So I was watching the Desperate Housewives - Grey's Anatomy double dip on Sunday night... (and Grey’s Anatomy is now the better show both in quality and ratings) and just after the Grey’s scene with the crazy tree climbing stalker woman, the local news tease came on,..."Tonight Channel 7 Remembers Bill Beutel"... Oh yeah... Bill Beutel.. I remember him... and then I saw the little graphic saying 1930-2006 and I realized why young whippersnapper Charles Perez was even mentioning the former Channel 7 anchorman.
Beutel's death actually reminded me of something long forgotten in the deep recesses of my mind. Back in the old days, I used to watch Channel 7 Eyewitness News. But, since the late ‘80s, I have been flip flopping between Channel 2 and 4... usually based on Warner Wolf's employment status at Channel 2. When Warner was on.. I watched 2.. if not.. it was Chuck and Sue... But way back when.. in the 80s... I actually did watch Channel 7... As did my mother.. and I can prove it. Here is a clip from a home movie where she gets breaking news about President Clinton from my friend Mike Roth, and Channel 7, as she was packing to move from her old house in Roselle. Click play to see the video.. in letterbox format! Check out Roz Abrams before her stunning Channel 2 makeover!
As I recall, Bill Beutel used to anchor the 6 pm news with the late Roger Grimsby... Grimsby was this old curmudgeon with a sarcastic dry wit who used to make wisecracks during the broadcast... while Beutel was the handsome older gentleman who was supposed to be the picture of class...(I’m sure Peter Jennings was inspired by Beutel when he molded his own on air persona.).. Back then Spencer Christian used to do the sports at 6 (but he would do the weather on the 5pm cast while regular weatherman Storm Field anchored the news with spell check stumper Roseanne Scamardella). Eyewitness News was the home of happy talk news.. yet it amazed me that Roger never ever ever spoke directly to Spencer Christian. Not even a thank you for his fine sports repot... nothing.. gornisht... Sports was over... Roger went to the next news story...usually a feature with Milton Lewis.. (remember him?) Grimsby stayed on until the late 80s, and Beutel just retired a few years ago.
This is how news works. Newspapers and TV stations prepare obituaries in advance so when someone famous dies.. they are ready to roll instantly with a nice tribute package. That’s how it went with Beutel. Bill Ritter, Beutel's successor on Eyewitness News, pre recorded a piece... However, I found one aspect of their Beutel tribute to be very bizarre. All of the interviews are prerecorded in the past tense... with the intent to use it after the person's death.... Well., Channel 7 interviewed the late Peter Jennings some time back.. and here is Jennings talking about Beutel in the past tense! It was very creepy... Did Jennings record obit pieces for other news people before his own death? Actually the sharp viewer (not to be confused with another late ABC News Roger... Roger Sharp) would notice that the piece was recorded for Beutel's retirement a few years ago, and it just so happened that in the sound bite Jennings referred to Bill Beutel in the past tense.
I’ll miss Bill. He was a class act and looked good for his age. And this raises the question.. Where do people get their news? Do people read blogs to catch up with what’s going on in the world? That brings me to today's commentary on stuff that has been going on that grinds my gears.
Tom Cruise... why is this man famous?? What a moron! He exercised his free speech with comments last year that blasted Brooke Shields for post- partum depression, his criticism of the mental health field (I’m married to a social worker and my dad was a shrink), and his ridiculous debate on The Today Show with Matt Lauer... .why oh why do we pay attention to this no-talent? All the gay people think he is gay.. yet if people try to out him he goes ballistic. And it’s all because of this crazy L Ron Hubbard cult he belongs to that harshly criticizes the mental health field. Of course it does.. its members go for therapy and the therapist tells them... "Hey you’re in a cult.. get out of it!". That’s why the Jews for Jesus cult’s “constitution” rejects the rabbinical teachings of Orthodox Judaism… Jews joining that logic defying organization make as much sense as a vegetarian in a hot dog eating contest.
Well the fine folks at South Park decided to exercise their free speech just like Cruise did with his absurd ramblings,... by doing an episode making fun of Cruise's cult. And what happens? No more repeats of that episode.. Ol' Tom didn’t like it... so he allegedly told his movie company (which owns Comedy Central the network of South Park) that he won't do any publicity for his upcoming movie if they allow the show to be rebroadcast.
I guess Freedom of Speech only applies to certain people. In Hollywood, if you have the right credentials you can get away with anything. Remember the actor Cliff Robertson? His career was blacklisted because of a bad check scandal.. except Robertson was the victim of a check written to him by Columbia big shot David Begelman, which Begelman then cashed by forging Cliff’s signature. The Hollywood Powers that Be decided that Robertson should be blacklisted for having the audacity to be the victim of a crime by the beloved Begelman. Imagine that.
Or how about the recent World Baseball Classic? WBC runner-up Cuba was playing a road game and one of the fans unfurled a banner criticizing Fidel Castro. The Cuban bigshot at the game ran up furiously to berate the banner holder only to be stopped by stadium security which promptly reminded the Cuban that that part of South America allows democracy and free speech… unlike Cruise and his cult world.
Hollywood is not the only place with a bizarre double standard. NJ's new Governor Jon Corzine got a call one night from Trenton lobbyist Karen Golding that she was in jail and needed some bail money. Okie dokie said the fabulously rich Corzine.. here are some shekels... and a get out of jail free card... Was it bail out now and ask questions later? It turns out that Golding was accused to stalking Union County Assemblyman Joseph Cryan and was caught red handed breaking into his car!
Cryan himself recently became the head of the State Democratic Party.. but not before he was cleared of accusations of receiving an illegal campaign donation. The accuser was a fellow who was screwed over in Union by our old favorite… eminent domain. This guy bought some land in Union and was about to hire a developer to build some townhouses when lo and behold, the big shots in Union decided to take the land back through eminent domain and let a differently politically connected local developer do the job instead. The aforementioned developer was actively involved in fundraisers for Mr. Cryan. Was Ms. Golding breaking into the car in a Watergate-esque conspiracy to find the smoking gun in this coincidence? Or was she a bit coo coo and had the hots for Mr. Cryan like the looney toon stalker who fell out of the tree in Sunday nights episode of Grey's Anatomy?
Golding is not the only stalker in the news. Some poor shlub named Ronald Martin was just convicted last week of stalking WABC talk show host and wacky yet hot conservative Monica Crowley. Martin was convicted of sending her a ton of emails and trying to give her flowers at a subway stop. Martin upon his arrest did not call the governor as far as I know,... and if so, he probably would not have gotten through. The poor guy is apparently homeless and has spent a large part of the last year and a half in mental hospitals.. Obviously his medicine hasn't been kicking in… or he decided to follow the teaching of the L Ron Hubbard cult and refused to take them. Obviously he’s not well if he likes Monica Crowley.. . .. even though she’s hot, her politics cancel out her good looks... and so what if he bought her flowers? Maybe Crowley should give the guy a shot. maybe a nice candlelight dinner at a local hot dog stand.
And what about that ABC jinx? Crowley is on WABC... Morning man Curtis Sliwa is worried about his life after his cohost Ron Kuby's testimony helped lead to the hung jury of the man he accused of shooting him.. Channel 7 just lost Bill Beutel and ABC's Evening News anchor Bob Woodruff was mortally wounded in Iraq just months after the death of Peter Jennings.
And where do I get my news?
I’m definitely avoiding the jinxed ABC entities. Maybe I’ll start listening to WOR instead. They just added Donna Hanover and some new traffic guy. Or maybe I’ll just read The Star Ledger which had a picture of an old college pal on the front page of Monday's paper. Although it annoys me that their TV critics spend so much time talking about The Sopranos and then act like it’s better than 24. I mean c’mon… Audrey Raines, Jack Bauer’s paramour working with terrorists? That beats watching a man in a coma!
Or…maybe Ill just sit in a tree and watch Grey‘s Anatomy and the Charles Perez news teases on my Ipod...
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Thursday, March 16, 2006
The Most Incredible Five Days in Television History
Assuming they get past their squabbling, construction should soon be getting underway at the World Trade Center site.. And wouldn’t this be a good time to shift the focus on this horrible tragedy away from the date - September 11th - and more to the event itself?
The stigma of the date is starting to be felt by little pishers entering kindergarten this fall… kids who were actually born on September 11th 2001...not to mention other little kiddies who also try to celebrate their birthdays on that day. They will have to spend their lives knowing what was going on as they as they entered this fine fine world. The same goes for people who were born on December 7, 1941... Even though it is a day that “will live in infamy”, we now refer to it not by date… but as Pearl Harbor Day.. After 12-7-41, the focus was more on the event than on the date… and kids back then who were born on 12-7 had to also deal with the coincidence. One such person born on the 1st anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day… Peter Tomarken went on to a career of game show stardom.. hosting Press Your Luck which ranked number 7 on my recent list of the Top 14 Game Shows Ever. Tomarken’s life sadly came to an end Monday when he died in a plane crash while on a Roberto Clemente-esque charity mission.
I recently purchased the September 11, 1965 issue of TV Guide. I used to collect TV Guides until last October, but I stopped when they made the foolish decision to discontinue the regional listings in favor of the current national glossy format. However, even though I don’t collect them anymore I still buy certain back issues on eBay… specifically those from certain landmark dates.. This particular issue covers the day I was born,…. couldn’t get much more landmark than that!
You cant imagine how tough it was to get that issue… since the September 11th issue happened to be a Fall Preview Issue… (Are we getting more comfortable now with using September 11th in that context folks?) I knew Hogan’s Heroes premiered the day I was born.. But as I read through the Fall Preview… which back then was vastly less detailed and shorter than the Fall Previews as we know it today. It was also an innocent time for TV in the pre cable era where people weren’t downloading shows on their video ipods, or watching the NCAA tournament on their pc’s at work since CBS Sportsline.com so kindly offers it for free! And yes folks.. I did pick the Wisconsin-Milwaukee victory!
This issue also led me to a realization. You really have to salute the TV programmers who put together an ass kicking lineup for Fall 1965. Take a look at this incredible list of landmark shows that premiered in what I call the most amazing 5 days in television history….
The fun started on September 13th with the premiere of 3 new shows: The night actually kicked off with the season premiere of Rawhide… which is only notable for me because it shares a name with my favorite now defunct bar that used to be in Nyack.
MY MOTHER THE CAR - How original can you get? Barry Van Dyke starred in this much maligned show about a guy who buys a car that is inhabited by the ghost of his dead mother. It was a concept from way out there.. But people still make jokes about it to this day!
PLEASE DON’T EAT THE DAISIES - The show was based on the famous Jean Kerr book which was later made into a movie with Doris Day.
F TROOP - Arguably the most popular of the 9-13 premieres.. Larry Storch, Ken Berry and Forrest Tucker starred in this much repeated sitcom about the wacky Fort Courage.. Hey did Dan Rather serve there?
September 14th marked the premiere of 5 classics even more famous than the shows that premiered the day before…
LOST IN SPACE - Danger Will Robinson… Crush Kill Destroy… what else can you say? The premiere was the episode where Dr. Smith snuck on the space ship… and of course it was the show that gave us the futuristic much imitated Robot! The show was produced by disaster movie maven Irwin Allen and was about the first family to colonize in outer space.
GIDGET - Sally Field was in it.. And she’s a surfer…What more can you ask for?
GREEN ACRES - Ok.. Lets all sing along.. Green Acres is the place to be… Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor starred as NY City muckety mucks who decide to give it all up to move to a farm in Hooterville.. The show was spun off from Petticoat Junction.. Can you imagine a show nowadays taking place in… Hooterville? It would probably be a reality show where Hooters girls would be judged by Simon Cowell wisenheimers.
BIG VALLEY - If you weren’t watching Oliver the Pig over on CBS, ABC was kicking off Big Valley… The show featured the Barkley family and the premiere episode had a Maury Povich-esque twist where a gentleman arrives claiming to be the son of the late family patriarch Tom Barkley. Oy vey.. And what a cast.. Barbara Stanwyck! Lee Majors! And wait till you see what a cutie pie Linda Evans was back in 1965! I’d show you the pic, but my scanner is on the fritz… thank you HP…. And here is a knee slapper from this yuksters at the TV Guide Fall Preview department.. “There seems to be everything in the Big Valley but a jolly green Giant” Yo ho ho!
I SPY - The Jackie Robinson of sitcoms.. Bill Cosby and Robert Culp costarred as the dynamic duo of undercover agents… and also marked the first sitcom with the first black man as the lead. The show was filmed all over the world and was produced by Sheldon Leonard who as readers of this blog now know,… was a cousin of Trophy Wife..
Thursday… in the pre- Must See TV… this premiere sure as heck deserved to be billed that way…
THE DEAN MARTIN SHOW - The showbiz legend had one heckuva premiere with an outrageous guest list… Jack Jones, Steve Allen, Danny Thomas, Eddie Fisher, Jan and Dean, Diahann Carroll, Bob Newhart, Joey Heatherton, The Krofft Puppets.. (then called the Marionettes) and… the Chairman of the Board… Frank Sinatra… Gosh.. Who did they get on the second show?
Friday… Sheldon Leonard welcomed a new cousin by marriage although it would be 2004 before we would finally be related.. And what a night.. Not only in the maternity ward at Mt. Sinai.. But also in television land.. No wonder the nurses weren’t paying attention to me.. There were too many awesome premieres…
HOGAN’S HEROES - For one thing, it helped make game show legend Richard Dawson famous in the USA, and actually got some yuks out of the premise of a POW camp... That gave new meaning to the term.. The inmates running the asylum! Bob Crane was the star… although his x rated hijinks that were shown in Auto Focus built his legacy for a new generation… Bob Clary was also on the show.. He was actually a Holocaust survivor…
HONEY WEST - Anne Francis starred as a James Bond-esque private eye.. Her lipstick was actually a radio transmitter. That uniqueness lasted a full day till another show hit the airwaves that featured a lot of other outrageous gadgets.
THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS SHOW - Not the variety show but actually a sitcom where Tom is Dick’s long lost brother who is now an angel! The boys weren’t too famous then.. But maybe this show helped launch their careers… not to mention the uncomfortable precedent of CBS showing weird supernatural shows on Friday nights such as the wacky insane Ghost Whisperer show with Jennifer Love Hewitt that currently inhabits that timeslot. Maybe in retrospect this show was not that legendary after all.
THE WILD WILD WEST A show I loved as a kid.. It was a tongue in cheek western about a guy named Jim West. Each time it went to commercial, they froze the final pre commercial shot and then zipped it to a corner of the screen. The next time they went to commercial, the shot was again frozen and moved to the next corner until the show was over and all the frozen shots were onscreen and basically recapped the whole episode. The term is technically called a wipe… and it actually was quite a cool idea. I also didn’t realize until I got the TV Guide that Wild Wild West came to this earth the same day that I did!
Saturday… Would you believe that would you believe used to be asked without a Don Adams accent? That all ended on 9-18-65
GET SMART - What a legend! GSN just ran a week of Match Game episodes with Don Adams, and you could see him cringe in pain as each of the panelists continuously did their Maxwell Smart impressions. Here is how TV Guide describes it…
“One episode co-authored by Mel Brooks involves a dwarf called Mr. Big, a NY Mets doubleheader, a plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty , a diabolical weapon called Dante’s Inthermo and a scow full of rubber garbage. Some of the plots on the other hand are preposterous”.
That show also started my habit of singing the tune loudly at automatic sliding doors. I am now banned by the doormen at many finer apartment buildings!
I DREAM OF JEANNIE - While Sharon Stone goes around bragging about how much skin she will show in Basic Instinct 2... Barbara Eden pushed the envelope with this legendary show by showing her belly button. Eden is about 20 years older than Sharon Stone and still holds her own quite well, thank you very much. The show is about an astronaut played by Larry Hagman who finds a bottle.. opens it.. And out pops Jeannie. Bill Daily from the Bob Newhart show was also one of the stars. This was not one of my favorites by the way, but is still a classic.
Sunday… Would you believe there was something to watch on Sunday in the Pre-Simpsons, Pre-60 Minutes era??
THE FBI - A Quinn Martin Production! Remember that announcer from Barnaby Jones? Efrem Zimbalist Jr. starred as Lew Erskine.. who also has a personal life that just complicates his working life and adds intriguing plot lines to the final of the week‘s premieres. Sort of like The Sopranos for Good Guys. Speaking of which.. I finally saw an episode last week… so big deal.. Tony gets shot by the old dancing guy from the Great Adventure commercials.
Wow.. What a week… 15 awesome shows… a Smothers Brothers flop… and it all appeared in the September 11th 1965 Fall Preview! I think TV execs have been drained of their creative juices since I doubt we will ever see a week with so many fantastic premieres!
The stigma of the date is starting to be felt by little pishers entering kindergarten this fall… kids who were actually born on September 11th 2001...not to mention other little kiddies who also try to celebrate their birthdays on that day. They will have to spend their lives knowing what was going on as they as they entered this fine fine world. The same goes for people who were born on December 7, 1941... Even though it is a day that “will live in infamy”, we now refer to it not by date… but as Pearl Harbor Day.. After 12-7-41, the focus was more on the event than on the date… and kids back then who were born on 12-7 had to also deal with the coincidence. One such person born on the 1st anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day… Peter Tomarken went on to a career of game show stardom.. hosting Press Your Luck which ranked number 7 on my recent list of the Top 14 Game Shows Ever. Tomarken’s life sadly came to an end Monday when he died in a plane crash while on a Roberto Clemente-esque charity mission.
I recently purchased the September 11, 1965 issue of TV Guide. I used to collect TV Guides until last October, but I stopped when they made the foolish decision to discontinue the regional listings in favor of the current national glossy format. However, even though I don’t collect them anymore I still buy certain back issues on eBay… specifically those from certain landmark dates.. This particular issue covers the day I was born,…. couldn’t get much more landmark than that!
You cant imagine how tough it was to get that issue… since the September 11th issue happened to be a Fall Preview Issue… (Are we getting more comfortable now with using September 11th in that context folks?) I knew Hogan’s Heroes premiered the day I was born.. But as I read through the Fall Preview… which back then was vastly less detailed and shorter than the Fall Previews as we know it today. It was also an innocent time for TV in the pre cable era where people weren’t downloading shows on their video ipods, or watching the NCAA tournament on their pc’s at work since CBS Sportsline.com so kindly offers it for free! And yes folks.. I did pick the Wisconsin-Milwaukee victory!
This issue also led me to a realization. You really have to salute the TV programmers who put together an ass kicking lineup for Fall 1965. Take a look at this incredible list of landmark shows that premiered in what I call the most amazing 5 days in television history….
The fun started on September 13th with the premiere of 3 new shows: The night actually kicked off with the season premiere of Rawhide… which is only notable for me because it shares a name with my favorite now defunct bar that used to be in Nyack.
MY MOTHER THE CAR - How original can you get? Barry Van Dyke starred in this much maligned show about a guy who buys a car that is inhabited by the ghost of his dead mother. It was a concept from way out there.. But people still make jokes about it to this day!
PLEASE DON’T EAT THE DAISIES - The show was based on the famous Jean Kerr book which was later made into a movie with Doris Day.
F TROOP - Arguably the most popular of the 9-13 premieres.. Larry Storch, Ken Berry and Forrest Tucker starred in this much repeated sitcom about the wacky Fort Courage.. Hey did Dan Rather serve there?
September 14th marked the premiere of 5 classics even more famous than the shows that premiered the day before…
LOST IN SPACE - Danger Will Robinson… Crush Kill Destroy… what else can you say? The premiere was the episode where Dr. Smith snuck on the space ship… and of course it was the show that gave us the futuristic much imitated Robot! The show was produced by disaster movie maven Irwin Allen and was about the first family to colonize in outer space.
