And now, a special word from Jim Perry on the set of Card Sharks (1978)....

"WELL, that is all the time we have for now.

"Julie and Philip, I hope you will come back with us next time and finish the match. You're a couple of of delightful people. I must say one of, one of the joys of doing this show is meeting nice people like you!

"Hope you're having a very pleasant holiday season! Be very careful; have a most pleasant holiday all the way through, okay?

"Thank you for joining us; now, we'll see you next time on Card Sharks!

"'Bye, 'bye!"

Keeping it trivial....

Fang Shih-yu, Shaolin Temple.

(P.S. - Merry Christmas to all readers of the blog, regular followers or otherwise! Thanks for your support!)

Get Ready to Forget the "Match Game" Star! #2: Elaine Joyce

OKAY, for all those times she appeared on Match Game as is, I should have profiled  Elaine Joyce (her maiden name is Pinchot) first. I had to see more than a few MG reruns on Game Show Network (GSN) before I saw one with her, and when I did, the memories began to flow like water. Research filled in the many gaps.

This opening shot (from a Match Game '75) is synonymous with how I remember first seeing her back in the '70s; she's one of the few celebrities who looked good in this stylized... uh, "bowl cut" hairdo. (Bad example: Robbie Rist.)

Some of you might remember her more via her marriage to Bobby Van (born Robert Jack Stein); they often did joint appearances on some shows, such as Tattletales and an episode of CHiPs. Both are best known as performers in musicals, though they had done their own fair share of movies and TV shows. When they got married in 1968, he was 39, and she was 22. At the time of the MG'75 taping, Bobby was hosting the short-lived game show Showoffs, which Elaine was promoting with her note. He'd go on to host two more, but his debut came under unfortunate circumstances.

The original choice for emcee was Larry Blyden, previously the last host of What's My Line? (the syndicated version). He taped the pilot for ABC (a formality as the Mark Goodson and Bill Todman production was a shoo-in) in late May of '75. Shortly after, he would die in a car accident while on vacation in Morocco, about three weeks before the production resumed. Rather than delay the program's premiere (for a period of mourning), they selected Bobby as a last moment replacement. A pall was cast over the set during Showoffs' run; Bobby didn't altogether click with viewers, too, and the show only ran six months after its June 30th bow.

The union of Elaine and Bobby would sadly end when he died of cancer on July 31, 1980. In 1981, while she worked on the sitcom Mr. Merlin, she got a fan letter from one J. D. Salinger (yes, the author of Catcher in the Rye); after a period of correspondence, a secret relationship followed. While this odd pairing went on, Elaine married John Levoff, a TV producer, with whom she had a son, Michael. (She had a daughter, Taylor, with Bobby.) Beyond a May '82 newspaper report that Salinger was spotted in Jacksonville, FL, to see a play Elaine was in, their affair lasted quietly through the latter '80s, and her second marriage crumbled in due course.

Into the '90s, Elaine was keeping busy with parts in shows as diverse as Beverly Hills, 90210, Murder, She Wrote and Days of Our Lives. In 1999, she got married to her third husband, Neil Simon (The Odd Couple and... [shudder] ...The Odd Couple II movie), and they are together to the present day. They've even collaborated together, as illustrated by this poster of a show she did in 2007. Considering her connections to Salinger and Simon, the evidence strongly suggests Elaine is anything but the intellectual lightweight she sometimes portrayed in some of her many film and TV roles. (This is not implying Bobby Van was an idiot, too; his only bad judgement call seems to have been participating in the awful musical remake of Lost Horizon in 1973!)

From all the MG episodes I've watched, she is a lot of fun to see in action; I must also add there are the moments she can be  grating, but such is a fate that fell upon all those who graced the CBS TV studio where MG was recorded in mini-marathon sessions. (Five shows on Saturday, five shows on Sunday, and then a two-week break before it started all over again.) She was a semi-regular, compared to those like Richard Dawson or host Gene Rayburn, but she was on so many times, she's as readily remembered by fans as the "veterans" of the show are. The people who saw Elaine on MG really liked her; otherwise, the producers would've stopped asking her to return at some point.

Did the other celebrity panelists feel the same toward her? At least, there was one known contrarian. Before her death in 2007 (almost four months to the day after Charles Nelson Reilly passed on), Brett Somers sat down for an interview (included on the 2006 The Best of Match Game DVD set, available from Mill Creek) where she said of Elaine (and I quote):


"I never shared [my dressing room] with Elaine Joyce. I was never crazy about her."

