After breakfast, I took my laundry downstairs, then worked up enough courage to call the Camden County First Time Home Buyers program and ask for help and where their application was on their website. It was scary. I don't have anyone walking me through this. I'm doing all this alone. I finally left the woman a message and sent her an e-mail.
Cheered myself up with the Naked Gun remake on Paramount Plus during lunch and after I brought the laundry upstairs. Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) is as oblivious, clumsy, and gung-ho as his dad was. He's investigating the suspicious death of a software engineer who created a machine that can rile people up to the point where they revert to their primordial instincts. The engineer's sister Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), a crime novelist, thinks there's a lot more to this than a car crash. Turns out she's right. Richard Cane (Danny Huston), her brother's former boss, wanted the machine so he can revert the population to their animal instincts, leaving he and his billionaire buddies to take over. Frank has to find the machine and keep it from going off, all while navigating his growing feelings for the equally goofy Beth.
Oh boy, was this fun. I wasn't expecting much out of this, but it turned out to be hilarious. I've seen Pamela Anderson do comedy (sometimes even intentionally), but who knew Neeson had this level of straight-faced insanity in him? Huston's even funnier as the villain with the evil with a capital E plan. If you're looking for a wacky laugh or two and just need to turn off your brain after a stressful morning, you can do far worse than join the all-new Police Squad with Drebin and his co-horts.
Went straight to the Thomas Sharp School after Naked Gun ended. I rode my bike despite the gale-force wind. It's been a week. My knee is a tiny bit sore, but not stiff anymore. Besides, I'm tired of taking Uber all of the time. I'll take it tomorrow because Jessa is picking me up later and on Wednesday because of my double-shift (and we're supposed to have rain that day), but otherwise, I should be fine to ride.
Good thing I got there just in time. We had 28 kids today, 10 of them at my table. I need to talk to them tomorrow about not helping to clean up the Duplos. Two of the boys and I had to do all the work while the others waited in line. I also talked to them in the halls outside the bathroom about using their words when one of the girls reported several kids calling each other names. They were all pretty crazy in the cafeteria too as two of the girls ran around and tried to hide behind the dry erase board and two of the boys threw magnetic tiles everywhere.
Thank heavens we were able to get them all outside today with no trouble. It was just starting to cloud over as the kids ran around and chased bubbles. One of the mothers used to be a teacher and knows how to play with kids. She pretended to be a monster and chased the kids and her son around. They even put her in "jail" - the big old tree on one side of the playground. When we were down to six kids, we let them on the swings. I got to push them, but also had to argue them off when their friends wanted to ride. This was also when the clouds and cold, strong wind finally took over. By the time I left, the other teachers were just taking the remaining 4 kids inside.
Stopped at CVS on the way home for cough drops. I'm almost out. They had huge bags on sale buy one, get one 50 percent off. I bought family-sized bags of their own honey-lemon and eucalyptus. It wasn't terribly busy. I was in and out with no trouble.
Took a shower when I got in, then grabbed dinner and watched Match Game '90. It's nice to see celebrities like Bill Kirkenbauer, Tom Villard, and Rebecca Arthur of Perfect Strangers whom I remember so well from my own childhood. I wish I remembered Ronn Lucas and Scorch - those two are some of the best things about Match Game '90. Slightly ditzy soap star Jacklyn Zeman can be a riot, too.
Finished the night with games featuring children, parents, or whole families playing in honor of Easter next Sunday. Games featuring kids or parents go a long way back. The Parents Game was Chuck Barris' attempt to expand his Newlywed Game empire in 1972. Here, it's parents or newlyweds who want kids answering parenting questions. Basically, The Newlywed Game with parents. It is interesting to see how parenting has changed over the years...and how it hasn't...
The kids get to shine in the short-lived Child's Play from 1982. Adults try to guess words from descriptions given by kids. I have an earlier episode here with the original bonus round that had the champ trying to figure out six written descriptions of words from the kids. While the game play isn't easy, the kids themselves are often hilarious, and host Bill Cullen had real affection for them.
Family Feud is the defacto family game show champ. It started in 1976, and while the original run ended in 1985, the 2012 revival is still going strong in syndication today. I have two original daytime episodes here from 1978 and 1980.
Families had a lot more fun playing against each other in wacky stunts. Family Double Dare is the same as the all-kid game, but with parents and their children competing in stunts and daring each other over questions. Family Challenge from 1995 is more-or-less the same idea, but it's now an hour, and is all messy stunts, no questions. Family Game Night replaces the wild stunts with goofy mini-games based on popular Hasbro board games like Monopoly, Yahtzee, and Connect 4. I have an episode from the last season with the later format that called up many families to let them play various games, then see if they could keep going on the Monopoly number board to win a car.
Families took part in quieter shows, too. The original US version of Blockbusters had two family members or friends playing against a solo player. Bill Cullen would read questions from a letter on a hexagonal board. Whomever won would go on to the Gold Run, where they had to pick two or three letters on a hexagon and answer questions in a row. I wish this had lasted longer in the US! Maybe it would have done better as a trivia show for teens, like the far longer-running British version. (Look for host Tom Kennedy making a cameo to plug Password Plus in the episode I have here.)
Have fun with your family watching these wacky parents, kids, and families get dunked, take on the Obstacle Course, and play the Feud!
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