GIDGET - Sally Field was in it.. And she’s a surfer…What more can you ask for?
GREEN ACRES - Ok.. Lets all sing along.. Green Acres is the place to be… Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor starred as NY City muckety mucks who decide to give it all up to move to a farm in Hooterville.. The show was spun off from Petticoat Junction.. Can you imagine a show nowadays taking place in… Hooterville? It would probably be a reality show where Hooters girls would be judged by Simon Cowell wisenheimers.
BIG VALLEY - If you weren’t watching Oliver the Pig over on CBS, ABC was kicking off Big Valley… The show featured the Barkley family and the premiere episode had a Maury Povich-esque twist where a gentleman arrives claiming to be the son of the late family patriarch Tom Barkley. Oy vey.. And what a cast.. Barbara Stanwyck! Lee Majors! And wait till you see what a cutie pie Linda Evans was back in 1965! I’d show you the pic, but my scanner is on the fritz… thank you HP…. And here is a knee slapper from this yuksters at the TV Guide Fall Preview department.. “There seems to be everything in the Big Valley but a jolly green Giant” Yo ho ho!
I SPY - The Jackie Robinson of sitcoms.. Bill Cosby and Robert Culp costarred as the dynamic duo of undercover agents… and also marked the first sitcom with the first black man as the lead. The show was filmed all over the world and was produced by Sheldon Leonard who as readers of this blog now know,… was a cousin of Trophy Wife..
Thursday… in the pre- Must See TV… this premiere sure as heck deserved to be billed that way…
THE DEAN MARTIN SHOW - The showbiz legend had one heckuva premiere with an outrageous guest list… Jack Jones, Steve Allen, Danny Thomas, Eddie Fisher, Jan and Dean, Diahann Carroll, Bob Newhart, Joey Heatherton, The Krofft Puppets.. (then called the Marionettes) and… the Chairman of the Board… Frank Sinatra… Gosh.. Who did they get on the second show?
Friday… Sheldon Leonard welcomed a new cousin by marriage although it would be 2004 before we would finally be related.. And what a night.. Not only in the maternity ward at Mt. Sinai.. But also in television land.. No wonder the nurses weren’t paying attention to me.. There were too many awesome premieres…
HOGAN’S HEROES - For one thing, it helped make game show legend Richard Dawson famous in the USA, and actually got some yuks out of the premise of a POW camp... That gave new meaning to the term.. The inmates running the asylum! Bob Crane was the star… although his x rated hijinks that were shown in Auto Focus built his legacy for a new generation… Bob Clary was also on the show.. He was actually a Holocaust survivor…
HONEY WEST - Anne Francis starred as a James Bond-esque private eye.. Her lipstick was actually a radio transmitter. That uniqueness lasted a full day till another show hit the airwaves that featured a lot of other outrageous gadgets.
THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS SHOW - Not the variety show but actually a sitcom where Tom is Dick’s long lost brother who is now an angel! The boys weren’t too famous then.. But maybe this show helped launch their careers… not to mention the uncomfortable precedent of CBS showing weird supernatural shows on Friday nights such as the wacky insane Ghost Whisperer show with Jennifer Love Hewitt that currently inhabits that timeslot. Maybe in retrospect this show was not that legendary after all.
THE WILD WILD WEST A show I loved as a kid.. It was a tongue in cheek western about a guy named Jim West. Each time it went to commercial, they froze the final pre commercial shot and then zipped it to a corner of the screen. The next time they went to commercial, the shot was again frozen and moved to the next corner until the show was over and all the frozen shots were onscreen and basically recapped the whole episode. The term is technically called a wipe… and it actually was quite a cool idea. I also didn’t realize until I got the TV Guide that Wild Wild West came to this earth the same day that I did!
Saturday… Would you believe that would you believe used to be asked without a Don Adams accent? That all ended on 9-18-65
GET SMART - What a legend! GSN just ran a week of Match Game episodes with Don Adams, and you could see him cringe in pain as each of the panelists continuously did their Maxwell Smart impressions. Here is how TV Guide describes it…
“One episode co-authored by Mel Brooks involves a dwarf called Mr. Big, a NY Mets doubleheader, a plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty , a diabolical weapon called Dante’s Inthermo and a scow full of rubber garbage. Some of the plots on the other hand are preposterous”.
That show also started my habit of singing the tune loudly at automatic sliding doors. I am now banned by the doormen at many finer apartment buildings!
I DREAM OF JEANNIE - While Sharon Stone goes around bragging about how much skin she will show in Basic Instinct 2... Barbara Eden pushed the envelope with this legendary show by showing her belly button. Eden is about 20 years older than Sharon Stone and still holds her own quite well, thank you very much. The show is about an astronaut played by Larry Hagman who finds a bottle.. opens it.. And out pops Jeannie. Bill Daily from the Bob Newhart show was also one of the stars. This was not one of my favorites by the way, but is still a classic.
Sunday… Would you believe there was something to watch on Sunday in the Pre-Simpsons, Pre-60 Minutes era??
THE FBI - A Quinn Martin Production! Remember that announcer from Barnaby Jones? Efrem Zimbalist Jr. starred as Lew Erskine.. who also has a personal life that just complicates his working life and adds intriguing plot lines to the final of the week‘s premieres. Sort of like The Sopranos for Good Guys. Speaking of which.. I finally saw an episode last week… so big deal.. Tony gets shot by the old dancing guy from the Great Adventure commercials.
Wow.. What a week… 15 awesome shows… a Smothers Brothers flop… and it all appeared in the September 11th 1965 Fall Preview! I think TV execs have been drained of their creative juices since I doubt we will ever see a week with so many fantastic premieres!
Thursday, March 09, 2006
The Sopranos?
Well.. everybody is all excited because woo hoo The Sopranos are coming back Sunday night... and for me... it means more hoopla about a show I don't watch. I haven’t had HBO for at least 10 or 15 years... so aside from the one episode I saw off a buddy's dvd a couple of years ago, I really don’t know too much about the show. I liked the episode.. but not enough to run right to the cable company to order it.
Well a couple of weeks ago, Trophy Wife was complaining to me about how annoying it was to have dial up... and I was complaining to her about how high our phone bill is. To be honest she has a point.. dial up can't handle all the graphics that adorn websites and it was a royal pain in the neck to sit and wait an hour to upload and then download my 8 minute podcast interview with Walter "Its Hard Out Here For a Pump" Nagel. (Listen to my last pod cast to understand that reference! Kudos to my buddy Craig for coming up with that knee-slapper)
I called the local cable company and lo and behold... we could kill the proverbial two birds with one stone... (a phrase one should never use when talking to people from The Audubon Society). The cable company has a promotion for a cable modem AND phone service for a fee much cheaper than the phone bill had been... And, added the overzealouos salesman.. HBO is included!
Well we got the cable modem hooked up and its a breeze... and I'm thrilled beyond belief that we won't be getting these big phone bills anymore.. but alas... HBO is not included...as my eager beaver salesman over promised and under delivered. However, the cable company nicely agreed to throw it in for a month.. which is fair enough because I tend to watch too many bad movies already. The other night I sat through 2 hours of this horrible Alec Baldwin movie... (and by the way I liked "The Marrying Man"!) called The Last Shot about this bizarro plot to stage a fake movie filming just to lure in some mobsters in a sting. It was a pretty lame-o movie with maybe one or two chuckles along the way. I must admit I liked Toni Collette in this role and shes come quite a long way since Muriel’s Wedding!! However, this whole cable thing might be a moot point, because if the cable company drops GSN to add the new Mets channel as other systems have done.. its gonna be adios cable and helloooo satellite dish!
But why is that we glorify the mob and criminals? I just don't get it. Back in my radio days, a man whose young son had been murdered told me he couldn’t understand why people watch "Murder She Wrote".... because it glorifies murder. I always kept that grieving father's comments in the back of my mind when I thought about buying into The Sopranos frenzy.
And what is with this fixation with prisoners? How is it that one of the Menendez brothers found a wife.. while my single buddies continue to troll the singles scene and peck away at their computers trying to meet chickies on JDate?? And they still can't find anyone?
Granted, some shows have a way of showing a gray area when it comes to the good guys/bad guys battle. Many shows have created situations where you actually have to root for the bad guy because his bad has some asterisks. CSI-NY (which is becoming the best of the CSIs) had an episode last week where a guy killed a woman who had extorted him once before and was about to do it again. (He was a restaurant owner who lost his 1st restaurant and his family left him when a woman scammed him with a food poisoning accusation, and he killed her after catching her red-handed in his new restaurant trying to do it a 2nd time). 24 also does this all the time too. Speaking of which, I'm dreading Monday's episode with the Edgar post mortem. And since they are in the sealed room does that mean Edgar's body is just going to lie there for the next few episodes. Y'think Bill Buchanan will throw himself at Chloe to console her? I think he used to be with Michelle and her character also died on the same day. Hmm...
Getting back to the topic of organized crime, if I was the program director of WABC.. .this is the first thing I would do. FIRE RON KUBY. He doesn't deserve to be co-hosting the morning drive show with Curtis Sliwa. His testimony on the witness stand in the Gotti trial this week shows that there are no words in the English language to define how low he has sunk. In his pre-WABC days, Kuby was a relative nobody.. .he used to be the late William Kunstlter's little sidekick.,.. and all he really did was clip Kunstler's eyebrows. By the way, Kunstler’s widow Margaret Ratner later had a little feud with Kuby about legal files that her late husband left behind.
Kuby... a defense lawyer by trade has put a black mark on other defense lawyers with his antics over the years. I mentioned this in a prior column that constitutionally, every accused criminal deserves the right to a solid defense. No question about it. But some people take cases for the wrong reasons.. to further their own agenda. From a radio entertainment persepective, Kuby has 2 things going for him .. he is a bleeding heart liberal and he has charm. But he can shmooze his way only so much when he opens his big mouth and takes on a cause just to draw attention to himself. That is not the purpose of a defense attorney.
And in reality.. If Kuby didn’t get the gig with Curtis Sliwa, he would probably be a talking head on MSNBC with Rita Cosby...(doesn't that Daily News reporter who interviewed that Littlejohn guy bear an uncanny resemblance to Rita?) and the other hosts on the all news stations.. like that annoying lawyer from FL with the long dark hair and lipgloss who is an inspiration to thank God every day that I'm married since she reminds me of the awful women I used to meet back when I was single. But these liberals are a dime a dozen and Kuby knows it. Although I may not agree 100% with Curtis Sliwa.. he is the heart and soul of the show.... and Kuby would have a lot less shekels in the bank if it werent for the fact that he rode Curtis Sliwa's coattails. Actually Kuby wouldn’t have shekels because he is a self hating Jew...
So what does Kuby do? He testifies in the Gotti Jr. trial. Gotti Jr. was on trial for hiring the hitman who tried to kill Curtis Sliwa several years ago by ambushing him in a taxi. Sliwa only escaped by climbing out of the taxicab window. Let me tell you my viewpoint on this whole Gotti issue. I assume the Gottis are plumbing salesman. That's what they say. Who am I to question? I like their old lawyer Bruce Cutler who pronounced the word mafia as Ma - feye-a as he said he wasn’t familiar with the word or its pronunciation. I lead the naïve driven life when it comes to these things, so I dont know much about organized crime, because that alleged lifestyle doesnt fascinate me. I don’t watch the Sopranos…. And I have never seen the Godfather… although it has been suggested that that be the next movie series I see after I finish up with Star Wars.
In his trial, Gotti Jr. needed to prove that he has been out of the alleged family business since '99 to avoid being found guilty due to the expiring of the statute of limitations. And what does Kuby do? He goes on the stand to testify that Gotti Jr. told him in '99 that he wanted to live the straight life, thereby sticking it to his meal ticket, and digging the knife deeper into Curtis’s back. Kuby’s agenda? Look at his past history.
Curtis feels that Gotti Jr. is guilty. Do you think he is going to live in fear now that there has been a second mistrial? Why should Curtis have to live with that fear because of a man whose success he is almost 100% responsible for? I think WABC should just cut him loose and find any from the many other liberals that walk our streets to replace him on the lefty vs. righty show. I would even nominate Alberich who writes DAS Blog as an excellent candidate for the position. Based on his blogs, he fit’s the bill perfectly, and he also bears an uncanny resemblance to my former Rabbi.
Now if you will excuse me I must set my vcr to The Sopranos. You don’t think I’m going to miss Desperate Housewives and The Family Guy??
Well a couple of weeks ago, Trophy Wife was complaining to me about how annoying it was to have dial up... and I was complaining to her about how high our phone bill is. To be honest she has a point.. dial up can't handle all the graphics that adorn websites and it was a royal pain in the neck to sit and wait an hour to upload and then download my 8 minute podcast interview with Walter "Its Hard Out Here For a Pump" Nagel. (Listen to my last pod cast to understand that reference! Kudos to my buddy Craig for coming up with that knee-slapper)
I called the local cable company and lo and behold... we could kill the proverbial two birds with one stone... (a phrase one should never use when talking to people from The Audubon Society). The cable company has a promotion for a cable modem AND phone service for a fee much cheaper than the phone bill had been... And, added the overzealouos salesman.. HBO is included!
Well we got the cable modem hooked up and its a breeze... and I'm thrilled beyond belief that we won't be getting these big phone bills anymore.. but alas... HBO is not included...as my eager beaver salesman over promised and under delivered. However, the cable company nicely agreed to throw it in for a month.. which is fair enough because I tend to watch too many bad movies already. The other night I sat through 2 hours of this horrible Alec Baldwin movie... (and by the way I liked "The Marrying Man"!) called The Last Shot about this bizarro plot to stage a fake movie filming just to lure in some mobsters in a sting. It was a pretty lame-o movie with maybe one or two chuckles along the way. I must admit I liked Toni Collette in this role and shes come quite a long way since Muriel’s Wedding!! However, this whole cable thing might be a moot point, because if the cable company drops GSN to add the new Mets channel as other systems have done.. its gonna be adios cable and helloooo satellite dish!
But why is that we glorify the mob and criminals? I just don't get it. Back in my radio days, a man whose young son had been murdered told me he couldn’t understand why people watch "Murder She Wrote".... because it glorifies murder. I always kept that grieving father's comments in the back of my mind when I thought about buying into The Sopranos frenzy.
And what is with this fixation with prisoners? How is it that one of the Menendez brothers found a wife.. while my single buddies continue to troll the singles scene and peck away at their computers trying to meet chickies on JDate?? And they still can't find anyone?
Granted, some shows have a way of showing a gray area when it comes to the good guys/bad guys battle. Many shows have created situations where you actually have to root for the bad guy because his bad has some asterisks. CSI-NY (which is becoming the best of the CSIs) had an episode last week where a guy killed a woman who had extorted him once before and was about to do it again. (He was a restaurant owner who lost his 1st restaurant and his family left him when a woman scammed him with a food poisoning accusation, and he killed her after catching her red-handed in his new restaurant trying to do it a 2nd time). 24 also does this all the time too. Speaking of which, I'm dreading Monday's episode with the Edgar post mortem. And since they are in the sealed room does that mean Edgar's body is just going to lie there for the next few episodes. Y'think Bill Buchanan will throw himself at Chloe to console her? I think he used to be with Michelle and her character also died on the same day. Hmm...
Getting back to the topic of organized crime, if I was the program director of WABC.. .this is the first thing I would do. FIRE RON KUBY. He doesn't deserve to be co-hosting the morning drive show with Curtis Sliwa. His testimony on the witness stand in the Gotti trial this week shows that there are no words in the English language to define how low he has sunk. In his pre-WABC days, Kuby was a relative nobody.. .he used to be the late William Kunstlter's little sidekick.,.. and all he really did was clip Kunstler's eyebrows. By the way, Kunstler’s widow Margaret Ratner later had a little feud with Kuby about legal files that her late husband left behind.
Kuby... a defense lawyer by trade has put a black mark on other defense lawyers with his antics over the years. I mentioned this in a prior column that constitutionally, every accused criminal deserves the right to a solid defense. No question about it. But some people take cases for the wrong reasons.. to further their own agenda. From a radio entertainment persepective, Kuby has 2 things going for him .. he is a bleeding heart liberal and he has charm. But he can shmooze his way only so much when he opens his big mouth and takes on a cause just to draw attention to himself. That is not the purpose of a defense attorney.
And in reality.. If Kuby didn’t get the gig with Curtis Sliwa, he would probably be a talking head on MSNBC with Rita Cosby...(doesn't that Daily News reporter who interviewed that Littlejohn guy bear an uncanny resemblance to Rita?) and the other hosts on the all news stations.. like that annoying lawyer from FL with the long dark hair and lipgloss who is an inspiration to thank God every day that I'm married since she reminds me of the awful women I used to meet back when I was single. But these liberals are a dime a dozen and Kuby knows it. Although I may not agree 100% with Curtis Sliwa.. he is the heart and soul of the show.... and Kuby would have a lot less shekels in the bank if it werent for the fact that he rode Curtis Sliwa's coattails. Actually Kuby wouldn’t have shekels because he is a self hating Jew...
So what does Kuby do? He testifies in the Gotti Jr. trial. Gotti Jr. was on trial for hiring the hitman who tried to kill Curtis Sliwa several years ago by ambushing him in a taxi. Sliwa only escaped by climbing out of the taxicab window. Let me tell you my viewpoint on this whole Gotti issue. I assume the Gottis are plumbing salesman. That's what they say. Who am I to question? I like their old lawyer Bruce Cutler who pronounced the word mafia as Ma - feye-a as he said he wasn’t familiar with the word or its pronunciation. I lead the naïve driven life when it comes to these things, so I dont know much about organized crime, because that alleged lifestyle doesnt fascinate me. I don’t watch the Sopranos…. And I have never seen the Godfather… although it has been suggested that that be the next movie series I see after I finish up with Star Wars.
In his trial, Gotti Jr. needed to prove that he has been out of the alleged family business since '99 to avoid being found guilty due to the expiring of the statute of limitations. And what does Kuby do? He goes on the stand to testify that Gotti Jr. told him in '99 that he wanted to live the straight life, thereby sticking it to his meal ticket, and digging the knife deeper into Curtis’s back. Kuby’s agenda? Look at his past history.
Curtis feels that Gotti Jr. is guilty. Do you think he is going to live in fear now that there has been a second mistrial? Why should Curtis have to live with that fear because of a man whose success he is almost 100% responsible for? I think WABC should just cut him loose and find any from the many other liberals that walk our streets to replace him on the lefty vs. righty show. I would even nominate Alberich who writes DAS Blog as an excellent candidate for the position. Based on his blogs, he fit’s the bill perfectly, and he also bears an uncanny resemblance to my former Rabbi.
Now if you will excuse me I must set my vcr to The Sopranos. You don’t think I’m going to miss Desperate Housewives and The Family Guy??
Monday, March 06, 2006
It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp
No.. today’s column is not about the Oscar winning song.. (which by the way kicked off a crazy finish of 8 out of 11 accurate picks in my Oscar pool). However.. The song would be appropriate for the new town in Florida… a wacky but now retracted proposed town being developed by Domino’s owner Thomas Monaghan,
Start singing along folks.. Its gonna be called Ave Maria.. And according to the original proposal….if you’re not Catholic.. they don’t want you there. Even Governor Jeb Bush attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new town that Monaghan promises will never have abortions, porn, contraception at a drug store, or a Little Ceasars franchise. Now, Monaghan has realized that he has a little controversy on his hands.. And has announced these proposals will only apply to the new Catholic college he wants to build within the confines (pun intended) of Ave Maria. Businesses will also have to sign agreements in their leases that the aforementioned products will not be offered at any time.
