The copy of Golden Boy I got from Innergroove in 2017 also came with something called Hoboken Saturday Night by The Insect Trust. Research reveals this was a jazz-rock fusion band from the late 60's-early 70's. Hoboken was their second and last album, and though melding jazz and rock can produce some pretty strange sounds, there are some interesting songs here, with my favorites being the title number and "The Eyes of a New York Woman."
For once, I broke with plenty of time to call Uber. The driver arrived within five minutes. I had to feed a friend's cat and rushed out just in time to catch them. Though it was raining by that point, it was still just rain, and not doing anything besides being wet. We got to the Acme in five minutes. I arrived early enough to buy chocolate chips for a recipe I plan on making tomorrow.
Work surprisingly wasn't that busy, even before the Eagles game began at 3. I guess everyone got their panic out yesterday, or the rain scared them off. I had no trouble gathering carts, not even when the afternoon bagger left at 3:30. The rain stopped around 2; the clouds even broke up at one point. By 4 PM, however, stinging, silvery sleet fell in torrents. That was gradually replaced by all snow around 5. I spent the last half-hour in the parking lot dodging the snow plow and frantically gathering the last of the carts.
Considering how hard the snow was coming down by 6, it goes without saying I had a harder time getting a ride home. The first driver wasn't arriving for 25 minutes...and canceled about half-way through that. The second finally came in 12 minutes. For a guy driving in a snowstorm, he was very pleasant and funny. As he said, we got home slow, but we did get home without incident.
(The Philadelphia Eagles had their own fun in the snow. From what I gathered, they handled the messy weather slightly better than the Los Angeles Rams, enough to beat them 28-22. They'll be having a rematch with the Commanders next week for the NFC Championship.)
Grabbed dinner when I got home and fed my friend's cat, then spent the rest of the night watching tonight's YouTube game show marathon. This time, the theme for Betty White's birthday weekend was game shows Betty appeared on with Allen. Considering they met while playing the original 1961 Password, it's appropriate that their first joint appearance as husband and wife was on a week in 1963 on a week with their good friend Jack Paar. Jack definitely wasn't in Betty's league as a player, blurting out at least one Password (though he did do decently at the Lightning Round).
Password wasn't the only game show the Luddens did together in the 60's. They appeared on What's My Line together as Mystery Guests twice, the first time to announce their marriage. Their friend Arlene Francis figured it out both times. They also appeared on the panel of the network Line and syndicated To Tell the Truth together in the late 60's and early 70's. (Truth ended with a man who lost his home and family in a forest fire and wrote a book about it; I hope it's still in print, considering what's going on in LA now.) Betty stumped Allen as the Mystery Guest when he was on the panel of a 1970 episode hosted by Wally Bruner.
In addition to the famous week Allen and Betty did together on Match Game in 1975 and the surviving 1981 nighttime episode, Allen did a week solo in 1974. After he gave a really lousy answer, Brett tore it up and handed it to Betty in the audience! A few minutes later, Fannie Flagg handed Betty her bad answer, too.
Betty appeared several times on Liar's Club, which Allen began hosting in 1978. Buddy Hackett, Peter Haskell, and the show's producer Larry Hovis join her in this hilarious show that had panelists giving descriptions of weird antiques and contestants betting on who was telling the truth about it. They also appeared many times on Tattletales. I got to see the last day from the week they did with Jamie Farr and his wife Joy (who remains with him to this day) and Eddie Mekka and his then-girlfriend Shirley.
The Luddens did other versions of Password together. Betty took over hosting for a week during Password '75 so Allen could play the game (very well, I may add). She also came out for the last episode, despite not playing that episode. Betty made frequent appearances on Password Plus, before and after Allen departed. Allen and Robert Pine helped her after she twisted her ankle coming down the stairs one week. She was also around for the infamous episode where Dick Martin argued that "French" should have been accepted for "France."
Betty continued doing versions of Password even after Allen's untimely passing in 1981. She was a frequent guest on Super Password, including the final episode with Christopher Hewlett. I don't think anyone else would have gotten away with destroying the hated "toaster" used for the Cas$hword mini-game words! She said that Password was like a phoenix and would rise again...and though it took 20 years, she was right. Betty appeared on the 2008 Million Dollar Password with Adam Corolla, hosted by Regis Philbin. They even did a montage of her with Allen on the original Password. She did the last episode of the original Password as well, this time with Frank Gifford years before he married Kathy Lee.
The password is...true love! See Allen and Betty through the years in this warm and delightful marathon.
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