Headed out on the bike after the show ended. Ran some brief errands on the White Horse Pike first. My nephew Skylar's 22nd birthday is Friday. I picked up a card for him and a Propel at Dollar General. Neither they nor Family Dollar had much in the way of foot or heel aids. After the fuss in Dollar General the last time I went in there, at least a lady was nice enough to let me go on ahead.
There was no more putting it off. I rode up to Cooper Urgent Care in Audubon to finally get my heel looked at. I've had a bump on my right heel for weeks that's been fairly painful. I was hoping it would go away, but...it hasn't. Thankfully, unlike when I went there in early March, they only had three other people in the waiting area. After signing in and telling them about my heel, they brought me in within five minutes.
After they took my blood pressure, I watched Lilo & Stich: The Series (a clumsy alien Lilo dubs "Whoops" wrecks havoc on Pleakley's Domino Rally game) and Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir (Ladybug deals with her friend Kagumi's frustrations over her mother being strict with her and a pair of mud-flinging villains called "The Dirtifyers") on The Disney Channel before the doctor came in. I explained my problem. My heel has had that lump for weeks, and it gets worse when I use it for a long time or push it hard.
After she felt around my foot, a sweet young woman took me to the x-ray room. I sat on a table so they could take shots of my heel. Returned to the room and to watching Ladybug and her buddies until the doctor returned. Verdict - heel spur and Achilles tendinitis. I'm to get antibiotics, continue to wear the heel lifts in my shoes, and go to Cooper Bone and Joint next week for a follow-up appointment.
After I got out, I went next-door to WaWa. I had considered eating out, but I didn't like the look of the weather. It was sunny when I started, but by quarter of 2, clouds were gathering, and it was humid and much hazier. It's a good thing I did settle for buying a roast beef and provolone wrap, a bag of PopCorners (popped corn chips that taste like a cross between rice cakes and tortilla chips), and a matcha pineapple smoothie. It started showering lightly almost the moment I stepped out of WaWa. I was just heading down East Clinton when I arrived and the showers got heavier.
(Thankfully, they didn't last long after that. There would be some pretty noisy storms later around dinnertime, but they seem to have subsided for the moment.)
Watched rain-themed cartoon episodes during lunch. Minnie and Daisy are dismayed that there's no rain for their flowers in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Professor Ludvig Von Drake gives them the formulas to make clouds the right shape for their gardens that would rain on them, so they can have their flower show. Mickey, Pluto, and Goofy end up saving them when the Glove Balloon gets stranded on a cloud and they need help to create "Minnie and Daisy's Flower Shower."
Switched to PBS Kids for Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Katarina and O and their parents and uncle sleep over the Tiger Family's house when they're evacuated due to "A Storm In the Neighborhood." The loud rain and thunder scares the kids, but their parents assure them that they have a plan to keep them safe. "After the Neighborhood Storm" everyone pitches in to clean up, including the firefighters who help remove a tree from in front of the Clock Factory.
Listened to records while doing the laundry and resting my foot. The Broadway revival of The Boy Friend from 1970 was supposed to be headlined by Judy Carne of Laugh-In as sweet Polly Browne. Sandy Duncan was the one who got the lion's share of good notices as Maisie, the boldest of Polly's friends who sings "Won't You Charleston With Me?" and "Safety In Numbers." Jeanne Beauvais as the girls' teacher Madame Dubonnet also does well by "Fancy Forgetting" and "Poor Little Pirouette."
Put the laundry in the dryer as I moved on to children's albums. Beryl Berney was apparently a journalist, artist, and puppeteer who worked on children's shows in the 1950's and 60's when she did a series of storytelling albums for kids-based Rocking Horse Records. Snow White and Dick Whittington are pretty much the traditional version of those stories, other than Snow White has a unique ending. The Wicked Queen turns so ugly, she destroys her mirrors when she looks into them, including the magic one.
The Story of Robin Hood is a condensed retelling of the 1952 live-action Disney movie of the same name. The movie itself is good but not great, and that's reflected here. I do like the build up for Prince John and King Richard's mother Queen Eleanor as Maid Marion's boss, and some of Robin's men can be pretty funny. This is nice to hear if you love Robin Hood stories or Disney's 50's and 60's movies, but far from essential. Dal McKennon narrates here.
Moved to Match Game '75 as The Story of Robin Hood ended. Richard Dawson's then-girlfriend Jody Donovan was such a doll during the week of New Year's, I wish she had come back, no matter who she was dating. New Year's Eve 1975 was celebrated with noisemakers, balloons dropping, and hats for everyone. (Jody's glittering headband and short hairstyle made her look like she'd just walked out of The Boy Friend.) Charles popped a Match Game '75 balloon to reveal '76...then popped that one to show '77, then showed '78 drawn on his thumb.
Finished the night with game shows from Richard Dawson's native England, starting with the two that have been running on Buzzr this month as part of their "Buzzr Goes Global" marathon. Freemantle, Buzzr's parent company, is British, and thus has no shortage of shows from that country. Going for Gold had seven contestants from across the UK and Europe answering questions and playing against each other to see who would continue in the tournament. The show ran for a decade as people tuned in to see who would be moving on to the next week. The episode I have here from 1990 includes a blind contestant and his seeing eye dog who is not only introduced in the opening, but does quite well, making it to the end of the show.
Small Talk is probably one the most hilariously adorable game shows to come out of Britain. Three adults guess how a panel of 9 kids will answer a certain question in this variation on Child's Play. No wonder this ran for two years on the BBC and Buzzr chose it for their marathon. The kids are a riot, and jovial host Ronnie Corbett is obviously having a ball watching them.
Double Your Money goes way further back. This hit from 1955 was apparently based on The $64,000 Question, but more closely resembles an early form of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Couples answer questions for escalating amounts, leading to the "1,000 Pound Treasure Hunt." This was an early hit for ITV and is one of the earliest surviving TV game shows in England.
3-2-1, based on a Spanish format, may be one of the most unique game shows ever in England. The first half starts as a straight quiz, with couples answering questions. The second half looks something like a cross between Monty Python, Let's Make a Deal, and Beat the Clock. The winning couple does stunts based on the theme of the day (cartoons, in this case), then watch a series of wacky skits and give answers based on clues given by an actor from the skit, a prop they bring over, and what they can remember from them. The winners from that have to choose between a series of prizes. The bad prize on this show will land them "Dusty Bin," the show's robotic comic mascot and official "klunk." Maybe we ought to try mixing variety shows and game shows more often over here in the US, because this was really fun, especially that wacky second half.
Chain Letters is a far more traditional game show. In this 1987 series, three contestants change letters on a computerized word to make another word. The second round had them trying to predict what word one of the contestants would make. The third round had them changing certain letters from a word on the screen. The winner would see how many words they could form by changing one letter in 60 seconds. This was also lot of fun, and pretty challenging. It was enough of a hit for ITV to pull it out again for two series starting in 1995.
The British get far more into their comedy panel shows than we Americans do. Case in point, the irreverent and utterly hilarious Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Two panels of rock musicians guess what will happen in a music video, facts about other musicians, and try to remember the next line of a song. Celebrity guests will pop in to help answer questions and sing the first bars of a popular rock song. The real attraction was watching all of these musicians make jokes about their fellow performers and be delightfully witty. They had such a good time, this ran for almost two decades on the BBC from 1996 to 2015 and was revived successfully for four years starting in 2021.
Take a summer trip across the Atlantic to make letter chains, dodge moving trash bins, double your money, and watch some of the funniest kids and musicians on either side of the pond.
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