Porn… I’m all for a ban.. The porn magazine industry is in such a disarray since so much of it is free on the internet.. Not to mention all the movies people can buy and/or rent… and most seem to like the movies better than the magazines. Will Monaghan force an internet ban like the ultra Orthodox Jewish community in Lakewood, New Jersey? The magazines are out of control and some of the stuff that is on the covers (not to mention the covers of FHM and Maxim) really shouldn’t be out there for the eyes of the little ones. Some of the harder core porn mags have covers that are way too graphic.. So if he wants to ban porn. I won’t complain. But wait till he runs into the Supreme Court-eque question of what constitutes porn? Will the aforementioned non nude mags also be banned? How about the SI swimsuit issue? How about the fitness magazines that show women in bikinis? Where do you draw the line? Hmmmm…
Speaking of porn.. Do you think Fox News Channel owner Rupert Murdoch ever looked at My Spaces before he bought it? That website is out of control… with wacko pedophiles reaching out to girls under the age of 18. As it stands right now... the chat rooms are so out of control with these pedophiles lurking around. NBC News Reporter Chris Hanson has done some remarkable undercover pieces showing sexual predators being lured to a home under the guise of meeting an underage teen. The pervert shows up at a house to meet a kid… and hello.. Its Chris Hanson…
I was researching the recent game show column and I read a column on a My Spaces blog, and I couldn’t believe some of the links posted there. Let’s cut right to the chase. Attention parents of teenagers!! Why don’t you take more control over your child’s internet access and/or access to a digital camera. it’s a lethal combination, Some of these pics that have been posted online are absolutely scary! There are so many sickos out there who are perusing these websites and trying to meet these children, while the parents just go around lollygagging without a clue about what their kids are posting out there. People may want to blame My Spaces, but teenagers are sophisticated enough to build their own websites… and while its ok for adults to post “adult content”… somebody… a concept called PARENTS should do some parenting and make sure that their kids are not turning into a new generation of Traci Lords. Maybe there is some merit to the Lakewood internet ban after all!
Abortions - Lets face it.. have you ever seen a storefront clinic that has the word “abortion” posted out front? Nope.. But when the good little Catholic girls are no longer virginal in Monaghan-land.. And of course condoms won’t be available.. They will just have to hop in the car and go to the next town to have their abortions. This traveling abortion circus will make a mockery of the whole teenage premarital sex ban and probably open up the eyes of some of the more reasonable looney tunes who will realize that maybe the idea of banning birth control is not such a brilliant idea… and abortions will always be available as the girls who go get them.
And just Monday, Governor Mike Rounds has signed a new law into effect that bans almost all abortions in South Dakota except where it endangers the mother. Lets flash back in our time machine to last month's blog... "Klein and King".. for this natesterdamus nugget!
“The Nancy Klein event was when I permanently became Pro-Choice, and realized how scary life would be if the Supreme Court ever overturns Roe v Wade. I don’t necessarily think abortion is right.. but it must remain legal. I also realized this issue doesn’t have much to do with abortion… but about morons who want to butt into personal family decisions. The Right to Lifers, as evidenced by the Klein case are out of control and need to be stopped before things get too far... especially the extreme religious right. Sadly, this hasn’t stopped Bush from being elected TWICE.. And in reality the President’s most powerful job… is picking the Supreme Court justices who will ultimately keep or reject this law.
Who knows how the courts will rule on these type of topics if Bush keeps picking justices? The Right Wingers only care about their extreme beliefs and their attempts to overturn Roe v Wade could lead to a lot of scenarios. Lets say a rape victim wants an abortion.. . Amazingly some right wingers will say the procedure is ok if she was “raped” and that means a “crime” was committed.. Which means without a conviction, there was no crime, and then we will live in a society where victims of rape and incest will be forced to carry a baby. Do you really think a rapist would be convicted before the point where it would be safe to abort a fetus?”
Well now South Dakotans have lost a freedom granted by our constitution.. Rape and incest victims are not protected by this law.. so if a pervert meets a teenager on My Space and rapes her.. she has to keep the baby. And of course the question of how this baby will be supported has not been thought through by these moronic SD lawmakers. And how about this horrific scenario? A crazy sick man decides to molest his stepdaughter... the aforementioned teenager now MUST carry the baby if he impregnates her. He goes to prison...(assuming of course that the teen's mom doesn't buy his crazy alibi..."But… she seduced me") And who helps her support the baby?
But before we blame Governor Rounds, who was too cowardly to speak to the press.... lets blame the voters. Don’t you people realize what happens when we vote Republicans into office? Any woman out there who sadly could be forced to carry a baby because they are the victim of such horrific violence should not be voting Republican. See what happens folks when you give the party power on the local level! Wow.. welcome to South Dakota.. where perverts can father children and poor rape victims get to carry them! Maybe their Chamber of Commerce can make that their tourism advertising slogan
As for the birth control ban…how absurd can you get? Im not such an expert on Catholicism.. But don’t Protestants allow birth control? Ok.. So they wanna ban my fellow Jews.. But Protestants too! This is worse than a golf course! A Protestant won’t be allowed to buy condoms, The Pill… or anything else a sponge worthy man’s paramour would want to pick up on a routine trip to Walgreens. Will the next town have a sign in its drug store window…”Last Jimmy Hat before Ave Maria”… Wow.. What a marketing campaign.
Some have made the argument that there are some very orthodox towns such as New Square. I’m not 100 percent sure.. but I believe its almost exclusively Hasidic.. And they have strict rules that all chusids must observe. You gotta give the chusids credit. They really appreciate the beauty of a woman! When I was a teenager, I simultaneously discovered women and The Honeymooners. I used to get a kick out of Ralph Kramden getting so discombobulated that all he could say was “Homina Homina”…Then every time I would see a beautiful woman.. It because a method of measuring how stunning she was if all I could say was “Homina Homina”… Then as the teen years became the 20s.. we would simply refer to beautiful women as hominas.
And the chusids really must be saying “homina homina“. The men are so prone to get all stimulated from seeing female skin that the Rabbis have issued strict modesty rules where the women are to be covered from head to toe. But, the more observant go even further than that.. And in New Square the sexes walk on alternate sides of the street…and woman are not considered modest if they sit in the front seat of a car.. So they are not allowed to drive. But when push comes to shove.. the whole issue about the men looking at skin is kind of sexy actually… it shows how much they appreciate the beauty of a woman.
Most of this New Square information is made available to us by the town’s spokesman Rabbi Meyer Schiller, an incredibly fascinating person who grew up Reform and later became an ultra Orthodox New Square man. Schiller had to give up all of his old vices,… except for one… The New York Rangers… a team I despise, but I guess you can give Schiller a pass for that one, I know in the 80s he used to watch his beloved team wearing a Rangers jersey over his Chusid outfit,… no truth to the rumor that New Square passerby have heard old tapes of Marv Albert and Sal Red Light Messina being drowned out with yells of “Islanders suck!” That’s not to be confused with the Monday night yells from my house during 24 of “Get out of there Edgar… Edgar bubbele..... run for safety. Get into the sealed room”.. right before my favorite character died from an outbreak of nerve gas. It was so sad seeing Chloe looking at him with such heartbreak from the sealed room as he inhaled the gas and dropped dead…. I always rooted for him… the short chubby guy… to finally hook up with Chloe… He was so sponge worthy…. Maybe it would have been nice if she would could flashed him her boobies so he had something to look at in his final moment… but then again… I guess Ave Maria, FL wouldn’t have aired 24.. Too pornographic.
I can just hear the Ave Maria advertising campaign being sung to the tune of “Gilligan’s Island”…. no abortions, no porn, no birth control, not a single luxury,…. And with all of these Victorian morals.. they might be better off singing Ave Maria's true theme song...”It’s hard out here for a pimp”
Start singing along folks.. Its gonna be called Ave Maria.. And according to the original proposal….if you’re not Catholic.. they don’t want you there. Even Governor Jeb Bush attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new town that Monaghan promises will never have abortions, porn, contraception at a drug store, or a Little Ceasars franchise. Now, Monaghan has realized that he has a little controversy on his hands.. And has announced these proposals will only apply to the new Catholic college he wants to build within the confines (pun intended) of Ave Maria. Businesses will also have to sign agreements in their leases that the aforementioned products will not be offered at any time.
Porn… I’m all for a ban.. The porn magazine industry is in such a disarray since so much of it is free on the internet.. Not to mention all the movies people can buy and/or rent… and most seem to like the movies better than the magazines. Will Monaghan force an internet ban like the ultra Orthodox Jewish community in Lakewood, New Jersey? The magazines are out of control and some of the stuff that is on the covers (not to mention the covers of FHM and Maxim) really shouldn’t be out there for the eyes of the little ones. Some of the harder core porn mags have covers that are way too graphic.. So if he wants to ban porn. I won’t complain. But wait till he runs into the Supreme Court-eque question of what constitutes porn? Will the aforementioned non nude mags also be banned? How about the SI swimsuit issue? How about the fitness magazines that show women in bikinis? Where do you draw the line? Hmmmm…
Speaking of porn.. Do you think Fox News Channel owner Rupert Murdoch ever looked at My Spaces before he bought it? That website is out of control… with wacko pedophiles reaching out to girls under the age of 18. As it stands right now... the chat rooms are so out of control with these pedophiles lurking around. NBC News Reporter Chris Hanson has done some remarkable undercover pieces showing sexual predators being lured to a home under the guise of meeting an underage teen. The pervert shows up at a house to meet a kid… and hello.. Its Chris Hanson…
I was researching the recent game show column and I read a column on a My Spaces blog, and I couldn’t believe some of the links posted there. Let’s cut right to the chase. Attention parents of teenagers!! Why don’t you take more control over your child’s internet access and/or access to a digital camera. it’s a lethal combination, Some of these pics that have been posted online are absolutely scary! There are so many sickos out there who are perusing these websites and trying to meet these children, while the parents just go around lollygagging without a clue about what their kids are posting out there. People may want to blame My Spaces, but teenagers are sophisticated enough to build their own websites… and while its ok for adults to post “adult content”… somebody… a concept called PARENTS should do some parenting and make sure that their kids are not turning into a new generation of Traci Lords. Maybe there is some merit to the Lakewood internet ban after all!
Abortions - Lets face it.. have you ever seen a storefront clinic that has the word “abortion” posted out front? Nope.. But when the good little Catholic girls are no longer virginal in Monaghan-land.. And of course condoms won’t be available.. They will just have to hop in the car and go to the next town to have their abortions. This traveling abortion circus will make a mockery of the whole teenage premarital sex ban and probably open up the eyes of some of the more reasonable looney tunes who will realize that maybe the idea of banning birth control is not such a brilliant idea… and abortions will always be available as the girls who go get them.
And just Monday, Governor Mike Rounds has signed a new law into effect that bans almost all abortions in South Dakota except where it endangers the mother. Lets flash back in our time machine to last month's blog... "Klein and King".. for this natesterdamus nugget!
“The Nancy Klein event was when I permanently became Pro-Choice, and realized how scary life would be if the Supreme Court ever overturns Roe v Wade. I don’t necessarily think abortion is right.. but it must remain legal. I also realized this issue doesn’t have much to do with abortion… but about morons who want to butt into personal family decisions. The Right to Lifers, as evidenced by the Klein case are out of control and need to be stopped before things get too far... especially the extreme religious right. Sadly, this hasn’t stopped Bush from being elected TWICE.. And in reality the President’s most powerful job… is picking the Supreme Court justices who will ultimately keep or reject this law.
Who knows how the courts will rule on these type of topics if Bush keeps picking justices? The Right Wingers only care about their extreme beliefs and their attempts to overturn Roe v Wade could lead to a lot of scenarios. Lets say a rape victim wants an abortion.. . Amazingly some right wingers will say the procedure is ok if she was “raped” and that means a “crime” was committed.. Which means without a conviction, there was no crime, and then we will live in a society where victims of rape and incest will be forced to carry a baby. Do you really think a rapist would be convicted before the point where it would be safe to abort a fetus?”
Well now South Dakotans have lost a freedom granted by our constitution.. Rape and incest victims are not protected by this law.. so if a pervert meets a teenager on My Space and rapes her.. she has to keep the baby. And of course the question of how this baby will be supported has not been thought through by these moronic SD lawmakers. And how about this horrific scenario? A crazy sick man decides to molest his stepdaughter... the aforementioned teenager now MUST carry the baby if he impregnates her. He goes to prison...(assuming of course that the teen's mom doesn't buy his crazy alibi..."But… she seduced me") And who helps her support the baby?
But before we blame Governor Rounds, who was too cowardly to speak to the press.... lets blame the voters. Don’t you people realize what happens when we vote Republicans into office? Any woman out there who sadly could be forced to carry a baby because they are the victim of such horrific violence should not be voting Republican. See what happens folks when you give the party power on the local level! Wow.. welcome to South Dakota.. where perverts can father children and poor rape victims get to carry them! Maybe their Chamber of Commerce can make that their tourism advertising slogan
As for the birth control ban…how absurd can you get? Im not such an expert on Catholicism.. But don’t Protestants allow birth control? Ok.. So they wanna ban my fellow Jews.. But Protestants too! This is worse than a golf course! A Protestant won’t be allowed to buy condoms, The Pill… or anything else a sponge worthy man’s paramour would want to pick up on a routine trip to Walgreens. Will the next town have a sign in its drug store window…”Last Jimmy Hat before Ave Maria”… Wow.. What a marketing campaign.
Some have made the argument that there are some very orthodox towns such as New Square. I’m not 100 percent sure.. but I believe its almost exclusively Hasidic.. And they have strict rules that all chusids must observe. You gotta give the chusids credit. They really appreciate the beauty of a woman! When I was a teenager, I simultaneously discovered women and The Honeymooners. I used to get a kick out of Ralph Kramden getting so discombobulated that all he could say was “Homina Homina”…Then every time I would see a beautiful woman.. It because a method of measuring how stunning she was if all I could say was “Homina Homina”… Then as the teen years became the 20s.. we would simply refer to beautiful women as hominas.
And the chusids really must be saying “homina homina“. The men are so prone to get all stimulated from seeing female skin that the Rabbis have issued strict modesty rules where the women are to be covered from head to toe. But, the more observant go even further than that.. And in New Square the sexes walk on alternate sides of the street…and woman are not considered modest if they sit in the front seat of a car.. So they are not allowed to drive. But when push comes to shove.. the whole issue about the men looking at skin is kind of sexy actually… it shows how much they appreciate the beauty of a woman.
Most of this New Square information is made available to us by the town’s spokesman Rabbi Meyer Schiller, an incredibly fascinating person who grew up Reform and later became an ultra Orthodox New Square man. Schiller had to give up all of his old vices,… except for one… The New York Rangers… a team I despise, but I guess you can give Schiller a pass for that one, I know in the 80s he used to watch his beloved team wearing a Rangers jersey over his Chusid outfit,… no truth to the rumor that New Square passerby have heard old tapes of Marv Albert and Sal Red Light Messina being drowned out with yells of “Islanders suck!” That’s not to be confused with the Monday night yells from my house during 24 of “Get out of there Edgar… Edgar bubbele..... run for safety. Get into the sealed room”.. right before my favorite character died from an outbreak of nerve gas. It was so sad seeing Chloe looking at him with such heartbreak from the sealed room as he inhaled the gas and dropped dead…. I always rooted for him… the short chubby guy… to finally hook up with Chloe… He was so sponge worthy…. Maybe it would have been nice if she would could flashed him her boobies so he had something to look at in his final moment… but then again… I guess Ave Maria, FL wouldn’t have aired 24.. Too pornographic.
I can just hear the Ave Maria advertising campaign being sung to the tune of “Gilligan’s Island”…. no abortions, no porn, no birth control, not a single luxury,…. And with all of these Victorian morals.. they might be better off singing Ave Maria's true theme song...”It’s hard out here for a pimp”
Friday, March 03, 2006
1977 Part II - The Summer of Sam
It was May 25, 1977... the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend of... The Summer of Sam. Memorial Day always kicked off the summer... The Jerry Lewis Telethon, then on Channel 5 marked the end of summer… and it was on September 8, 1977 just days after Jerry sang “You Will Never Walk Alone” that Interpol met and discussed the dangers of audio and video piracy. (Don’t you also watch the disclaimer at the beginning of movies??) On that fateful May day, all the other kids were gearing up to see this new Star Wars movie featuring r2d2, c3p0, Chewbacca and Princess Leia and Darth Vader. Me?? What did I know? I was home that Friday afternoon watching Match Game '77 with a panel of Dick Smothers, Meg Bennett, Fannie Flagg, along with Brett, Chuck and Richard. Any fact checkers want to doubt that was the panel that Friday?? I'll leave the details of that day’s episode of The Price is Right to my blog pal Louis in Tampa, but I think they gave away 2 cars, someone hit a dollar on the wheel and one of the contestants overbid in the showcase showdown that featured Johnny Olsen cavorting with Janice Pennington and Dian Parkinson in their cleavage filled bikinis.
The Summer of 77 was also known as the Summer of Sam.... Spike Lee made a pretty good movie about that fateful summer as chics were scared to make out with their boyfriends in their Dodge Darts because of...."the Son of Sam". Michael Badalucco who used to be in "The Practice" did a great job playing Son of Sam.. especially in the scene where he engages in a conversation with a talking dog! There also was an amusing scene where John Leguizamo shows how his character is not too into his girlfriends needs in the bedroom. The movie also featured Jim Jensen playing himself.. and it was great to see the Channel 2 legend once again! He died a short time after the movie was released.
Now, close to 30 years later, I have finally seen the original Star Wars. And you know what? I actually liked it. However had I not seen the other 3 movies first, I don’t think I would have liked it as much. For you peeps who saw the 1977 movie when it came out... you didn’t have the backstory of the first three flicks. That’s why I could sit patiently while Sir Alec Guiness explained to Luke Skywalker how the force works.
By the way, remember back in the early 80s, Channel 5 used to run movies on Sat. nights at 11pm under the guise of “The Channel 5 Movie Club”. It was a perfect opening act for “Fright Night” which aired afterwards on Channel 9. The Channel 5 Movie Club would show “uncut” movies which means yours truly actually could see an occasional breast slipped past the censors when they showed films like “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice” and “Straw Dogs”. Viewers could even send in for a pin… and who you might ask would actually join The Channel 5 Movie Club?? Well folks, here is that pin! Maybe we will use it as a symbol for movie columns on this blog,
Star Wars picks up approximately 25 or so years after SW III left off. Twins Luke and Leia who were adopted at the end of the third movie have yet to meet. At the end of SW III, Obie wan Kenobie arranged for them to be raised by two different families. However, their lives are quite different. Leia is a glamorous, sophisticated Princess, while Luke works on his Uncle’s farm, never really goes anywhere, and spends a lot of time obsessing about his real father.
Leia however is a real swashbuckler. Darth Vader and his gang have created the Death Star…. A facility powerful enough to destroy a planet. But the Death Star has a vulnerability which can cause it to be destroyed.. And that little sneak Leia manages to steal the plans to do so. Ol’ Darth finds out about it and Leia downloads the info into R2D2.… which means he is basically an Ipod… and you don’t need a subscription to Itunes to listen to it! R2 is sent out to find Obie… so that once again the Force can save the world!
