop machines, and ball throws. To my surprise, Central Pier seems to be the only arcade in the area that still uses tickets (though they also have cards you can tap). You feed the blue tickets through a machine, then bring the receipt up front. I had 621, not enough for anything really cool. I did get one of those cute folded paper fans with pretty flowered prints that you open.
Next up, we returned to Peanut World and the dilapidated shops between Bally's and Resorts to get our own souvenirs. Lauren didn't see anything she wanted at Peanut World besides a Coke Zero. I got a Coke Zero, a red Atlantic City tank top, and larger versions of my favorite fruit gel slices. Lauren finally found a purple and green tie-dye tank a couple of doors down, next-door to Ilene's.
By that point, it was almost 4. We were going to get ice cream and smoothies, but not only was the booth we found ridiculously expensive (the cones were $9 each!), they were out of the smoothies Lauren wanted. We finally decided we were better off leaving the boardwalk, especially after witnessing seagulls noisily attack a teen girl's fried Oreos. (They stole food that had been left on plates by the beachfront at the Landshark Bar and Grill, too. We also saw a squirrel who seemed very out of place wandering around near the booth.)
Though we did peek at Aeorpostale, it was getting late. The train to Lindenwald leaves at 4:59. There isn't another one until almost 7. We hurried to the Atlantic City Convention Center and bought our tickets with ten minutes to spare. The train left less than five minutes after we got on and settled down on a seat in the very back of the car. Once again, there was no trouble on the trip. In fact, I passed out shortly after leaving Atlantic City and didn't wake up until about 10 minutes before we arrived at the Lindenwald Station.
I spotted the Stratford Diner during our Uber trip to Lindenwald. Lauren checked it online when we were on the train and confirmed that it would be open when we were there. The diner is a bit more like a typical chrome-and-tile eatery than the wood-paneled Legacy, including an eclectic song selection that ran the gamut from rap to "Freddy My Love" from the Grease soundtrack.
Since we had sandwiches and and entrees for lunch, we opted to have breakfast for dinner. She had eggs Benedict. I had a perfectly crispy golden waffle topped with bananas, strawberries, blueberries, and whipped cream. We decided we even had room for dessert. I had a very sweet, individually wrapped mini pineapple upside-down cake. She had a small two-layer strawberry shortcake, a decadent confection wrapped in whipped cream, with layers of strawberries, cake, and more cream, topped by a gigantic glazed strawberry.
Surprisingly, despite it being nearly 7 PM, we got an Uber driver in less than a minute. She was a cheerful young college student who asked us about our vacation and Atlantic City trip and mentioned goings-on in Philadelphia. She got us home within 20 minutes, with no traffic or fuss.
After we got in, I rounded up our laundry and took it downstairs, then took out the recycling. Jumped in the shower after that, then put the laundry in the dryer. After I got back upstairs. I spent the rest of the night watching more game shows with lost episodes or that are mostly lost in honor of Buzzr's month-long Lost and Found marathon.
In the early days of TV, most broadcasts were aired live and either weren't recorded, or were preserved by kinetoscopes that could be easily ditched for their silver content. Thanks to that, much of 50's TV, especially from early in the decade, is gone forever. This charming children's game show, Chopsticks from 1958, is one of the survivors. Kids play pianos and answer musical-themed questions in the hope of winning an encyclopedia. Cute show, and the kids honestly played quite well.
Even after game shows began to be recorded on tape, rather than broadcast live, they still were rarely preserved. Tapes were expensive, and they were frequently erased and used again. Even popular shows, like Match Game and Family Feud, were hit with this. The original 60's version of Match Game is largely gone for good, with only a handful of shows remaining. Though the vast majority of the 70's-80's Match Game survives, even that has some episodes missing, damaged, or unable to be run due to offensive answers or rights clearances. Buzzr themselves recently unearthed the previously-missing episodes 31, 32, and 33, claiming they had been badly damaged and that they repaired them to the best of their ability.
Though the first run of Family Feud with Richard Dawson is largely said to survive, most of it isn't online. ABC was still erasing tapes through the early years of its run. Buzzr usually runs the episodes made after 1983, and then only the nighttime syndicated shows. I have a rare early episode of the daytime run here.
Most of the daytime run of Tattletales does exist, but its syndicated nighttime run isn't so lucky. Rights clearances are the big problem here. Bob Newhart's estate insists on his game show episodes not being re-run, including him and his wife Ginny's appearances on Tattletales...and they apparently turned up on the syndicated series the most. Buzzr did use two episodes for its Valentine's Day marathon in 2020; I have the earlier one here, featuring glamorous Joan Collins and her then-husband, businessman Ron Kass, Dan Rowan and his wife Joanna Young, and Dick Smothers and his sweet wife Linda.
Short-lived flops have an even worse survival rate. Wedding Party from 1968 was likely ABC's attempt to capture that Newlywed Game magic. One member of an engaged couple would be taken offstage. The other would choose three prizes from three different groups. Their fiancee would try to guess which were chosen. If they win, they get all of them and a honeymoon package. Yeah, not the most exciting game. I can see why ABC didn't want to hang on to this one. Over-eager host Alan Hamel had more fun discussing the lady's job as an astrologer than actually playing the game.
Even now, some short-lived flops are still hard to find. BrainRush was one of the shows on Cartoon Network's CN Real, their attempt to create a live-action program block. Host Lamone Morris asks kids questions on a roller coaster at Knott's Berry Farm in California. Each correct answer earns $25. The player with the most money moves on. Round 2 has them playing mini-games on the coasters, while Round 3 has them answering multiple-choice questions. The winner can then double their earnings or lose it all.
Um, yeah. This one is kind of dumb. The whole premise is just plain weird. It worked better with adults in taxis. I think this one would have tanked even if CN Real hadn't been monumentally panned by pretty much everyone. It barely lasted a month, with the last two episodes burned off on Wednesdays. The sixth episode remains missing other than brief clips to this day.