Had a really quick lunch before calling Uber. I was tired, it was warm and windy, and my heel has been sore. Unfortunately, I called too late. They took 15 minutes to arrive, and I was over 10 minutes late. Surprisingly, they only took 8 minutes to pick me up at the height of rush hour.
The Acme was a mess today. There were long lines, even with three registers open. I couldn't even sweep. I kept dodging people. I couldn't keep up with the carts, either. They kept vanishing. There was no one to help me. The Acme heavily cut back hours. It was all they could do just to have enough people inside. At least the weather could have been worse. It was mostly sunny, windy, and slightly cloudy, though it did spit slightly just as I finished at 5.
As soon as I got home, I changed, finished the Bee Gees album, and put on today's marathon. Match Game wasn't the only game show Richard Dawson appeared on. Even before he hosted Family Feud, he was a ubiquitous presence in shows as far apart as Celebrity Bowling and The Gong Show. He got some of his earliest game show exposure as part of the panel of the hilarious 1972 syndicated version of I've Got a Secret. In fact, Goodson and Todman were so impressed with him in that show, it led to his stint on Match Game. The episode that introduced the Bob Barker version of The Price Is Right is included here. Audience members bid on items belonging to the panelists - in Richard's case, his mailbox - and whomever got the closest to what it actually cost won.
Richard was likely the most popular panelist on Match Game from it's beginning in 1973 until he got fed up and left around mid-June 1978. His antics figured into some of the funniest episodes. He played Brett Somers, who sat over him, not once, but twice. Betty White was his Charles Nelson Reilly in the 1977 nighttime episode. Fannie Flagg played him in the day show from earlier that year. Gene Rayburn also remembered to never bet against Richard when he wagered that his answer to "Admiral ___" wouldn't be on the Audience Match, and..well, Richard was very rarely wrong.
He and Betty were two of the four "grandmasters" who made it to the finale of the 1975 Password All-Stars tournament (the only episode of that run available today). Bill Bixby of My Favorite Martian and The Incredible Hulk and Hal Linden of Barney Miller were the other two. They all played really well (especially with their hilarious descriptions of "Halleujah!"), but in the end, even Betty couldn't beat Richard. He won money for his charity and a beautiful golden plate.
Feud had its own share of memorable moments once that started in 1976. There was the lady who answered "September" when Richard asked at what month does a pregnancy start to show. He laughed so hard, he nearly ended up on the floor. It didn't help when her sister came out a few minutes later and said "cuckoo" when he asked to name a noisy bird. Every year, his older son Mark (and later, Mark's wife Cathy) would celebrate Richard's birthday with a cake for the cast. One year, Richard got mobbed by the audience after the cake came out. Another year, they took so long bringing the cake out and introducing Richard's younger boy Gary (who had been living with his mother in England at that point), they played a few questions, then let both families play Fast Money and return to play a legitimate game.
Celebrate the life and times of one of the funniest Match Game panelists and the first Master of the Feud with these hilarious episodes!
Oh, and I switched back and forth between the marathon and the Tonys on Paramount Plus for a while. I think I'll need to get the cast albums for Schmigadoon! and Two People Carrying a Cake Across New York the moment they come out on vinyl. Not as interested in The Lost Boys - I'm not a fan of the movie, either. Ragtime is one of my favorite musicals and I'm so glad it won Best Musical Revival, but I'm fine with my original cast album that I bought when it came out in 1998. I really thought Cats: The Jelllicoe Ball would win, based on all the yellow fans in the audience. Loved the lady who was the Narrator for Rocky Horror Show. She was just the right kind of adorably creepy. My sister Anny was always a bigger fan of Pink than me, but I did think her performance of "All That Jazz" from Chicago (the revival is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year) was fabulous. (Incidentally, Death of a Salesman won Best Play Revival, Liberation, on the women's lib movement of the 70's, won Best Play, and Schmigadoon! won Best Musical.)