By now I of course have learned that these stretches of the imagination can be attributed to ... The power of the force! It would have been nice to know about this when I saw the first movie and sat there stunned that the little pisher Annakin Skywalker could save the world. How ironic that this movie has a similar ending with his son Luke using the force. It’s also interesting to note that Luke sees his family get murdered and decides instantly to join The Force… while Annakin’s mother’s murder inspired him to go off on a murderous rampage where he killed innocent women and children. And I always thought the force worked when there is a runner on the base behind you! I saw this movie “Blast from the Past” recently where this kid is born and raised in an underground bomb shelter after his weird parents erroneously thought a nuclear bomb had gone off. The father teaches his son about baseball.. But the kid doesn’t understand what a force means until he leaves his bunker to buy groceries and ends up going to a baseball game.. At which point he bellows out… “Oh the force… now I get it!!” .
Luke purchases R2D2 and C3P0 literally off the back of a truck….and while cleaning 'em and preparing to clean out the hard drive….he finds the embedded info. Pretty sophisticated for 1977. Luke’s day starts out very Jack Bauer-esque…. One minute he’s working on a farm wondering who his real father is.. The next moment he is called in to save the world. .. And with plenty of references to real time.. it starts to once again look like another episode of 24. Speaking of which, wasn't Mondays episode of 24 just fantastic? It was a lot better than the 8pm hour when Deal or No Deal jumped the shark at the very moment that Donald Trump walked onto the stage. And how about Sean Astin's character's meltdown? I remember when he was a kid, his parents John Astin and Patti Duke Astin hosted the local version of the Jerry Lewis telethon... And their kids would be playing around on stage during the later hours of the telethon.. Patti Duke would actually start yelling at them on live TV when they acted up! And next week on 24... a 2 hour episode with Tony and Kim making appearances. I'm psyched!!
At this point you have to keep a chart about who knows what. I know that Darth Vader was Annakin Skwalker and fathered both Luke and Leia. But, the '77 viewer doesn’t know this, nor do Luke and Leia which is kind of kooky since they kind of have a little spark going after they meet. Darth Vader apparently doesn’t know that Leia is his daughter... yet Obie won kenobie who is now an older man seems to have the whole family tree down pat.
Lucas is quiet consistent with the SW mythology since stuff that is referred to in this movie,… are consistent with the facts laid out in movies he made more than 20 years later. One exception is when Obie gives Annakin’s light saber to Luke and says his dad wanted him to have it… That’s not quite true since in the end of SW III, Obie beats the living hell out of Annakin and then confiscated his light saber. However, both droids at one point are on the same ship as Darth yet they never see each other. If they did see each other, then Darth would recognize them from his youth... yet if Darth still has the psychic powers of the Force... wouldn’t he sense his two buddies were on the ship? Or was this a ploy to save Princess Leia since he really knows she’s his daughter? And does he really kill Obie wan Kenobie? Guiness is back for the next movie... I checked the cast on IMDB but carefully avoided any details....so unless he appears in flashback. I’m not too sure about this one... and please don’t post comments that would give it away.
I like how the characters allude to past events that from the first 3 films.. but the '77 viewers who were seeing it just assumed this was part of the Great Star Wars mythology. The story picks up with Luke being recruited by Obie Wan to use the powers of the Force to fight evil and help save the Princess. They decide to hire a renegade pilot Han Solo played by a very young Harrison Ford. Of course as is the case with every movie.. the “troubled hero” is found in a seedy location… this time at a very sleazy bar in a neighborhood referred to as “a hive of scum and villiany“ When they meet Han Solo at the bar, the rough and tough bartender evokes memories (and maybe exact lines) of the bartender in "Its a Wonderful Life" played by Sheldon Leonard... who just so happens to be related to my wife. He was back in the news this week with the death of Don Knotts.. Since it was Sheldon Leonard’s idea to add Knotts to the cast of “The Andy Griffith Show”
Once Solo is ready to take off.... the adventures begin… Accompanied by Chewbacca, (the only actor to appear in SW III and the ’77 movie), r2, c3 and a rejuvenated Obie.. Its time to save the world… a task that can only ultimately be accomplished by destroying the Death Star with a precise air attack. Along the way, our pals get into all kinds of tight binds.. And ultimately… Obie “reunites” with Darth in a thrilling light saber duel, Darth makes note of the fact that the two are meeting again.. But what the 77 viewers don’t know is that Obie once gave Darth a can of whoop-ass in SW III which severely deformed him and forced him to walk around with what turned out to be the best selling costume for Halloween 1977. Darth seems to finish Obie off… he just kind of dies and melts there on the ground.. Or maybe it was some kind of force thing going on and he really doesn’t die! Hmmmm…
The story is well presented and the special effects are excellent and don’t pale in comparison with the 3 movies that Lucas would make more than 20 years later. It appears that he had the concepts for the first 3 movies in his mind before he wrote Star Wars because the consistency is remarkable. The only disappointment.. And it really doesn’t affect the quality of the movie was…. There’s no Yoda!! I even wore my Yoda watch when I watched the movie that I mentioned in the review of SW III.
The dvd that I saw apparently is not the exact version that was in the ‘77 movie since Lucas tweaked it and fixed it up a bit. However, I really don’t want to track down the original vhs since the quality is nowhere as sharp as the dvd.. And I probably wouldn’t even notice the subtle changes.
So therefore I am just gonna assume that the final bladder grade would be the same if I had seen the original flick that you folks saw….
On a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom… the original Star Wars….. It’s a 4 bladder movie!!
Here are my Oscar Picks for the big awards…
Actor - Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Actress - Felicity Huffman
Supporting Actor - Paul Giamatti
Supporting Actress - Michelle Williams
Director - Brokeback Mountain
Best Picture - Crash
The Summer of 77 was also known as the Summer of Sam.... Spike Lee made a pretty good movie about that fateful summer as chics were scared to make out with their boyfriends in their Dodge Darts because of...."the Son of Sam". Michael Badalucco who used to be in "The Practice" did a great job playing Son of Sam.. especially in the scene where he engages in a conversation with a talking dog! There also was an amusing scene where John Leguizamo shows how his character is not too into his girlfriends needs in the bedroom. The movie also featured Jim Jensen playing himself.. and it was great to see the Channel 2 legend once again! He died a short time after the movie was released.
Now, close to 30 years later, I have finally seen the original Star Wars. And you know what? I actually liked it. However had I not seen the other 3 movies first, I don’t think I would have liked it as much. For you peeps who saw the 1977 movie when it came out... you didn’t have the backstory of the first three flicks. That’s why I could sit patiently while Sir Alec Guiness explained to Luke Skywalker how the force works.
By the way, remember back in the early 80s, Channel 5 used to run movies on Sat. nights at 11pm under the guise of “The Channel 5 Movie Club”. It was a perfect opening act for “Fright Night” which aired afterwards on Channel 9. The Channel 5 Movie Club would show “uncut” movies which means yours truly actually could see an occasional breast slipped past the censors when they showed films like “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice” and “Straw Dogs”. Viewers could even send in for a pin… and who you might ask would actually join The Channel 5 Movie Club?? Well folks, here is that pin! Maybe we will use it as a symbol for movie columns on this blog,
Star Wars picks up approximately 25 or so years after SW III left off. Twins Luke and Leia who were adopted at the end of the third movie have yet to meet. At the end of SW III, Obie wan Kenobie arranged for them to be raised by two different families. However, their lives are quite different. Leia is a glamorous, sophisticated Princess, while Luke works on his Uncle’s farm, never really goes anywhere, and spends a lot of time obsessing about his real father.
Leia however is a real swashbuckler. Darth Vader and his gang have created the Death Star…. A facility powerful enough to destroy a planet. But the Death Star has a vulnerability which can cause it to be destroyed.. And that little sneak Leia manages to steal the plans to do so. Ol’ Darth finds out about it and Leia downloads the info into R2D2.… which means he is basically an Ipod… and you don’t need a subscription to Itunes to listen to it! R2 is sent out to find Obie… so that once again the Force can save the world!
By now I of course have learned that these stretches of the imagination can be attributed to ... The power of the force! It would have been nice to know about this when I saw the first movie and sat there stunned that the little pisher Annakin Skywalker could save the world. How ironic that this movie has a similar ending with his son Luke using the force. It’s also interesting to note that Luke sees his family get murdered and decides instantly to join The Force… while Annakin’s mother’s murder inspired him to go off on a murderous rampage where he killed innocent women and children. And I always thought the force worked when there is a runner on the base behind you! I saw this movie “Blast from the Past” recently where this kid is born and raised in an underground bomb shelter after his weird parents erroneously thought a nuclear bomb had gone off. The father teaches his son about baseball.. But the kid doesn’t understand what a force means until he leaves his bunker to buy groceries and ends up going to a baseball game.. At which point he bellows out… “Oh the force… now I get it!!” .
Luke purchases R2D2 and C3P0 literally off the back of a truck….and while cleaning 'em and preparing to clean out the hard drive….he finds the embedded info. Pretty sophisticated for 1977. Luke’s day starts out very Jack Bauer-esque…. One minute he’s working on a farm wondering who his real father is.. The next moment he is called in to save the world. .. And with plenty of references to real time.. it starts to once again look like another episode of 24. Speaking of which, wasn't Mondays episode of 24 just fantastic? It was a lot better than the 8pm hour when Deal or No Deal jumped the shark at the very moment that Donald Trump walked onto the stage. And how about Sean Astin's character's meltdown? I remember when he was a kid, his parents John Astin and Patti Duke Astin hosted the local version of the Jerry Lewis telethon... And their kids would be playing around on stage during the later hours of the telethon.. Patti Duke would actually start yelling at them on live TV when they acted up! And next week on 24... a 2 hour episode with Tony and Kim making appearances. I'm psyched!!
At this point you have to keep a chart about who knows what. I know that Darth Vader was Annakin Skwalker and fathered both Luke and Leia. But, the '77 viewer doesn’t know this, nor do Luke and Leia which is kind of kooky since they kind of have a little spark going after they meet. Darth Vader apparently doesn’t know that Leia is his daughter... yet Obie won kenobie who is now an older man seems to have the whole family tree down pat.
Lucas is quiet consistent with the SW mythology since stuff that is referred to in this movie,… are consistent with the facts laid out in movies he made more than 20 years later. One exception is when Obie gives Annakin’s light saber to Luke and says his dad wanted him to have it… That’s not quite true since in the end of SW III, Obie beats the living hell out of Annakin and then confiscated his light saber. However, both droids at one point are on the same ship as Darth yet they never see each other. If they did see each other, then Darth would recognize them from his youth... yet if Darth still has the psychic powers of the Force... wouldn’t he sense his two buddies were on the ship? Or was this a ploy to save Princess Leia since he really knows she’s his daughter? And does he really kill Obie wan Kenobie? Guiness is back for the next movie... I checked the cast on IMDB but carefully avoided any details....so unless he appears in flashback. I’m not too sure about this one... and please don’t post comments that would give it away.
I like how the characters allude to past events that from the first 3 films.. but the '77 viewers who were seeing it just assumed this was part of the Great Star Wars mythology. The story picks up with Luke being recruited by Obie Wan to use the powers of the Force to fight evil and help save the Princess. They decide to hire a renegade pilot Han Solo played by a very young Harrison Ford. Of course as is the case with every movie.. the “troubled hero” is found in a seedy location… this time at a very sleazy bar in a neighborhood referred to as “a hive of scum and villiany“ When they meet Han Solo at the bar, the rough and tough bartender evokes memories (and maybe exact lines) of the bartender in "Its a Wonderful Life" played by Sheldon Leonard... who just so happens to be related to my wife. He was back in the news this week with the death of Don Knotts.. Since it was Sheldon Leonard’s idea to add Knotts to the cast of “The Andy Griffith Show”
Once Solo is ready to take off.... the adventures begin… Accompanied by Chewbacca, (the only actor to appear in SW III and the ’77 movie), r2, c3 and a rejuvenated Obie.. Its time to save the world… a task that can only ultimately be accomplished by destroying the Death Star with a precise air attack. Along the way, our pals get into all kinds of tight binds.. And ultimately… Obie “reunites” with Darth in a thrilling light saber duel, Darth makes note of the fact that the two are meeting again.. But what the 77 viewers don’t know is that Obie once gave Darth a can of whoop-ass in SW III which severely deformed him and forced him to walk around with what turned out to be the best selling costume for Halloween 1977. Darth seems to finish Obie off… he just kind of dies and melts there on the ground.. Or maybe it was some kind of force thing going on and he really doesn’t die! Hmmmm…
The story is well presented and the special effects are excellent and don’t pale in comparison with the 3 movies that Lucas would make more than 20 years later. It appears that he had the concepts for the first 3 movies in his mind before he wrote Star Wars because the consistency is remarkable. The only disappointment.. And it really doesn’t affect the quality of the movie was…. There’s no Yoda!! I even wore my Yoda watch when I watched the movie that I mentioned in the review of SW III.
The dvd that I saw apparently is not the exact version that was in the ‘77 movie since Lucas tweaked it and fixed it up a bit. However, I really don’t want to track down the original vhs since the quality is nowhere as sharp as the dvd.. And I probably wouldn’t even notice the subtle changes.
So therefore I am just gonna assume that the final bladder grade would be the same if I had seen the original flick that you folks saw….
On a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom… the original Star Wars….. It’s a 4 bladder movie!!
Here are my Oscar Picks for the big awards…
Actor - Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Actress - Felicity Huffman
Supporting Actor - Paul Giamatti
Supporting Actress - Michelle Williams
Director - Brokeback Mountain
Best Picture - Crash
Monday, February 27, 2006
Wes Craven Nightmare: You Can't Spell Condominium Without.... Inium
“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious”
Does that sound familiar? It’s a quote from the first Star Wars from 1977 which means that yes folks I have seen it, and if you stay tuned later this week you will see my review of the film.
Today however that quote concerns a condo complex I once lived in for three years that we will call “Wes Craven”. Later on I will tell you some stories about my Nightmare on Elm Street… a place not haunted by Freddie Kreuger but rather by two characters named “Magda” (named for the wrinkly old neighbor in There Something About Mary which I watched during the blizzard 2 wks ago) and “Mr. Loser“, and a bumbling condo management company guy named “Mr. Flintstone“… Mr. Loser is one of these guys who in high school was the senior the freshmen used to pick on.
If you are a condo resident or are planning to buy one.. Today’s column is a must read… There may even be a quiz... Trust me…. I know what I am talking about.
A recent front page article in the paper caught my attention that made condo residents cheer and evil ego maniacal board members cringe. Buried in the headlines on the day we first heard of the NHL gambling fiasco and the death of Coretta Scott King at some wacky now closed clinic in Mexico was the tale of the NJ State appeals court ruling in favor of residents of the Twin Rivers Condominium Association. Just last week a NJ State Assembly Committee passed a bill that will take away more power from condo boards run by ego maniacs. I also have an important organization to tell you about called The Common Interest Homeowners Coalition.. And a couple named Haim and Margaret Bar Akiva. If you live in a condo or plan to do so, then write this down.. that’s right.. Go get a pen… We’ll wait for you to get back. Ill hum while we wait….
Do Do Do Do Do…..(that Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed is still ringing in my ears!)
Back to the condos.. Kudos to the residents of Twin Rivers. They stood up to their board and won. Personally, I have lived in 2 different condo complexes. The place I live in now has an ok board.. I have no issues with them and they have acted very honorably… But the Wes Craven complex was run by a bunch of power hungry losers who were probably picked on all of their lives and now take it out on the residents who dare to try to enjoy life under their insane regime….
Twin Rivers went to the Appellate Court over the relatively minor issue of allowing residents to display flags… nothing major.. Yet the strict limitations about the type of flag combined with a few other nuisance rules lit a spark under the Bar Akivahs and led to a court ruling that I feel is fantastic! The ruling basically strips the corrupt boards of their all encompassing power.… a ruling that the people still living at Wes Craven will gladly embrace. This is assuming the same board is still there.. But who knows, they conducted a lot of shenanigans involving voting, so who knows what goes on there?
Wes Craven used to be a nice place. My mother lived there at one time, as did my friend Joe who served on the board when the board was honest and had integrity. . Interestingly enough, Joe moved out before I moved in, yet he was the President when my mom was there and was extremely helpful to her when she asked to get a new railing for some stairs. Trophy Wife and I have since become friends with Joe and his family, and he actually was the ring inspector and yichud guard at my wedding. (Yichud guards block the entrance to the room where the couple goes for “private time“ right after the wedding.)
In early ‘04 I realized how horrible an out of control board can get. Once I escaped the madness there,…and I moved to my current complex, I vowed to attend every public meeting… and so far I must say the board is honest and ethical. If there is any advice I can give a condo resident.. It is attend those board meetings and make sure that these people behave themselves. The chuckleheads at Wes Craven circumvented that by keeping their meetings private.
I took issue with the activities of 2 board members that involved calls to the police and ultimately a complaint filed in Trenton. Even though nothing was accomplished with my case.. I can appreciate the satisfaction that the Bar Akivas must be feeling. Corrupt boards like the Wes Craven board hold their meetings privately with no input from residents. That allows them to do all kinds of sneaky and sleazy activities. On Presidents Day Mrs. Bar Akiva wrote a fantastic editorial about some of the problems such as the fact that boards finance their battles using resident’s maintenance fees.. And they obsess over all kinds of silly little things such as toys left on balconies, etc. Classic line from her piece… “the boards aren’t interested in HOW my neighbor is doing.. They’re more concerned with WHAT my neighbor is doing!” One nice young neighbor at Wes Craven a European immigrant who was new to the USA kept her toddler’s toys on the porch which you could only see by standing in the bushes in front of the unit and peering over the top… which is exactly what Magda aka Cruella DeVille did.. I could see from my bathroom window how Magda would waddle through some bushes to this woman's porch and then desperately hop up and down to catch a peek over the top to see what toys were stored there. Its almost as if she was a peeper looking for nude sunbathers. After her little visits, Magda promptly sent her letters threatening huge fines!
I heard about the Bar Akiva situation when I went to Trenton to rat out my old board. I also want to share an excerpt from my correspondence about what led me to go to lawmakers and what can happen when loser board members allow their delusions of mediocrity fuel their egos…. I feel like a movie star who goes on Letterman with a clip! Here’s the set-up… Basically the management company made a mistake and the corrupt board took advantage of it. Incidentally the management company is owned by a local politician whose opponent is guaranteed my vote in the next election! Here are the basic highlights… For the blog, the names have been altered to protect the guilty…. but the actual letter named names! In reality most people don’t know them since these pathetic creatures hid behind their mommy’s skirts… aka the management company.. Cue the Law and Order Music…
LETTER TO TRENTON
In January, “M” Management took over management of the complex. They also changed the prior company’s policy of mailing out monthly bills, and instead sent out a payment book. I never received this payment book, and I did not know about the new policy. In the middle of January, I received a bill from them along with a $25 late fee. Again, the next month I got a bill and another late fee. This went on for about four months, and each month I promptly sent a bill along with a note saying I shouldn’t have to pay the late fees since the bill was sent late. I even enclosed the original envelope with a post mark showing the date “the bill” was sent out.
Ultimately in April, I mentioned something to my neighbor about conversations with “Mr. Flintstone“. from “M” after a visitor of mine had been threatened with notes from Magda and Mr. Loser (but signed by “M”) that her car would be booted for parking in a visitor spot. (That is NOT a misprint, and I will address the wheel boot issue later in this letter.) My neighbor told me about the payment books at which point I called Mr. Flintstone to request one. It took him about a week to ten days to get it to me, at which point I immediately sent in a payment.
