Here Comes the Sun

Began the morning with breakfast and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Watched the episodes that introduced Daniel's autistic friend Max in honor of Autism Awareness Month. "Daniel Meets a New Friend" and learns there's things he can do to understand him better, like waiting for him to join in or not yelling around him. It's too loud for Max, but Daniel wants him to see his father's new clock. They find a way for "A New Friend at the Clock Factory" to join in. 

Switched to Pac Man while getting organized. Pac-Man becomes "Public Pac-Enemy No. 1" when he's mistaken for the gangster Pretty Boy Pac and sent to prison. Pretty Boy thinks he can take Pac Man's place, until Chomp Chomp and Sour Puss attack him. "The Old Pac-Man and the Sea" ends up sinking with the captain of the barge when the Ghosts attack their garbage barge carrying Power Pellets. They end up fighting the Ghosts in Paclantis for the amusement of the Pac-Queen.

Spent the next few hours getting ready for spring. I took my laundry downstairs, then took down the Easter decorations. Stripped the bed, put on the spring/fall sheets, and brought the winter sheets and blankets downstairs to be washed. When I finally brought my laundry upstairs, I pulled out my warm-weather clothes and put the cold weather ones away. It's supposed to be chilly tomorrow and Wednesday, but it'll get warm again after that. I don't think I'll need the turtlenecks, heavy jeans, or flannel nightgowns until fall returns. I also traded my fall-colored Pikachu and Eevee backpack with the spring-colored white and sage green one. 

Listened to The George Benson Collection while I worked. Pretty much every hit Benson ever had is here, from 80's radio staples "Turn Your Love Around" and "Give Me the Night" to the instrumental smash "Breezin'" to covers of "Here Comes the Sun," "White Rabbit," and "The Greatest Love of All." I remember hearing these on the radio and thinking how wonderfully sophisticated and sexy this sounded, how, well, breezy it was. 

After I finished with the clothes, I called Uber. It was late, past 2:15, but there were a few things I wanted to do in Cherry Hill. Good thing I wasn't in a hurry. It took 15 minutes for the driver to arrive going to Cherry Hill. Thankfully, it only took 7 for the one going home to find me. 

Started at Honeygrow. After a lot of carb-heavy lunches and brunches this weekend, I thought I'd try their salad bowl. I did a make-your-own with baby spinach, spring mix, broccoli, spring peas, feta cheese, toasted chickpeas, shrimp, grape tomatoes, and crunchy onions. Washed it down with their dark cherry punch. Oh yum. A nice mix of flavors, and I really liked those tasty chickpeas! 

The other reason I ate at Honeygrow is it's a block from Lucky Strike, formerly The Big Event. I'll save bowling for when Lauren visits in July, but I did spend 40 minutes running around the arcade area, spinning the pirate wheel and the monster wheels, throwing rubber axes at a target, dropping balls, making basketball shots, dropping ping pong balls in cups, and playing a lot of Nerf Arcade. I made over 1,500. Ended up getting a really cute stuffed animal that's a unicorn on one side and a pink dragon when you reverse it. I gave her the German name Eldelgard, which means "noble guard" in German, Eldie for short.

Another Uber driver took me to Red, White, and Blue Thrift in Cherry Hill, behind the mall and next-door to At Home. It's basically the same thing as Second Avenue Thrift, with all-cash payment instead of cash and card. I didn't get a lot here, as I don't really need a ton of clothes here, but I did find a nice copper cake/casserole pan, along with a book, a CD, and a record: 

The Commitments, Vol. 2 (the CD)

The record is The MGM Treasury of Bedtime Stories, a children's retelling of four fairy-tales

The Train to Impossible Places by P.G Bell (the book)

Made my way across the street to Second Avenue Thrift next. They're still working on the exterior of that shopping center. I had to walk into the store under a plywood entrance. It was normal inside, though. My best finds here were two gorgeous heavy cookie sheets, one in red, one in purple. No interesting records or CDs, but I did also find two books: 

Beauty by Robin McKinley

Paws and Effect by Sofia Kelly

Took out the recycling when I got home, then got dinner and went straight into Match Game '90. I came just in time for Chuck Roast's first episode. The punk puppet was supposed to be Ronn Lucas' temporary replacement for Scorch, who supposedly was trying out for a movie. (He didn't get the part.) Despite Chuck getting on everyone's nerves (including Deborah next to him, who stuffed his arm into his mouth), he would be back several times in 1990. Scorch thankfully was back by the next episode and got to flirt with Brett Somers, doing her first of three weeks on the show next to her old drinking buddy Charlies Nelson Reilly.

Finished the night at YouTube with game shows revolving around drawing and art. Art-themed shows go back further than you might think. Picture This was a CBS summer replacement series in 1963. A celebrity - William Bendix and Alan Young in the one existing episode - chooses an object, and the other celebrity tells the contestant how to draw it. If the contestant can identify the object, they get the point. If not, the other team gets the point. In the bonus round, the celebrity drew up to six objects for the contestant to guess. Interesting idea, and while it wasn't all that exciting, the basic idea would be refined for drawing games to come.

Fast Draw from 1968 was the same idea, but now the contestant would draw a person, place, or object, and the celebrity would have to guess what it is. Basically, it's Picture Password, with drawing instead of descriptions. Anita Gillette wiped the floor with stage star Robert Alda here.

Win, Lose, or Draw and Pictionary were hit board games before they were hit game shows. Win was the creation of Bert Convy, who hosted the syndicated version until 1989, and Burt Reynolds. Reynolds appears in the episode I have here, with Betty White, Annie Potts, and his good friend Dom DeLouise. Basically, one team draws a subject and tries to guess it, then the other team does it. The bonus round had the winning team drawing as many words and phrases as they could in 90 seconds. My siblings and I loved the teen version on The Disney Channel, and I really wish I'd seen more of the adult show, too. What's on YouTube is a lot of fun.

There were four attempts to turn Pictionary into a game show. The first one was a kid's show from 1989 that had heavy Double Dare influences and only lasted a few months. The most famous version was hosted by Alan Thicke in 1997. It's the same idea as Win, Lose, or Draw, only they're just drawing phrases, and each celebrity has to draw the same word. If the contestant playing with them gets the word, they get the money. This is just as fast-paced and fun, and it's a shame that it only lasted a few months. GSN tried reviving it in 2000, but it never got past the pilot stage. It did much better on Fox in 2021 and in syndication from 2022 to 2025. 

Not all art-themed game shows involved contestants making art. What In the World was a Philadelphia panel show filmed at the University of Pennsylvania that had a panel of experts (including Vincent Price in this 1955 episode) guessing and appraising art works from around the world, mainly African statues and masks here. Kind of dry if you're not an art fan yourself, but this ran from 1951 to 1955 and would continue on Philly public television stations until 1965.

Explore the world of art and make some artworks yourself with these hilarious and informative shows!

What In the World (1955)

Picture This (1963)

Fast Draw (1967)

Win, Lose, or Draw (1987)

Pictionary (1997)