Every month after that, each payment was sent in on time. However, the statements kept showing late fees. It also showed an extra months payment was due, but I just figured that their bookkeeper was posting my check after the monthly invoice was mailed, which is very common with other bills such as the phone, and cable, etc. At the end of the year, I called them to point out the extra month on the bill, and they informed me that I owed an extra month. I told them I kept impeccable records, because I send the check the same day as my mortgage bill, and I knew from my itemized deductions exactly when those checks were written and mailed.
I asked them to send me a list of each payment, and after carefully reviewing their records, I realized that I accidentally missed the payment for the month that they had sent me the book. Each subsequent month’s payment was punctual, but the bookkeeper posted it as the prior month’s payment, so even though only one month was late, they were charging late fees for every month, which added up to $275.
I called Mr. Flintstone, and told him I was sending the payment for the missed month, but I didn’t feel that it was fair to be charged a late fee, because if I had received the original payment book, I never would have had any late fees. Ever since I moved to Wes Craven, every payment has been punctual, except for the months described above. Mr, Flintstone advised me to send a letter to the board explaining the situation, and request that the late fees be waived. I wrote the letter, mailed it in, never heard anything about it after that, and thought that was the end of it.
(Folks on the blog… here is where we go from incompetent to just plain corrupt…)
A few months later the board held elections, and I was one of four residents who attended the meeting to vote in person. One man there was told he could not vote because he owed $25 in fees, and according to the rules anyone voting has to be up to date on fees. Nothing was said to me about owing money, so I voted, wrote my name down, and signed my ballot. Two of the three other people there were witnesses. The ballots were counted, and the votes were announced. I left shortly thereafter with the two witnesses, and as we left the building, I asked them if my vote had counted. They said it did, and I reasonably assumed that the late fees had been waived.
On April 8, I went to my car and saw a boot on it. I called Mr. Flintstone to remove it and he said only the board could authorize boot removal, and that I still owed past late fees. I asked Mr. Flintstone why I owed the money and he said the board rejected my letter requesting the waiving of the fees. However, I never got a letter from the board, (which Mr. Flintstone would later admit was never sent out to me), and I asked him why I was allowed to vote. He told me my vote was pulled after I left the election meeting. However, unbeknownst to Mr. Flintstone, I left with the witnesses, which means Magda and Mr. Loser purposely changed the votes outside the presence of the witnesses.
I called Magda to remove the boot, and she said she would not speak to me until the association meeting two weeks later, and if I wanted my car back, I would have to pay the boot fee. I told her this was an error and she hung up on me mid sentence.
Two weeks later, at the meeting, these fees were discussed with the board. They originally demanded $275 in late fees, and $100 for removal of the boot. Ultimately they forced me to pay $200 to get the boot off my car. I feel this is unjust, and I should not have to pay because of the errors made by “M“. I also don’t like that my car was held hostage for close to three weeks, until I paid these outrageous fees. Incidentally, “M” has made numerous errors in the past. It takes them weeks to send parking decals; one neighbor didn’t get his because there was no postage on the envelope. Also, when I went to pay the $200, they insisted I owed $275, and ended up calling the Association’s attorney to confirm the correct amount. I don’t have an issue with “M”’s mistakes, but I feel that there is absolutely no reason that I should have to be penalized $200 for those errors.
(Attention blog readers.. More corruption is coming by our friend Magda!)
As for the wheel boot, I called the police to have it removed. They were stunned that a car had been booted for such a controversial late fee, but said that they could not take it off if the condominium’s bylaws stated that this was allowed. “M” provided me with an amendment to the bylaws signed by Magda (and her name is misspelled on the document). However, according to Page 41 of the Wes Craven bylaws, any changes to the bylaws can only be made by a vote by the residents. The notice by Magda clearly states that the wheel boot rule was voted on by the board. Both documents are attached.
(Yes folks.. I actually sat and read the whole bylaws to find that blurb on page 41! And finally bloggers… more insight into what losers with no friends do in their spare time…)
As a result of this new rule, numerous residents have been harassed by threats to have cars booted. Visitors also have been harassed for parking in visitor spots. Another included document shows rules on limits on how often a person can visit and park here. Magda and Mr. Loser actually walk along the grounds on an almost daily basis, and jot down license plate numbers that are then sent over to M. These cars then get threatening letters on their windshields that their cars will be booted. I asked Mr. Loser why he doesn’t sign his name to those letters, and he arrogantly replied that M should take the heat because that is why they get paid a lot of money. Personally, I don’t feel that my high maintenance fees should pay M to take the heat from angry residents who are fed up with Magda and Mr. Loser.
And that folks…. is basically the letter…It goes on to outline other indiscretions by this board.. But basically I think you got the gist of it. By the way, I had 2 cars at the time.. so the boot didnt stop me from getting anywhere. And sadly this is just a microcosm of what can happen when a condo board goes wild! I along with other condo residents applaud the Bar Akivah family for standing up.. And also for the excellent editorial that shows how much of our maintenance fees go to stupid unnecessary expenses. Keep up the good work! And folks…. If you live in a condo or plan to do so,………… go to the meetings.. And watch your boards!!
Does that sound familiar? It’s a quote from the first Star Wars from 1977 which means that yes folks I have seen it, and if you stay tuned later this week you will see my review of the film.
Today however that quote concerns a condo complex I once lived in for three years that we will call “Wes Craven”. Later on I will tell you some stories about my Nightmare on Elm Street… a place not haunted by Freddie Kreuger but rather by two characters named “Magda” (named for the wrinkly old neighbor in There Something About Mary which I watched during the blizzard 2 wks ago) and “Mr. Loser“, and a bumbling condo management company guy named “Mr. Flintstone“… Mr. Loser is one of these guys who in high school was the senior the freshmen used to pick on.
If you are a condo resident or are planning to buy one.. Today’s column is a must read… There may even be a quiz... Trust me…. I know what I am talking about.
A recent front page article in the paper caught my attention that made condo residents cheer and evil ego maniacal board members cringe. Buried in the headlines on the day we first heard of the NHL gambling fiasco and the death of Coretta Scott King at some wacky now closed clinic in Mexico was the tale of the NJ State appeals court ruling in favor of residents of the Twin Rivers Condominium Association. Just last week a NJ State Assembly Committee passed a bill that will take away more power from condo boards run by ego maniacs. I also have an important organization to tell you about called The Common Interest Homeowners Coalition.. And a couple named Haim and Margaret Bar Akiva. If you live in a condo or plan to do so, then write this down.. that’s right.. Go get a pen… We’ll wait for you to get back. Ill hum while we wait….
Do Do Do Do Do…..(that Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed is still ringing in my ears!)
Back to the condos.. Kudos to the residents of Twin Rivers. They stood up to their board and won. Personally, I have lived in 2 different condo complexes. The place I live in now has an ok board.. I have no issues with them and they have acted very honorably… But the Wes Craven complex was run by a bunch of power hungry losers who were probably picked on all of their lives and now take it out on the residents who dare to try to enjoy life under their insane regime….
Twin Rivers went to the Appellate Court over the relatively minor issue of allowing residents to display flags… nothing major.. Yet the strict limitations about the type of flag combined with a few other nuisance rules lit a spark under the Bar Akivahs and led to a court ruling that I feel is fantastic! The ruling basically strips the corrupt boards of their all encompassing power.… a ruling that the people still living at Wes Craven will gladly embrace. This is assuming the same board is still there.. But who knows, they conducted a lot of shenanigans involving voting, so who knows what goes on there?
Wes Craven used to be a nice place. My mother lived there at one time, as did my friend Joe who served on the board when the board was honest and had integrity. . Interestingly enough, Joe moved out before I moved in, yet he was the President when my mom was there and was extremely helpful to her when she asked to get a new railing for some stairs. Trophy Wife and I have since become friends with Joe and his family, and he actually was the ring inspector and yichud guard at my wedding. (Yichud guards block the entrance to the room where the couple goes for “private time“ right after the wedding.)
In early ‘04 I realized how horrible an out of control board can get. Once I escaped the madness there,…and I moved to my current complex, I vowed to attend every public meeting… and so far I must say the board is honest and ethical. If there is any advice I can give a condo resident.. It is attend those board meetings and make sure that these people behave themselves. The chuckleheads at Wes Craven circumvented that by keeping their meetings private.
I took issue with the activities of 2 board members that involved calls to the police and ultimately a complaint filed in Trenton. Even though nothing was accomplished with my case.. I can appreciate the satisfaction that the Bar Akivas must be feeling. Corrupt boards like the Wes Craven board hold their meetings privately with no input from residents. That allows them to do all kinds of sneaky and sleazy activities. On Presidents Day Mrs. Bar Akiva wrote a fantastic editorial about some of the problems such as the fact that boards finance their battles using resident’s maintenance fees.. And they obsess over all kinds of silly little things such as toys left on balconies, etc. Classic line from her piece… “the boards aren’t interested in HOW my neighbor is doing.. They’re more concerned with WHAT my neighbor is doing!” One nice young neighbor at Wes Craven a European immigrant who was new to the USA kept her toddler’s toys on the porch which you could only see by standing in the bushes in front of the unit and peering over the top… which is exactly what Magda aka Cruella DeVille did.. I could see from my bathroom window how Magda would waddle through some bushes to this woman's porch and then desperately hop up and down to catch a peek over the top to see what toys were stored there. Its almost as if she was a peeper looking for nude sunbathers. After her little visits, Magda promptly sent her letters threatening huge fines!
I heard about the Bar Akiva situation when I went to Trenton to rat out my old board. I also want to share an excerpt from my correspondence about what led me to go to lawmakers and what can happen when loser board members allow their delusions of mediocrity fuel their egos…. I feel like a movie star who goes on Letterman with a clip! Here’s the set-up… Basically the management company made a mistake and the corrupt board took advantage of it. Incidentally the management company is owned by a local politician whose opponent is guaranteed my vote in the next election! Here are the basic highlights… For the blog, the names have been altered to protect the guilty…. but the actual letter named names! In reality most people don’t know them since these pathetic creatures hid behind their mommy’s skirts… aka the management company.. Cue the Law and Order Music…
LETTER TO TRENTON
In January, “M” Management took over management of the complex. They also changed the prior company’s policy of mailing out monthly bills, and instead sent out a payment book. I never received this payment book, and I did not know about the new policy. In the middle of January, I received a bill from them along with a $25 late fee. Again, the next month I got a bill and another late fee. This went on for about four months, and each month I promptly sent a bill along with a note saying I shouldn’t have to pay the late fees since the bill was sent late. I even enclosed the original envelope with a post mark showing the date “the bill” was sent out.
Ultimately in April, I mentioned something to my neighbor about conversations with “Mr. Flintstone“. from “M” after a visitor of mine had been threatened with notes from Magda and Mr. Loser (but signed by “M”) that her car would be booted for parking in a visitor spot. (That is NOT a misprint, and I will address the wheel boot issue later in this letter.) My neighbor told me about the payment books at which point I called Mr. Flintstone to request one. It took him about a week to ten days to get it to me, at which point I immediately sent in a payment.
Every month after that, each payment was sent in on time. However, the statements kept showing late fees. It also showed an extra months payment was due, but I just figured that their bookkeeper was posting my check after the monthly invoice was mailed, which is very common with other bills such as the phone, and cable, etc. At the end of the year, I called them to point out the extra month on the bill, and they informed me that I owed an extra month. I told them I kept impeccable records, because I send the check the same day as my mortgage bill, and I knew from my itemized deductions exactly when those checks were written and mailed.
I asked them to send me a list of each payment, and after carefully reviewing their records, I realized that I accidentally missed the payment for the month that they had sent me the book. Each subsequent month’s payment was punctual, but the bookkeeper posted it as the prior month’s payment, so even though only one month was late, they were charging late fees for every month, which added up to $275.
I called Mr. Flintstone, and told him I was sending the payment for the missed month, but I didn’t feel that it was fair to be charged a late fee, because if I had received the original payment book, I never would have had any late fees. Ever since I moved to Wes Craven, every payment has been punctual, except for the months described above. Mr, Flintstone advised me to send a letter to the board explaining the situation, and request that the late fees be waived. I wrote the letter, mailed it in, never heard anything about it after that, and thought that was the end of it.
(Folks on the blog… here is where we go from incompetent to just plain corrupt…)
A few months later the board held elections, and I was one of four residents who attended the meeting to vote in person. One man there was told he could not vote because he owed $25 in fees, and according to the rules anyone voting has to be up to date on fees. Nothing was said to me about owing money, so I voted, wrote my name down, and signed my ballot. Two of the three other people there were witnesses. The ballots were counted, and the votes were announced. I left shortly thereafter with the two witnesses, and as we left the building, I asked them if my vote had counted. They said it did, and I reasonably assumed that the late fees had been waived.
On April 8, I went to my car and saw a boot on it. I called Mr. Flintstone to remove it and he said only the board could authorize boot removal, and that I still owed past late fees. I asked Mr. Flintstone why I owed the money and he said the board rejected my letter requesting the waiving of the fees. However, I never got a letter from the board, (which Mr. Flintstone would later admit was never sent out to me), and I asked him why I was allowed to vote. He told me my vote was pulled after I left the election meeting. However, unbeknownst to Mr. Flintstone, I left with the witnesses, which means Magda and Mr. Loser purposely changed the votes outside the presence of the witnesses.
I called Magda to remove the boot, and she said she would not speak to me until the association meeting two weeks later, and if I wanted my car back, I would have to pay the boot fee. I told her this was an error and she hung up on me mid sentence.
Two weeks later, at the meeting, these fees were discussed with the board. They originally demanded $275 in late fees, and $100 for removal of the boot. Ultimately they forced me to pay $200 to get the boot off my car. I feel this is unjust, and I should not have to pay because of the errors made by “M“. I also don’t like that my car was held hostage for close to three weeks, until I paid these outrageous fees. Incidentally, “M” has made numerous errors in the past. It takes them weeks to send parking decals; one neighbor didn’t get his because there was no postage on the envelope. Also, when I went to pay the $200, they insisted I owed $275, and ended up calling the Association’s attorney to confirm the correct amount. I don’t have an issue with “M”’s mistakes, but I feel that there is absolutely no reason that I should have to be penalized $200 for those errors.
(Attention blog readers.. More corruption is coming by our friend Magda!)
As for the wheel boot, I called the police to have it removed. They were stunned that a car had been booted for such a controversial late fee, but said that they could not take it off if the condominium’s bylaws stated that this was allowed. “M” provided me with an amendment to the bylaws signed by Magda (and her name is misspelled on the document). However, according to Page 41 of the Wes Craven bylaws, any changes to the bylaws can only be made by a vote by the residents. The notice by Magda clearly states that the wheel boot rule was voted on by the board. Both documents are attached.
(Yes folks.. I actually sat and read the whole bylaws to find that blurb on page 41! And finally bloggers… more insight into what losers with no friends do in their spare time…)
As a result of this new rule, numerous residents have been harassed by threats to have cars booted. Visitors also have been harassed for parking in visitor spots. Another included document shows rules on limits on how often a person can visit and park here. Magda and Mr. Loser actually walk along the grounds on an almost daily basis, and jot down license plate numbers that are then sent over to M. These cars then get threatening letters on their windshields that their cars will be booted. I asked Mr. Loser why he doesn’t sign his name to those letters, and he arrogantly replied that M should take the heat because that is why they get paid a lot of money. Personally, I don’t feel that my high maintenance fees should pay M to take the heat from angry residents who are fed up with Magda and Mr. Loser.
And that folks…. is basically the letter…It goes on to outline other indiscretions by this board.. But basically I think you got the gist of it. By the way, I had 2 cars at the time.. so the boot didnt stop me from getting anywhere. And sadly this is just a microcosm of what can happen when a condo board goes wild! I along with other condo residents applaud the Bar Akivah family for standing up.. And also for the excellent editorial that shows how much of our maintenance fees go to stupid unnecessary expenses. Keep up the good work! And folks…. If you live in a condo or plan to do so,………… go to the meetings.. And watch your boards!!
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Pump and Circumstance
Hey folks.. was Thursday night filled with tough entertainment choices... or what? You had Survivor on CBS, American Idol on FOX, The Olympic Skating on NBC, Dancing with the Stars on ABC and another podcast on the Nate's World of Words Blog. Choices, Choices, Choices.
And not only do we have Dancing with the Stars.. there is this copycat Skating with Celebrities.. and Coming Soon... live from your local Mexican restaurant... "Farting with Famous People"
Today we present Part II of our chat with Walter Nagel where we reveal his nickname and how he got it. We also have a brief follow up to last weeks Game Show blog with a look at the Best Game Show Theme Songs. You can hear it right here on the embedded player by clicking play, or on your computer's media player by clicking the headline.
By the way if you have a Yahoo account and wanna get the podcast (and/or this blog) delivered to you automatically, it's very simple to have it show up on your "My Yahoo" page. (If you haven't been on my yahoo, it's a little icon right there on the main yahoo page)
1. At My Yahoo click "add content"
2. Click "Add RSS by URL" and type in http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/msNl
3. Click on "add to my yahoo"
4. Click on the edit it link (edit to show content), to allow for headline and short summary. Now a little button will automatically show up on your "my yahoo" page next to the summary that you can click to play audio and video files.
You can then put it in your mp3 player and listen to it anytime you want!
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Friday, February 17, 2006
The Top 14 Game Shows of All Time - Part III - Graphite! Aristophanes! Blank Tape!
Its that time of the year folks… pitchers and catchers reported today (yippee!!) and March Madness is just around the corner… that means… its time for our version of the Final Four as we present Part III of … the top 14 game shows ever…. And we start with….
4. THE PRICE IS RIGHT…. If you talk about comfort food.. there's nothing like being home sick one day (or sleeping in on President’s Day) and flipping on the TV at 11am and seeing…. that The View's Meredith Viera still looks hot, and Star Jones is still ugly. Nah, Im only kidding… The Price is Right continues its incredible run… and remains like an old reliable friend at 11 am! If you watch it now and watched it 30 years ago.. its still the same show! The models are different, but every day Bob Barker who is now in his mid 80s holds down the fort…. and still has all his marbles to run from set to set to play all the goofy pricing games.
From a business standpoint, the show is a juggernaut… CBS Daytime has kicked butt in the ratings for years and years and years.. And TPIR is the linchpin, In addition, it is the ONLY NETWORK game show… all the rest are syndicated,,… and it has been the only network game show since the early 90s when ABC bailed out on a revamped Match Game with Ross Schafer, and NBC gave up on its morning lineup of To Tell the Truth and Classic Concentration. Even CBS kicked out network remakes of The Pyramid, Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud…
The show is just amazing .. And it just might never end! .The key to a successful game show is its consistency. That’s why game shows are comfort food,. Especially to someone like me with such a hodge podge brain. They have structure and rules and if you look at TPIR from the mid 70s, its exactly the same as it is now 30 years later except the prices are way off.... 4 contestants on contestant row are picked right out of the audience which gives anyone who goes to watch the show a chance to win. Then the ones that advance go to the wheel for a chance at the showcase and then at the end you hope they both overbid. Okay, maybe that’s just me.. But remember I watch Olympic Ice Skating to see the skaters fall on their tushies…
One cool thing was the genius in the 70s on contestant row who realized the 3 prior bidders had high bids so he went with 1 dollar.. And won.. The strategy is still used to this day with some people in the 3rd position bidding 1 dollar only to see his neighbor go last and screw him by bidding 2 dollars. The Family Guy did a brilliant spoof of this and had the contestants get into a vicious fight.
Incidentally, the older version in the 60s was pretty cool too. I’ve seen it on GSN and bidding actually went beyond the first round and they didn’t have all the bells and whistles like the Barker version. They also didn’t have contestants row back then,… but from the moment when the late Johnny Olsen summoned the first contestant on the 70s Bob Barker version to “Come on Down”… a legend and a catch phrase was born.
And what happens to this cash cow when Bob Barker retires? As mentioned in Part II, I used to think that Jeff Probst might take over.. but that was pre- Survivor. And it looks like Survivor is here to stay.. Especially if they do gimmicks like Thursday night’s episode where bikini clad women wrestle inside five rings that look very similar to the ones on the Olympics that nobody seems to be watching.
Are you ready for my pick to succeed Bob Barker? (And they’re gonna keep the show running post Bob since it makes so much money)… The weather guy from the CBS Morning Show… Dave Price.. Pun intended. I don’t watch him that early in the AM on CBS, but I remember when he was on Channel 5 how wacky and crazy he used to be, and he just might have what it takes to take over a game show…. Although replacing Barker may be impossible. Just ask NBC when Pat Sajak quit the network version of Wheel of Fortune and was replaced by………….. Rolf Bernirschke!
Long live Bob Barker!!
3. PASSWORD - If you are too young to remember Allen Ludden, you don’t know what you missed! I hope I look that good when I’m old. What a classy dude.. Allen presided over Password for years and years until a stroke knocked him off the air and ultimately killed him in the early 1980s. Tom Kennedy and Bert Convy also hosted the Plus and Super versions rather well… but Password was just a classic game. One player gives a one word clue.. The other one guesses it.. Simple yet quite entertaining… especially that memorable Odd Couple episode where Felix and Oscar go on the show and the Password is pencil.. Oscar says “Lead”….Felix’s guess is …. Graphite! Aristophanes! Ridiculous! What a classic!
I don’t remember the earlier editions too well.. And I vaguely remember a celebrity version called Password All Stars when the show ran on daytime on ABC in the mid 70s before the network canned it.. But it wasn’t gone too long.. NBC brought it back as Password Plus with new gimmicks like a puzzle board and alphabetics… kind of like the Pyramid where you get 60 seconds to get the contestant to say 10 words. Tom Kennedy took it over after Ludden got sick and the show ran a few more years.
The network brought it back again a few years later,.. This time as Super Password with Bert Convy. The show was the same with a few minor rule changes and a smaller set.. But for the most part, the game remained the same. However once it was cancelled in the late 80s it never got remade after that for some bizarre reason! But as a game it’s a classic and it comes in at 3.
The hits just keep on coming on Nate’s Blog Top 14 as we head to Number One and now time for a long distance dedication. Susie from Kansas writes… My mommy just met a new guy and they started shacking up. Here‘s the problem Casey… I have a cute little toy poodle named Fifi.. And her shack up has a big out of control dalmation named Killer. Casey…. For my entertainment….could you play… the theme song to Dog Eat Dog??
Ok Dog Eat Dog didn’t make the list… Lets get back to the countdown…with number 2
2. THE PETER MARSHALL HOLLYWOOD SQUARES - The original and still the best comes in 2nd on my list. This is not to be confused with the 3 remakes hosted respectively by Jon Bauman (well get to that later), John Davidson, and Tom Bergeron. I actually liked the Davidson version better than the Bergeron version… but the Marshall one was still by far the best!.
The show was anchored by center square Paul Lynde and created a celebrity environment that was used even better by the show that comes in at #1. The concept was allow them to loosen up and have fun on a game show…. I have seen the old pre HS panel shows on GSN, and none of them gave the stars the freedom that they were allowed on the squares. But when HS came along.. (and if Im wrong on this… please correct me), Marshall became the first host to set his ego aside and play straight man to each star’s wisecrack answers. Oh yeah, the show is tic tac toe.. Easy enough.. The contestant earns a square by agreeing or disagreeing with the answer given by the celebrity sitting in the corresponding square. But early on, the stars started off shooting wisecracks to the questions, and the show took on a whole new meaning. Comedy writers were hired, and Paul Lynde was brought in as the center square along with other regulars Wally Cox, Rose Marie, Charley Weaver, and later George Gobel. In my naïve youth, I didn’t realize that the stars had the joke answers written for them.. I just thought they were that funny and quick witted and as a result I developed a strong admiration and appreciation of them. That was the time when I started to really like game shows because it gave you a window into the clever humor of famous people.
The show ran on NBC until June 20th 1980 to make room for the daytime David Letterman show. After its cancellation, it went right into daytime syndication (not to be confused with the nighttime syndication that GSN briefly ran in the early 2000s to mind bogglingly low ratings!). Strangely enough the show moved to a casino in Las Vegas owned by Meshulam Riklis and the audience was set up as a dinner theater.. So the camera cover shot of the lower level was actually blocked by a bunch of goofballs who spent their comps at HS instead of the buffet…(Or maybe it was a buffet.. You never did see a waiter.) Oh yeah.. One aspect of the deal.. Riklis’ hot little wife Pia Zadora had to get her own square as part of the deal.
One other highlight was the “secret square”… We knew who it was.. But nobody else did.. And when the secret square was picked… sirens went off and excitement was in the air… no funny answers here, buster.. This is it… I also got a kick out of hot stars who got to model politically incorrect fur coats on the spiral staircases that connected the 3 levels of the set.
By the way the Squares has the catchiest theme song in game show history… and is actually my cell phone’s ring tone. Second place for theme song goes to Whew… which had a catchy opening during its brief run in 1979- 80... (Close calls… narrow escapes… ) and who the heck can even pronounce the word “whew”??
HS fizzled out in the early 80s…(right after they changed the set and theme song.. although I just downloaded the new theme today and it actually is pretty snazzy) and came back in syndication in ‘86 with John Davidson. I liked it… it ran a few years and yet another edition recently ended a 6 year run with Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron. (Not to be confused with Skating with the Celebrities starring the girl from the movie Buffy the Marriage Breaker. She hooked up with her skating partner, and he left his 9 months pregnant wife!) The remakes stayed basically the same, but its hard to recapture the magic of the old stars, and even though Davidson and Bergeron tried their best.. neither of them could pull the show together like Peter Marshall. I’m sure it will come back again in a few years…
And now ladies and gentlemen… the number one game show of all time… Deal or No Deal.. You got the models… you got the banker… you got the suitcases.. You got Howie… What more do you need?? Ok, Im kidding..
Ladies and Gentlemen…. The all time Number One Game Show of all time…..
1. THE GENE RAYBURN MATCH GAME - duh…
One day I was at the VCR department at K Mart.. And there in the flesh was Gene Rayburn!! He asked me if I knew where he could find “blank tape”… Hmmm,.. I started humming the think music…blank tape… Is it “duct” tape you want, Gene?? He started to get annoyed… “I know.. Masking tape…”.. I think he was gonna shoot me… “Uh how about ‘scotch” tape… Blank Tape he yelled… I want blank tape.. At which point he reached into his Brooks Brothers suit and pulled out his long microphone and started smacking me with it.
At that point I woke up from a horrible dream!
Flashback to 1973, The summer was coming to an end… and I was getting ready to start 3rd Grade. I was just about to turn 8, and my mom mentioned that maybe I should watch other shows besides cartoons. It was the week of Labor Day and the next thing you know this orange thingie starts spinning and I’m seeing Morey Amsterdam, Loretta Swit, and Ruta Lee (from High Rollers).. I started watching and I haven’t stopped… and interestingly enough I remember the panel for some bizarre reason… and it just so happens that very same panel is on this wks 3:30 GSN repeats!
The magic formula…Take one straight man host, (thanks for the idea Peter Marshall), six celebrities, write some wacky questions,… and you have a game show whose incredible popularity defies logic. Even Gene admitted, the game in itself is kind of silly,… but the chemistry between Gene and the six celebrities made for a fantastic show that continues on high rated reruns on GSN and websites made by fans who love the show more than myself…. Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Richard Dawson (for the first five years) were the glue that held the show together and their silly joking along combined with what was going on on HS really made these people seem to be hysterically funny and basically the type of people one would spend a half hour with each day. I used to watch the show and felt I knew the celebs… they were like uncles and aunts to me!! Of course I didn’t understand the jokes… and as I watch the show on GSN… I’m kind of surprised my mom even let me watch it… but it is my fave show of all time….
GSN knows the show is hot.. it’s the most popular show on the network… To me.. I equate it with Babe Ruth baseball games surfacing on ESPN… Ruth was the best player of all time bar none.. He dominated his era and set records that took years to break…. Hey pitchers and catchers reported today… its baseball season folks. Well if ESPN showed old Ruth games… they would have the same impact on sports fans as GSN showing old MG reruns has on us game show fans. The show is just so much better than any other game show and no matter how many times they remake it… it never will recapture its old magic.
They remade the show in 1990 with Ross Shaefer which stayed true to its original format… and in 1998 with Michael Burger (who dated a woman who lived next door to me when I had a summer house in 1990). Burger’s version was awful… it had 5 stars instead of 6... And the double entendres weren’t implied.. If the question was “Dumb Donald is soooo dumb… (how dumb is he?) He got his blank stuck in the spaghetti maker”.. the 70s audience laughed at the obvious answer and then wrote nose, head, arm, etc. The 90s version didn’t… and the show just didn’t work.
And what happens when you combine the top 2 game shows of all time? You get NBC’s very strange Match Game Hollywood Squares Hour. Its hard to write about this one since all the game show fans HATED it… I didn’t feel that strongly about it.. But it just looked odd.. Kind of like a movie in the 1800s that has planes flying over head… or a Met game that doesn’t have planes flying over head! I liked MG so much I was happy just to see it… (This show came 20 years before we could get our GSN rerun fix) but the celebrity alignment looked strange and I was more interested in seeing Bowzer than this strange Jon Bauman who played him… They played 3 rounds of match game with the same rules as the PM version… 3 rounds match as many stars etc…then it got creepier.. From out of nowhere emerged a wall with seats and voila you had the upper floor of a very cheap looking Hollywood Squares set. 3 other stars deemed not Match Game worthy came running out and jumped in the seats… and Jon Baumann took over as host… There was no secret square.. You didn’t have to “earn” a square to get a win and there were no bluffs. I’m amazed that HS ever recovered from this debacle. After the HS game ended, Gene took over as host and the winner got to play the Super Match like the old show. With all the legalities involving program ownership…and there are a lot since GSN has to jump through hoops to negotiate rights fees with the owners of different shows… I’m amazed this hybrid show even got produced! Rumor has it… there are legal documents that bar it from ever airing again!
I gotta really thank Google for help researching this 3 part extravaganza since I didn’t remember a lot of details about some of the shows. In researching the MG HS hour I found a review written by a teenaged kid on his My Spaces blog. Now how the heck could a teenaged kid review it if it hasn’t aired in 20 years. But even stranger are the comments section where these wacky My Spaces goofballs have assumed the identities of various game show hosts alive and dead… including Gene Rayburn. It’s good to see another generation of game show fans is emerging in America!
And there you have it folks,… the top 14 game shows of all time! I’m sure people have opinions like where was the Newlywed Game or Name that Tune for example? NTT may have gotten short shrift since it is never rerun because of the complexities involving the music licenses on the show.. I also left out Concentration and I am sure many others that you may have liked.. But feel free to leave your comments … and suggestions for other Top 14 lists.
4. THE PRICE IS RIGHT…. If you talk about comfort food.. there's nothing like being home sick one day (or sleeping in on President’s Day) and flipping on the TV at 11am and seeing…. that The View's Meredith Viera still looks hot, and Star Jones is still ugly. Nah, Im only kidding… The Price is Right continues its incredible run… and remains like an old reliable friend at 11 am! If you watch it now and watched it 30 years ago.. its still the same show! The models are different, but every day Bob Barker who is now in his mid 80s holds down the fort…. and still has all his marbles to run from set to set to play all the goofy pricing games.
From a business standpoint, the show is a juggernaut… CBS Daytime has kicked butt in the ratings for years and years and years.. And TPIR is the linchpin, In addition, it is the ONLY NETWORK game show… all the rest are syndicated,,… and it has been the only network game show since the early 90s when ABC bailed out on a revamped Match Game with Ross Schafer, and NBC gave up on its morning lineup of To Tell the Truth and Classic Concentration. Even CBS kicked out network remakes of The Pyramid, Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud…
The show is just amazing .. And it just might never end! .The key to a successful game show is its consistency. That’s why game shows are comfort food,. Especially to someone like me with such a hodge podge brain. They have structure and rules and if you look at TPIR from the mid 70s, its exactly the same as it is now 30 years later except the prices are way off.... 4 contestants on contestant row are picked right out of the audience which gives anyone who goes to watch the show a chance to win. Then the ones that advance go to the wheel for a chance at the showcase and then at the end you hope they both overbid. Okay, maybe that’s just me.. But remember I watch Olympic Ice Skating to see the skaters fall on their tushies…
One cool thing was the genius in the 70s on contestant row who realized the 3 prior bidders had high bids so he went with 1 dollar.. And won.. The strategy is still used to this day with some people in the 3rd position bidding 1 dollar only to see his neighbor go last and screw him by bidding 2 dollars. The Family Guy did a brilliant spoof of this and had the contestants get into a vicious fight.
Incidentally, the older version in the 60s was pretty cool too. I’ve seen it on GSN and bidding actually went beyond the first round and they didn’t have all the bells and whistles like the Barker version. They also didn’t have contestants row back then,… but from the moment when the late Johnny Olsen summoned the first contestant on the 70s Bob Barker version to “Come on Down”… a legend and a catch phrase was born.
And what happens to this cash cow when Bob Barker retires? As mentioned in Part II, I used to think that Jeff Probst might take over.. but that was pre- Survivor. And it looks like Survivor is here to stay.. Especially if they do gimmicks like Thursday night’s episode where bikini clad women wrestle inside five rings that look very similar to the ones on the Olympics that nobody seems to be watching.
Are you ready for my pick to succeed Bob Barker? (And they’re gonna keep the show running post Bob since it makes so much money)… The weather guy from the CBS Morning Show… Dave Price.. Pun intended. I don’t watch him that early in the AM on CBS, but I remember when he was on Channel 5 how wacky and crazy he used to be, and he just might have what it takes to take over a game show…. Although replacing Barker may be impossible. Just ask NBC when Pat Sajak quit the network version of Wheel of Fortune and was replaced by………….. Rolf Bernirschke!
Long live Bob Barker!!
3. PASSWORD - If you are too young to remember Allen Ludden, you don’t know what you missed! I hope I look that good when I’m old. What a classy dude.. Allen presided over Password for years and years until a stroke knocked him off the air and ultimately killed him in the early 1980s. Tom Kennedy and Bert Convy also hosted the Plus and Super versions rather well… but Password was just a classic game. One player gives a one word clue.. The other one guesses it.. Simple yet quite entertaining… especially that memorable Odd Couple episode where Felix and Oscar go on the show and the Password is pencil.. Oscar says “Lead”….Felix’s guess is …. Graphite! Aristophanes! Ridiculous! What a classic!
I don’t remember the earlier editions too well.. And I vaguely remember a celebrity version called Password All Stars when the show ran on daytime on ABC in the mid 70s before the network canned it.. But it wasn’t gone too long.. NBC brought it back as Password Plus with new gimmicks like a puzzle board and alphabetics… kind of like the Pyramid where you get 60 seconds to get the contestant to say 10 words. Tom Kennedy took it over after Ludden got sick and the show ran a few more years.
The network brought it back again a few years later,.. This time as Super Password with Bert Convy. The show was the same with a few minor rule changes and a smaller set.. But for the most part, the game remained the same. However once it was cancelled in the late 80s it never got remade after that for some bizarre reason! But as a game it’s a classic and it comes in at 3.
The hits just keep on coming on Nate’s Blog Top 14 as we head to Number One and now time for a long distance dedication. Susie from Kansas writes… My mommy just met a new guy and they started shacking up. Here‘s the problem Casey… I have a cute little toy poodle named Fifi.. And her shack up has a big out of control dalmation named Killer. Casey…. For my entertainment….could you play… the theme song to Dog Eat Dog??
Ok Dog Eat Dog didn’t make the list… Lets get back to the countdown…with number 2
2. THE PETER MARSHALL HOLLYWOOD SQUARES - The original and still the best comes in 2nd on my list. This is not to be confused with the 3 remakes hosted respectively by Jon Bauman (well get to that later), John Davidson, and Tom Bergeron. I actually liked the Davidson version better than the Bergeron version… but the Marshall one was still by far the best!.
The show was anchored by center square Paul Lynde and created a celebrity environment that was used even better by the show that comes in at #1. The concept was allow them to loosen up and have fun on a game show…. I have seen the old pre HS panel shows on GSN, and none of them gave the stars the freedom that they were allowed on the squares. But when HS came along.. (and if Im wrong on this… please correct me), Marshall became the first host to set his ego aside and play straight man to each star’s wisecrack answers. Oh yeah, the show is tic tac toe.. Easy enough.. The contestant earns a square by agreeing or disagreeing with the answer given by the celebrity sitting in the corresponding square. But early on, the stars started off shooting wisecracks to the questions, and the show took on a whole new meaning. Comedy writers were hired, and Paul Lynde was brought in as the center square along with other regulars Wally Cox, Rose Marie, Charley Weaver, and later George Gobel. In my naïve youth, I didn’t realize that the stars had the joke answers written for them.. I just thought they were that funny and quick witted and as a result I developed a strong admiration and appreciation of them. That was the time when I started to really like game shows because it gave you a window into the clever humor of famous people.
The show ran on NBC until June 20th 1980 to make room for the daytime David Letterman show. After its cancellation, it went right into daytime syndication (not to be confused with the nighttime syndication that GSN briefly ran in the early 2000s to mind bogglingly low ratings!). Strangely enough the show moved to a casino in Las Vegas owned by Meshulam Riklis and the audience was set up as a dinner theater.. So the camera cover shot of the lower level was actually blocked by a bunch of goofballs who spent their comps at HS instead of the buffet…(Or maybe it was a buffet.. You never did see a waiter.) Oh yeah.. One aspect of the deal.. Riklis’ hot little wife Pia Zadora had to get her own square as part of the deal.
One other highlight was the “secret square”… We knew who it was.. But nobody else did.. And when the secret square was picked… sirens went off and excitement was in the air… no funny answers here, buster.. This is it… I also got a kick out of hot stars who got to model politically incorrect fur coats on the spiral staircases that connected the 3 levels of the set.
By the way the Squares has the catchiest theme song in game show history… and is actually my cell phone’s ring tone. Second place for theme song goes to Whew… which had a catchy opening during its brief run in 1979- 80... (Close calls… narrow escapes… ) and who the heck can even pronounce the word “whew”??
HS fizzled out in the early 80s…(right after they changed the set and theme song.. although I just downloaded the new theme today and it actually is pretty snazzy) and came back in syndication in ‘86 with John Davidson. I liked it… it ran a few years and yet another edition recently ended a 6 year run with Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron. (Not to be confused with Skating with the Celebrities starring the girl from the movie Buffy the Marriage Breaker. She hooked up with her skating partner, and he left his 9 months pregnant wife!) The remakes stayed basically the same, but its hard to recapture the magic of the old stars, and even though Davidson and Bergeron tried their best.. neither of them could pull the show together like Peter Marshall. I’m sure it will come back again in a few years…
And now ladies and gentlemen… the number one game show of all time… Deal or No Deal.. You got the models… you got the banker… you got the suitcases.. You got Howie… What more do you need?? Ok, Im kidding..
Ladies and Gentlemen…. The all time Number One Game Show of all time…..
1. THE GENE RAYBURN MATCH GAME - duh…
One day I was at the VCR department at K Mart.. And there in the flesh was Gene Rayburn!! He asked me if I knew where he could find “blank tape”… Hmmm,.. I started humming the think music…blank tape… Is it “duct” tape you want, Gene?? He started to get annoyed… “I know.. Masking tape…”.. I think he was gonna shoot me… “Uh how about ‘scotch” tape… Blank Tape he yelled… I want blank tape.. At which point he reached into his Brooks Brothers suit and pulled out his long microphone and started smacking me with it.
At that point I woke up from a horrible dream!
Flashback to 1973, The summer was coming to an end… and I was getting ready to start 3rd Grade. I was just about to turn 8, and my mom mentioned that maybe I should watch other shows besides cartoons. It was the week of Labor Day and the next thing you know this orange thingie starts spinning and I’m seeing Morey Amsterdam, Loretta Swit, and Ruta Lee (from High Rollers).. I started watching and I haven’t stopped… and interestingly enough I remember the panel for some bizarre reason… and it just so happens that very same panel is on this wks 3:30 GSN repeats!
The magic formula…Take one straight man host, (thanks for the idea Peter Marshall), six celebrities, write some wacky questions,… and you have a game show whose incredible popularity defies logic. Even Gene admitted, the game in itself is kind of silly,… but the chemistry between Gene and the six celebrities made for a fantastic show that continues on high rated reruns on GSN and websites made by fans who love the show more than myself…. Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Richard Dawson (for the first five years) were the glue that held the show together and their silly joking along combined with what was going on on HS really made these people seem to be hysterically funny and basically the type of people one would spend a half hour with each day. I used to watch the show and felt I knew the celebs… they were like uncles and aunts to me!! Of course I didn’t understand the jokes… and as I watch the show on GSN… I’m kind of surprised my mom even let me watch it… but it is my fave show of all time….
GSN knows the show is hot.. it’s the most popular show on the network… To me.. I equate it with Babe Ruth baseball games surfacing on ESPN… Ruth was the best player of all time bar none.. He dominated his era and set records that took years to break…. Hey pitchers and catchers reported today… its baseball season folks. Well if ESPN showed old Ruth games… they would have the same impact on sports fans as GSN showing old MG reruns has on us game show fans. The show is just so much better than any other game show and no matter how many times they remake it… it never will recapture its old magic.
They remade the show in 1990 with Ross Shaefer which stayed true to its original format… and in 1998 with Michael Burger (who dated a woman who lived next door to me when I had a summer house in 1990). Burger’s version was awful… it had 5 stars instead of 6... And the double entendres weren’t implied.. If the question was “Dumb Donald is soooo dumb… (how dumb is he?) He got his blank stuck in the spaghetti maker”.. the 70s audience laughed at the obvious answer and then wrote nose, head, arm, etc. The 90s version didn’t… and the show just didn’t work.
And what happens when you combine the top 2 game shows of all time? You get NBC’s very strange Match Game Hollywood Squares Hour. Its hard to write about this one since all the game show fans HATED it… I didn’t feel that strongly about it.. But it just looked odd.. Kind of like a movie in the 1800s that has planes flying over head… or a Met game that doesn’t have planes flying over head! I liked MG so much I was happy just to see it… (This show came 20 years before we could get our GSN rerun fix) but the celebrity alignment looked strange and I was more interested in seeing Bowzer than this strange Jon Bauman who played him… They played 3 rounds of match game with the same rules as the PM version… 3 rounds match as many stars etc…then it got creepier.. From out of nowhere emerged a wall with seats and voila you had the upper floor of a very cheap looking Hollywood Squares set. 3 other stars deemed not Match Game worthy came running out and jumped in the seats… and Jon Baumann took over as host… There was no secret square.. You didn’t have to “earn” a square to get a win and there were no bluffs. I’m amazed that HS ever recovered from this debacle. After the HS game ended, Gene took over as host and the winner got to play the Super Match like the old show. With all the legalities involving program ownership…and there are a lot since GSN has to jump through hoops to negotiate rights fees with the owners of different shows… I’m amazed this hybrid show even got produced! Rumor has it… there are legal documents that bar it from ever airing again!
I gotta really thank Google for help researching this 3 part extravaganza since I didn’t remember a lot of details about some of the shows. In researching the MG HS hour I found a review written by a teenaged kid on his My Spaces blog. Now how the heck could a teenaged kid review it if it hasn’t aired in 20 years. But even stranger are the comments section where these wacky My Spaces goofballs have assumed the identities of various game show hosts alive and dead… including Gene Rayburn. It’s good to see another generation of game show fans is emerging in America!
And there you have it folks,… the top 14 game shows of all time! I’m sure people have opinions like where was the Newlywed Game or Name that Tune for example? NTT may have gotten short shrift since it is never rerun because of the complexities involving the music licenses on the show.. I also left out Concentration and I am sure many others that you may have liked.. But feel free to leave your comments … and suggestions for other Top 14 lists.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
The Top 14 Game Shows of All Time - Part II - Big Bucks, No Whammys and...........Stop!
Here we go with Part II of the 14 Top Game Shows.. And as promised.. We lead off with what is the controversial #9 pick.. A pick even Chuck Barris’s mother wouldn’t agree with!
9. THE GONG SHOW - How many game shows had a movie made about it? Not only that, it was just so insane that you couldn’t not watch it. Hosted by Chuck Barris because nobody else could really capture the essence of the show the way he did (although Laugh In announcer Gary Owens briefly hosted the nighttime syndicated version)... 3 celebrities sat in cheap ruffled 70s tuxes and evening gowns and held a long stick just inches from a gong that would instantly end the talent show participant's performances dead in their tracks. The show also gave us cultural icons such as Gene Gene the Dancing Machine and The Unknown Comic. Is it really a game show? Heck, why not?
American Idol is really the Gong Show without the Gong... and frankly watching the national tour of auditions all it needs is Arte Johnson, Jaye P Morgan and Jamie Farr and it really is the Gong Show. I think that considering the trend that game shows continue to recycle themselves with inferior remakes.. (there have been 2 remakes that didnt last long), one day in the future kids watching yet another new Gong Show will hear their parents tell them that its just like this old show they used to watch as kids called American Idol.
Speaking of American Idol.. can you believe the irony of how it spanked The Grammys in the Nielsen ratings last week? Singers go on AI to reach the ultimate reward of a Grammy... yet while AI alumnus Kelly Clarkson won a Grammy.,... nobody saw it because they were watching American Idol! I watched the first hour of the Grammys before wandering over to Lost and I briefly considered writing about the awards.. but they just didnt seem relevant to me. Too much of that hippity hop music, plus an opening where Madonna was singing with cartoon characters.. I almost thought Bob Hoskins would jump in and sing... "A shave and a haircut... 2 bits" like he did in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
Flash back to the late 80s... when the Grammys were relevant... in '88, I actually went to them... as a "worker".... kind of like the indentured servant on Sunday night's Desperate Housewives. I was at Montclair State at the time and a bunch of us got hired to work at the awards. Not only did we do it for free... but we had to pay for our own tuxedoes and our own transportation. A bunch of us hired a limo to take us in because we had to shlep a bunch of stuff to the City and it was too much to take on a bus or train, and as I recall we had to be at Radio City Music Hall at some ungodly hour in the morning.
It was fun.. no doubt about it. Watching the rehearsals were even more fun than the awards themselves. Billy Crystal hosted that year and there was an amazing performance of "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson...(which shows up on virtually every Google reference of the ’88 Grammys) plus a great opening number by Whitney Houston and a salute to NY with Billy Joel. We also got to hang out with Buster Pointdexter who was actually a nice guy. My job.. .a talent escort. My responsibility... to escort my "talent" around Radio City so they wouldn’t be lost when it was time to go on stage. And boy did I get a big star...The Lou Reed Singers... yep.. not even the original ones.. but new ones who had been recently hired by Lou. Remember the song.. "Take a Walk on the Wild Side"... Lou Reed has a line where the "colored girls go...(and the girls would then sing) doo doo doo dooo dooo....".... So all day long.. all I got to hear was doo doo doo to that song. Eventually I was fit to be tied but I kept a big smile on my face as they kept practicing doo doo dooing.. I actually asked them if they could doo doo to another song like "A shave and a haircut .. 2 bits".. and I think I ticked off Lou Reed.
By the way... after the Grammy's ended... our big party... we went to the late and lamented Clairmont Diner on Route 3. And since it was Purim… the next morning, just hours after seeing U2 not win with the classic “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For“…I got up early and went to my old synagogue in Linden for Purim services.. And since it wasn‘t due back till the afternoon I wore my tux there. It was one of only 2 times in my life I walked into that building wearing a tuxedo... the second time was my wedding day…. where I had already found what I was looking for!
8. WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE - Not since ABC had prime time Suzanne Somers Family Feud jiggle fests did Neilsen see a game show crack the top of the ratings charts. Millionaire ruled the Nielsens in the summer of 99 and became an instant ratings hit., First it ran as a special event and then ABC brought it back in the fall to plug in every hole in its rather lame lineup. The ratings started to slip and the show soon died of overexposure.. but not before selling it off to syndication where that hot babe Meredith Viera continues to host it. It ranks high on the watchability factor... you just can't turn away when a contestant approaches the 100,000 dollar question.
Heres a trivia fact... when I worked in radio we had an intern who bore an uncanny resemblance to Chuck Scarborough. We used to call him "Young Chuck". One day I’m watching the Regis version and there is Young Chuck sitting in Contestant's Row. He got the fastest finger question right and came on whereas he promptly bombed out on the first question. Little did he know I was watching as was every other radio alumnus I could contact once he was seen on Contestant Row, and we all saw his horrific outing. Im sure hes thrilled that this story is now on my blog to be read by millions, so if you ever see someone walking down the street who looks like Chuck Scarborough, ask him how he did on Who Wants to be a Millionaire!
7. PRESS YOUR LUCK - Hosted by Peter Tomarken, the game show that introduced “big bucks no whammys…and stop” to our everyday vocabulary, it is one of only 2 shows to premiere after 1980! What a dry spell for game show producers! Players answered easy questions to earn a “spin” and then spun their way on a big board to get the most cash and prizes… but once you hit the whammy… that was the end of the moolah. It was similar in principle to the devil on The Jokers Wild and Tic Tac Dough….but… on those games you could quit while you were ahead… Here, no such luck. A player with extra earned spins was allowed to pass them to an opponent, and the passed spin often wreaked havoc on players when it ended up on the whammy. I‘m amazed some of these players didn‘t get into fistfights over those passed spins..
One guy named Michael Larson was clever beyond belief since in the early VCR/Beta days he watched the patterns on the board and figured out where the cash and a spin spots would land and where the whammy would not.. And ultimately knew how to time out his hitting of the stopper to avoid that dastardly whammy so he would always land on a spot that gave him cash plus a spin. He went on the show and won more than 100,000 bucks as he continuously avoided the whammy spin after spin after spin. He spun 45 consecutive times, and of course the producers quickly figured out what was going on, since strategically…(and how many game shows employ strategy?) it would have made sense to pass his extra spins. He finally ended up with 2 or 3 spins which he passed to the next opponent who was stuck on 50 bucks. His incredible game took 2 episodes to finish and has been replayed on a GSN documentary about his “cheating”. The poor guy died broke several years later.. Amazingly he lost half the money in a real estate scam and the other half he kept at home in cash…. And of course his home was ultimately burglarized….so ultimately it seems like he did hit the whammy after all. But when it came to sheer excitement.. It was hard to beat Press Your Luck.
6. THE PYRAMIDS THAT HAD DOLLAR NUMBERS IN THE TITLE - Nothing against Donny Osmond but they modernized the show a bit much in its recent revival. The old versions mostly hosted by Dick Clark (but also Bill Cullen and John Davidson) had a dollar number in the title that was a huge amount of moolah for that time. The early versions in the early 70s was for a measly 10k… but later versions played for 100k. This game also had a high excitement level… as the seconds loudly ticked ominously in the background… almost like that clock on 24. It was fun to watched stressed out celebrities try to get people to say phrases like “Things George Bush says in a hot tub”….with clues like “Where are those bubbles coming from Condoleeza?”
5. JEOPARDY - Another Merv Griffin production…. And the most cerebral game show of our time. Simple format.. Answer in the form of a question. Use strategy to pick your dollar wagers on the Daily Doubles and final Jeopardy questions. Originally a daytime NBC game show in the 60s and 70s with Art Fleming, it came back with Alex Trebek in the 80s with a different set… and sharper look, yet stayed true to the format. Having Ken Jennings win a gazillion consecutive games in 2004 also helped give the show a big boost in the ratings not seen since Trebek shaved his moustache. Its always fun to play along and feel inferior to the NY Times Crossword Puzzle aficionados that excel in this game night after night. At this pace it could run forever, since they will never run out of questions, or smart people to play the game. Strangely enough, it could be the one show identified with a particular host that may have the most replaceable host. By the way Rock and Roll Jeopardy with Jeff Probst does not count on this list.. Although it too was a fun game show to watch. I always thought CBS was looking at Probst as a possible replacement for Bob Barker on The Price is Right.. But after his success on Survivor.. It looks like he will be gainfully employed for years to come.
Hey what does an award snubbed rich musician write in a telegram… Big Bucks… No Grammys… and Stop!
NEXT ; The final 4. More excitement than Dick Vitale could imagine!.. Will it be all Mark Goodson shows? Or will somebody else crack the list. And who is no. 1? No. 2? Stay tuned to find out!
9. THE GONG SHOW - How many game shows had a movie made about it? Not only that, it was just so insane that you couldn’t not watch it. Hosted by Chuck Barris because nobody else could really capture the essence of the show the way he did (although Laugh In announcer Gary Owens briefly hosted the nighttime syndicated version)... 3 celebrities sat in cheap ruffled 70s tuxes and evening gowns and held a long stick just inches from a gong that would instantly end the talent show participant's performances dead in their tracks. The show also gave us cultural icons such as Gene Gene the Dancing Machine and The Unknown Comic. Is it really a game show? Heck, why not?
American Idol is really the Gong Show without the Gong... and frankly watching the national tour of auditions all it needs is Arte Johnson, Jaye P Morgan and Jamie Farr and it really is the Gong Show. I think that considering the trend that game shows continue to recycle themselves with inferior remakes.. (there have been 2 remakes that didnt last long), one day in the future kids watching yet another new Gong Show will hear their parents tell them that its just like this old show they used to watch as kids called American Idol.
Speaking of American Idol.. can you believe the irony of how it spanked The Grammys in the Nielsen ratings last week? Singers go on AI to reach the ultimate reward of a Grammy... yet while AI alumnus Kelly Clarkson won a Grammy.,... nobody saw it because they were watching American Idol! I watched the first hour of the Grammys before wandering over to Lost and I briefly considered writing about the awards.. but they just didnt seem relevant to me. Too much of that hippity hop music, plus an opening where Madonna was singing with cartoon characters.. I almost thought Bob Hoskins would jump in and sing... "A shave and a haircut... 2 bits" like he did in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
Flash back to the late 80s... when the Grammys were relevant... in '88, I actually went to them... as a "worker".... kind of like the indentured servant on Sunday night's Desperate Housewives. I was at Montclair State at the time and a bunch of us got hired to work at the awards. Not only did we do it for free... but we had to pay for our own tuxedoes and our own transportation. A bunch of us hired a limo to take us in because we had to shlep a bunch of stuff to the City and it was too much to take on a bus or train, and as I recall we had to be at Radio City Music Hall at some ungodly hour in the morning.
It was fun.. no doubt about it. Watching the rehearsals were even more fun than the awards themselves. Billy Crystal hosted that year and there was an amazing performance of "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson...(which shows up on virtually every Google reference of the ’88 Grammys) plus a great opening number by Whitney Houston and a salute to NY with Billy Joel. We also got to hang out with Buster Pointdexter who was actually a nice guy. My job.. .a talent escort. My responsibility... to escort my "talent" around Radio City so they wouldn’t be lost when it was time to go on stage. And boy did I get a big star...The Lou Reed Singers... yep.. not even the original ones.. but new ones who had been recently hired by Lou. Remember the song.. "Take a Walk on the Wild Side"... Lou Reed has a line where the "colored girls go...(and the girls would then sing) doo doo doo dooo dooo....".... So all day long.. all I got to hear was doo doo doo to that song. Eventually I was fit to be tied but I kept a big smile on my face as they kept practicing doo doo dooing.. I actually asked them if they could doo doo to another song like "A shave and a haircut .. 2 bits".. and I think I ticked off Lou Reed.
By the way... after the Grammy's ended... our big party... we went to the late and lamented Clairmont Diner on Route 3. And since it was Purim… the next morning, just hours after seeing U2 not win with the classic “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For“…I got up early and went to my old synagogue in Linden for Purim services.. And since it wasn‘t due back till the afternoon I wore my tux there. It was one of only 2 times in my life I walked into that building wearing a tuxedo... the second time was my wedding day…. where I had already found what I was looking for!
8. WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE - Not since ABC had prime time Suzanne Somers Family Feud jiggle fests did Neilsen see a game show crack the top of the ratings charts. Millionaire ruled the Nielsens in the summer of 99 and became an instant ratings hit., First it ran as a special event and then ABC brought it back in the fall to plug in every hole in its rather lame lineup. The ratings started to slip and the show soon died of overexposure.. but not before selling it off to syndication where that hot babe Meredith Viera continues to host it. It ranks high on the watchability factor... you just can't turn away when a contestant approaches the 100,000 dollar question.
Heres a trivia fact... when I worked in radio we had an intern who bore an uncanny resemblance to Chuck Scarborough. We used to call him "Young Chuck". One day I’m watching the Regis version and there is Young Chuck sitting in Contestant's Row. He got the fastest finger question right and came on whereas he promptly bombed out on the first question. Little did he know I was watching as was every other radio alumnus I could contact once he was seen on Contestant Row, and we all saw his horrific outing. Im sure hes thrilled that this story is now on my blog to be read by millions, so if you ever see someone walking down the street who looks like Chuck Scarborough, ask him how he did on Who Wants to be a Millionaire!
7. PRESS YOUR LUCK - Hosted by Peter Tomarken, the game show that introduced “big bucks no whammys…and stop” to our everyday vocabulary, it is one of only 2 shows to premiere after 1980! What a dry spell for game show producers! Players answered easy questions to earn a “spin” and then spun their way on a big board to get the most cash and prizes… but once you hit the whammy… that was the end of the moolah. It was similar in principle to the devil on The Jokers Wild and Tic Tac Dough….but… on those games you could quit while you were ahead… Here, no such luck. A player with extra earned spins was allowed to pass them to an opponent, and the passed spin often wreaked havoc on players when it ended up on the whammy. I‘m amazed some of these players didn‘t get into fistfights over those passed spins..
One guy named Michael Larson was clever beyond belief since in the early VCR/Beta days he watched the patterns on the board and figured out where the cash and a spin spots would land and where the whammy would not.. And ultimately knew how to time out his hitting of the stopper to avoid that dastardly whammy so he would always land on a spot that gave him cash plus a spin. He went on the show and won more than 100,000 bucks as he continuously avoided the whammy spin after spin after spin. He spun 45 consecutive times, and of course the producers quickly figured out what was going on, since strategically…(and how many game shows employ strategy?) it would have made sense to pass his extra spins. He finally ended up with 2 or 3 spins which he passed to the next opponent who was stuck on 50 bucks. His incredible game took 2 episodes to finish and has been replayed on a GSN documentary about his “cheating”. The poor guy died broke several years later.. Amazingly he lost half the money in a real estate scam and the other half he kept at home in cash…. And of course his home was ultimately burglarized….so ultimately it seems like he did hit the whammy after all. But when it came to sheer excitement.. It was hard to beat Press Your Luck.
6. THE PYRAMIDS THAT HAD DOLLAR NUMBERS IN THE TITLE - Nothing against Donny Osmond but they modernized the show a bit much in its recent revival. The old versions mostly hosted by Dick Clark (but also Bill Cullen and John Davidson) had a dollar number in the title that was a huge amount of moolah for that time. The early versions in the early 70s was for a measly 10k… but later versions played for 100k. This game also had a high excitement level… as the seconds loudly ticked ominously in the background… almost like that clock on 24. It was fun to watched stressed out celebrities try to get people to say phrases like “Things George Bush says in a hot tub”….with clues like “Where are those bubbles coming from Condoleeza?”
5. JEOPARDY - Another Merv Griffin production…. And the most cerebral game show of our time. Simple format.. Answer in the form of a question. Use strategy to pick your dollar wagers on the Daily Doubles and final Jeopardy questions. Originally a daytime NBC game show in the 60s and 70s with Art Fleming, it came back with Alex Trebek in the 80s with a different set… and sharper look, yet stayed true to the format. Having Ken Jennings win a gazillion consecutive games in 2004 also helped give the show a big boost in the ratings not seen since Trebek shaved his moustache. Its always fun to play along and feel inferior to the NY Times Crossword Puzzle aficionados that excel in this game night after night. At this pace it could run forever, since they will never run out of questions, or smart people to play the game. Strangely enough, it could be the one show identified with a particular host that may have the most replaceable host. By the way Rock and Roll Jeopardy with Jeff Probst does not count on this list.. Although it too was a fun game show to watch. I always thought CBS was looking at Probst as a possible replacement for Bob Barker on The Price is Right.. But after his success on Survivor.. It looks like he will be gainfully employed for years to come.
Hey what does an award snubbed rich musician write in a telegram… Big Bucks… No Grammys… and Stop!
NEXT ; The final 4. More excitement than Dick Vitale could imagine!.. Will it be all Mark Goodson shows? Or will somebody else crack the list. And who is no. 1? No. 2? Stay tuned to find out!
Friday, February 10, 2006
The Top 14 Game Shows of All Time - Part I - Will It Be Bachelor No. 1, Bachelor No. 2....or the Banana Section?
Here folks is my own list of the top 14 game shows ever in the history of all mankind!. We're splitting this into 3 parts.. today the bottom 5, in Part II we will talk about the next five and in part III, The Final Four.. Anyone who knows me can easily guess what comes in at no. 1.... But keep in mind that other bloggers who have made this list have also come up with the same #1... so I just may have been on to something the last 30 years or so. Feel free to use the comments space to generate some speculation about The Final Four.
Interestingly enough only 1 of the game shows on this list has premiered in the last 20 years,.. and only 2 have premiered in the last 30! Virtually every great game show was created during television’s early years from the 50's through early 70s. But since then... zippo and zilcho. Game Show Network came into this world on December 1, 1994, and over the years they have tried to bring us original game shows, They remade Press Your Luck, The Gong Show and Three’s a Crowd which happened to have one of the catchier theme songs in game show history. They also tried a few original game shows such as Cram, Inquizition and Friend or Foe ….but aside from Lingo with Chuck Woolery, none have had much staying power..
Why 14? Why not?… I had a hard time picking from 2 shows for 15 (The Newlywed Game and Name That Tune) and I didn’t feel like making a top 16 list.. So I cut it at 14 because to me there was a pretty big gap after 14. And what went into my decision? The ability to play along , entertainment, longevity, and also the show’s impact on television as a whole. If you take a look at shows that started in the 60s and 70s (as most of these did) you will see how they influenced later shows. Aren’t the wildly popular reality shows Survivor and American Idol really game shows? I also think some will also find my number 9 choice to be controversial... but I'm sticking by my picks! So here we go.
14 - THE ORIGINAL MAKE ME LAUGH - We'll start with an oddball pick. All of the game shows lasted many years - except for this one… but for the year that it ran.. it was hilarious! This syndicated program was on back in ‘79 and was totally addictive!. Bobby Van hosted 3 comedians who had 60 seconds each to make a contestant laugh. The contestant sat there and if they went a minute without laughing they made a buck a second. If they outlasted all 3 comedians… they won 360.. . Not a heckuva lot of money, but there were definitely some very funny moments; not to mention a great source of exposure for young up and coming comedians.
One very memorable female contestant with chubby cheeks discovered that by hyperventilating, she could control herself to keep from laughing. She took these huge deep breaths, and won.. So the producers brought her back, and on her return engagement to the program the comedians attacked by putting party noisemakers and balloons in her mouth that she instantly inflated.. along with candles that she would blow out. I was on the floor laughing but the contestant kept huffing and puffing away.
Also, at the time this show was on.. the notion of having stand up comedians perform on TV was extremely unusual. Aside from the show Evening at the Improv, there weren’t too many comedians honing their craft on TV…. Yet now we have Comedy Central, a network that originally was 2 comedy networks that showed hours and hours of stand up material. Of course The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson also had a HUGE impact on this trend too… but this 30 minute program gave us a solid half hour of standup each and every day… Notice I said the original MML and not the lame remake that aired on Comedy Central in the late 90s. Maybe it will come back again in 2050 (MML).
13. THE DATING GAME - One of 2 Chuck Barris game shows to make the list.. This may have started the reality dating show craze. 3 bachelors (or bachelorettes) sat behind a wall and were suggestively questioned by a bachelorette (or bachelor) who tried to win a date for an exotic trip that would be “chaperoned” by a Chuck Barris Productions staffer. Ultimately, there would be one goofball on the panel and you just prayed that person would get picked.
Years later Love Connection came along…. which wasn’t really a game show… and you got to see if the 2 hit it off… or had a little of the ol’ hocus mcpocus.. I always thought that more contestants on Love Connection had sex than the people who appeared on the raunchier Studs. Love Connection in turn led to the plethora of dating shows such as Studs, and Singled Out on MTV which gave big breaks to Jenny McCarthy and Carmen Electra.. And many many more that have run over the years, mostly on MTV….Blind Date which sells a raunchy outtake dvd has taken the viewer full circle by allowing us to go along on the date….All of these dating shows… even the horrible Bachelor, owe their birth to this Chuck Barris original!
12. WHEEL OF FORTUNE - This is one of two game shows on this list created by Merv Griffin who to me is a showbiz legend. He created shows, hosted a popular syndicated talk show and made gazillions of dollars by becoming a casino mogul…casinos which he then sold for huge profits. You never hear about Merv having the financial problems that plague that goofball Donald Trump,…. And Merv Griffin’s daddy never bought millions of dollars worth of chips to keep his casino afloat. Merv also created Dance Fever which is now being copied by Dancing with the Stars…
Dance Fever was teamed up with Solid Gold, every Saturday night in the old days on 11 Alive! Speaking of which… many many moons ago, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky was a “celebrity judge” on Dance Fever… of course the woman who flashed the most skin ALWAYS won. Well, remember Jan and Diane - Motion! Jan was doing her little dance that day and caught Gretzky‘s attention. As you might know, she is now known as Janet Jones, aka Mrs.Gretzky and is now embroiled in a huge scandal involving a sports gambling ring that she ran with a NJ State Trooper. I bet Gretzky wishes he would have hit on Diane instead!
I mean who stupid can you get? The wife of THE best player in hockey history has nothing better to do than get involved in sports gambling? That would be like Mrs. Gene Rayburn taking wagers for the Banana Section at a Tattletales taping! The only motion Janet will hear will be the ones in court for what has the potential to be a sensational trial!
I haven’t watched Wheel of Fortune in years, but you gotta give them credit for longevity. The show has been kicking butt in syndication for close to 25 years, and shows no signs of letting up. Merv took a simple game like hangman... threw in a glamorous wheel, a hot model and a host with a bad toupee and there you have it…. the formula for a multi million dollar money maker that will probably spin on forever.
I used to watch the show back in the old days pre-syndication when it was on NBC and hosted by Chuck Woolery. We used to have a substitute teacher in high school named Mr. Dreznick who aspired to be on Name That Tune. He used to walk around school with crumpled pieces of paper containing obscure songs and just sing them out of the blue.. Then in the summer of 1980 - there he was... on Wheel of Fortune. I think he won a car and when he lost on the 2nd day he launched a lengthy speech thanking Chuck and the producers for treating him so nicely and not throwing spitballs at him and planting whoopee cushions on his seat!
11. FAMILY FEUD - Again, its longevity.... The show started in the mid 70s as a vehicle for Richard Dawson based on the surveys used on Match Game in the Big Money Super Match. Since then there have been quite a few different versions hosted by the late Ray Combs, Louie Anderson and Richard Karn. Dawson even returned for a season back in '94 but was a shadow of his former self... his British accent was back, he wasn’t kissing women and he constantly talked about his new wife and daughter.. He actually met his much younger wife when she was a contestant on the old Feud, and called her a few weeks after to put the shmaneuver on her. That must have been an interesting phone call. Imagine Richard at the Family Feud production office…”Hey can you get me the phone number for that young chickie that was on the show? I’d love to have her at the house to watch my Bob Crane video collection” (See my 1977 column from November if you don’t understand the cross reference.) The Karn version is still basically the same with different music and a newer set. The Spanish station also runs a version in espanol..
Feud was a huge hit in the 70s and early 80s when ABC used to get prime time stars to face off against each other... just another opportunity for the network to get Suzanne Somers from 3s Company to jump up and down without a bra on! I remember it was the 3s company vs. Soap episode and Bob the dummy's eyes were popping out of his head!
Whatever did happen to the ventriliquist Jay Johnson? Well get a load of this... he has a Broadway show premiering soon! “The Two and Only” premieres April 3rd at the Helen Hayes Theater! (It’s also my favorite day in sports.. It’s Baseball Opening Day and the NCAA Tourney Final) The show has been on tour around the country and is directed by Paul Kreppel who played the pianist on Its a Living... All you need is Gavin McLeod and Isaac the Bartender and we could have an ABC 70s reunion on the Love Boat! Just think... you can invite forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee along and he can finally throw a dummy off the boat! (I think only the Rita Cosby viewers who follow the Smith honeymoon cruise story are gonna get that one...)
10. TO TELL THE TRUTH - This is one of 7 celebrity panelist game shows to make the list... It qualifies because I will usually watch it when its on. It has had a million versions with a bunch of different hosts including Lynn Swann, Alex Trebek, Gordon Elliott and John O'Hurley. The game never changes... 4 stars, 3 contestants,, 2 are lying. The show which started in the 50s always featured Kitty Carlisle who is now in her mid 90s and amazingly still performing and singing! The sheer watch-ability and play along factor get it on the list. Sometimes if you watch the old ones on GSN you see quasi famous people playing the impostors! T4 was one of three 4 panelist shows that hit it big in the old days of television including What’s My Line and I’ve Got a Secret… which rarely get revisited, although GSN is planning to roll out an IGAS remake in a few months. Apparently it has an all gay panel and is going to bump Match Game out of the 11-12 midnight slot.
In Part II, the next five on the list… including a controversial pick for #9 that may surprise some….. If you would like to wager on the Final Four… feel free to contact Janet Jones or your local state trooper.
Interestingly enough only 1 of the game shows on this list has premiered in the last 20 years,.. and only 2 have premiered in the last 30! Virtually every great game show was created during television’s early years from the 50's through early 70s. But since then... zippo and zilcho. Game Show Network came into this world on December 1, 1994, and over the years they have tried to bring us original game shows, They remade Press Your Luck, The Gong Show and Three’s a Crowd which happened to have one of the catchier theme songs in game show history. They also tried a few original game shows such as Cram, Inquizition and Friend or Foe ….but aside from Lingo with Chuck Woolery, none have had much staying power..
Why 14? Why not?… I had a hard time picking from 2 shows for 15 (The Newlywed Game and Name That Tune) and I didn’t feel like making a top 16 list.. So I cut it at 14 because to me there was a pretty big gap after 14. And what went into my decision? The ability to play along , entertainment, longevity, and also the show’s impact on television as a whole. If you take a look at shows that started in the 60s and 70s (as most of these did) you will see how they influenced later shows. Aren’t the wildly popular reality shows Survivor and American Idol really game shows? I also think some will also find my number 9 choice to be controversial... but I'm sticking by my picks! So here we go.
14 - THE ORIGINAL MAKE ME LAUGH - We'll start with an oddball pick. All of the game shows lasted many years - except for this one… but for the year that it ran.. it was hilarious! This syndicated program was on back in ‘79 and was totally addictive!. Bobby Van hosted 3 comedians who had 60 seconds each to make a contestant laugh. The contestant sat there and if they went a minute without laughing they made a buck a second. If they outlasted all 3 comedians… they won 360.. . Not a heckuva lot of money, but there were definitely some very funny moments; not to mention a great source of exposure for young up and coming comedians.
One very memorable female contestant with chubby cheeks discovered that by hyperventilating, she could control herself to keep from laughing. She took these huge deep breaths, and won.. So the producers brought her back, and on her return engagement to the program the comedians attacked by putting party noisemakers and balloons in her mouth that she instantly inflated.. along with candles that she would blow out. I was on the floor laughing but the contestant kept huffing and puffing away.
Also, at the time this show was on.. the notion of having stand up comedians perform on TV was extremely unusual. Aside from the show Evening at the Improv, there weren’t too many comedians honing their craft on TV…. Yet now we have Comedy Central, a network that originally was 2 comedy networks that showed hours and hours of stand up material. Of course The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson also had a HUGE impact on this trend too… but this 30 minute program gave us a solid half hour of standup each and every day… Notice I said the original MML and not the lame remake that aired on Comedy Central in the late 90s. Maybe it will come back again in 2050 (MML).
13. THE DATING GAME - One of 2 Chuck Barris game shows to make the list.. This may have started the reality dating show craze. 3 bachelors (or bachelorettes) sat behind a wall and were suggestively questioned by a bachelorette (or bachelor) who tried to win a date for an exotic trip that would be “chaperoned” by a Chuck Barris Productions staffer. Ultimately, there would be one goofball on the panel and you just prayed that person would get picked.
Years later Love Connection came along…. which wasn’t really a game show… and you got to see if the 2 hit it off… or had a little of the ol’ hocus mcpocus.. I always thought that more contestants on Love Connection had sex than the people who appeared on the raunchier Studs. Love Connection in turn led to the plethora of dating shows such as Studs, and Singled Out on MTV which gave big breaks to Jenny McCarthy and Carmen Electra.. And many many more that have run over the years, mostly on MTV….Blind Date which sells a raunchy outtake dvd has taken the viewer full circle by allowing us to go along on the date….All of these dating shows… even the horrible Bachelor, owe their birth to this Chuck Barris original!
12. WHEEL OF FORTUNE - This is one of two game shows on this list created by Merv Griffin who to me is a showbiz legend. He created shows, hosted a popular syndicated talk show and made gazillions of dollars by becoming a casino mogul…casinos which he then sold for huge profits. You never hear about Merv having the financial problems that plague that goofball Donald Trump,…. And Merv Griffin’s daddy never bought millions of dollars worth of chips to keep his casino afloat. Merv also created Dance Fever which is now being copied by Dancing with the Stars…
Dance Fever was teamed up with Solid Gold, every Saturday night in the old days on 11 Alive! Speaking of which… many many moons ago, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky was a “celebrity judge” on Dance Fever… of course the woman who flashed the most skin ALWAYS won. Well, remember Jan and Diane - Motion! Jan was doing her little dance that day and caught Gretzky‘s attention. As you might know, she is now known as Janet Jones, aka Mrs.Gretzky and is now embroiled in a huge scandal involving a sports gambling ring that she ran with a NJ State Trooper. I bet Gretzky wishes he would have hit on Diane instead!
I mean who stupid can you get? The wife of THE best player in hockey history has nothing better to do than get involved in sports gambling? That would be like Mrs. Gene Rayburn taking wagers for the Banana Section at a Tattletales taping! The only motion Janet will hear will be the ones in court for what has the potential to be a sensational trial!
I haven’t watched Wheel of Fortune in years, but you gotta give them credit for longevity. The show has been kicking butt in syndication for close to 25 years, and shows no signs of letting up. Merv took a simple game like hangman... threw in a glamorous wheel, a hot model and a host with a bad toupee and there you have it…. the formula for a multi million dollar money maker that will probably spin on forever.
I used to watch the show back in the old days pre-syndication when it was on NBC and hosted by Chuck Woolery. We used to have a substitute teacher in high school named Mr. Dreznick who aspired to be on Name That Tune. He used to walk around school with crumpled pieces of paper containing obscure songs and just sing them out of the blue.. Then in the summer of 1980 - there he was... on Wheel of Fortune. I think he won a car and when he lost on the 2nd day he launched a lengthy speech thanking Chuck and the producers for treating him so nicely and not throwing spitballs at him and planting whoopee cushions on his seat!
11. FAMILY FEUD - Again, its longevity.... The show started in the mid 70s as a vehicle for Richard Dawson based on the surveys used on Match Game in the Big Money Super Match. Since then there have been quite a few different versions hosted by the late Ray Combs, Louie Anderson and Richard Karn. Dawson even returned for a season back in '94 but was a shadow of his former self... his British accent was back, he wasn’t kissing women and he constantly talked about his new wife and daughter.. He actually met his much younger wife when she was a contestant on the old Feud, and called her a few weeks after to put the shmaneuver on her. That must have been an interesting phone call. Imagine Richard at the Family Feud production office…”Hey can you get me the phone number for that young chickie that was on the show? I’d love to have her at the house to watch my Bob Crane video collection” (See my 1977 column from November if you don’t understand the cross reference.) The Karn version is still basically the same with different music and a newer set. The Spanish station also runs a version in espanol..
Feud was a huge hit in the 70s and early 80s when ABC used to get prime time stars to face off against each other... just another opportunity for the network to get Suzanne Somers from 3s Company to jump up and down without a bra on! I remember it was the 3s company vs. Soap episode and Bob the dummy's eyes were popping out of his head!
Whatever did happen to the ventriliquist Jay Johnson? Well get a load of this... he has a Broadway show premiering soon! “The Two and Only” premieres April 3rd at the Helen Hayes Theater! (It’s also my favorite day in sports.. It’s Baseball Opening Day and the NCAA Tourney Final) The show has been on tour around the country and is directed by Paul Kreppel who played the pianist on Its a Living... All you need is Gavin McLeod and Isaac the Bartender and we could have an ABC 70s reunion on the Love Boat! Just think... you can invite forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee along and he can finally throw a dummy off the boat! (I think only the Rita Cosby viewers who follow the Smith honeymoon cruise story are gonna get that one...)
10. TO TELL THE TRUTH - This is one of 7 celebrity panelist game shows to make the list... It qualifies because I will usually watch it when its on. It has had a million versions with a bunch of different hosts including Lynn Swann, Alex Trebek, Gordon Elliott and John O'Hurley. The game never changes... 4 stars, 3 contestants,, 2 are lying. The show which started in the 50s always featured Kitty Carlisle who is now in her mid 90s and amazingly still performing and singing! The sheer watch-ability and play along factor get it on the list. Sometimes if you watch the old ones on GSN you see quasi famous people playing the impostors! T4 was one of three 4 panelist shows that hit it big in the old days of television including What’s My Line and I’ve Got a Secret… which rarely get revisited, although GSN is planning to roll out an IGAS remake in a few months. Apparently it has an all gay panel and is going to bump Match Game out of the 11-12 midnight slot.
In Part II, the next five on the list… including a controversial pick for #9 that may surprise some….. If you would like to wager on the Final Four… feel free to contact Janet Jones or your local state trooper.
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