"I used to sit in the 'dummy' seat... Elaine Joyce sat there a lot."

The reruns demonstrate why Brett still harbored the feelings she did long after the show was over. Elaine (about 29 at the time of the MG'75 era) is very outgoing and friendly, notably so with the men in front of the camera and behind. In the week's worth of installments I recently saw, director Marc Breslow heavily favors Elaine with more shots of her on-camera than what's usual with the celebrity regulars and semi-regulars. That this is very noticeable in the last few shows might be due to everybody having returned from the notorious dinner breaks that occured during a pause in taping (where more than a few were said to have often returned in a tipsy state, though this has yet to be verified).

Here, she is playfully flirting with Gene more than usual... not that Gene's complaining. (Neither would Brother Fang.) Actually, Elaine's personality is intoxicating without the prompting of alcohol; at her most affable, it's easy to figure out why Bobby Van (or anyone else) fell head over heels for her.

How she appears on these programs is, of course, only one facet of her personae. She is certainly a strong woman who has had to cope with (among other things) the death of her first husband and a career of ups and downs before finding love the third time around; hopefully, it's for keeps.

What more can I say about this remarkable lady? I think I've renewed my membership in her fan club! True, she's no Meryl Streep, but then, I don't expect her to be.

In closing, how do you respond to Brett's remarks, Elaine?

Fair enough....

Keeping it trivial....

Fang Shih-yu, Shaolin ______.

Get Ready to Forget the "Match Game" Star! #1: Trish Stewart

FOR you who re-member watching those celebrity-loaded TV game shows of the '70s-'80s, how the producers of these programs de-fined "celebrity" ran contrary to your definition. These shows could only get people of the "B" list, "also-ran", "washed up", "up and coming" or "flash in the pan" variety.

Add to that list the category of actors most alien to little kids: somebody from a soap opera! They were what only your mother watched (or taped to watch later when VCRs became common-place); they were what sent a kid outside to play until the cartoons came on later in the day, if school wasn't an issue.

Imagine what my response was when I decided to try out my DVR by recording some episodes of the kitsch classic Match Game '75, and I saw... her. My first reaction was, "Wow! Something even better than Charles Nelson Reilly's wisecracks!" This lady's lovely by today's standards; these pictures don't lie.

She is Trish Stewart, and at the time, she was one of the original cast members of the CBS soap The Young and the Restless (1973-present). I recall my mother watching this when it premiered (or not long after) due to the main title "Nadia's Theme", which later became a hit in '76 (#8 on Billboard).

I remember first hearing the music used as an underscore cue in Stanley Kramer's '71 movie Bless the Beasts and Children, which re-ran on TV quite a few times prior to the debut of TYatR. (The Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr. com-position was initially called "Cotton's Theme".)

This would later be retitled "Nadia's Theme" when ABC (the network airing the '76 summer Olympics in Montreal) lent the music to Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci for use in competition. She never used it for a routine, but she still won gold medals. The instrumental went on to win a Grammy in '77.

Back to Trish; if you click on her IMDb link, you'll see the other TV programs she appeared on during her time in the spotlight. I don't remember seeing her in some of these shows, but in light of her Match Game appearance (one of many she did), I sure wouldn't mind seeing more of her, she left such an impression.

Easily, she's the most natural and least pretentious of the six panelists on in the week's run of shows (five) I saw, more pleasant than regulars Brett Somers, Richard Dawson, Gary Burghoff or host Gene Rayburn, who tended to get on my nerves if I watched MG too much. (CNR was not on that week.)

She reminded me of the younger Candice Bergen who had appeared on the first season of Saturday Night Live ('75) by how she dressed sharply (by '70s standards), her shoulder-length hair (though Bergen's a brunette) and how the men on the show noticably treated her like a lady.

As I take the time to think of popular stars who started on soap operas and went on to bigger and better things, I then think about the vivacious woman I saw on MG and wonder what was wrong with her that she couldn't move beyond TYatR (which she left in '84). Was it because of her being on MG? Of course not.

There's a difference between good actors and big stars. Good actors are "a dime a dozen", and big stars are "one in a million". Sometimes, it's hard to believe some performer who appears to come off like a million bucks is actually worth ten cents to the entertainment industry. In that sense, Trish is, herself, "one in a million" amongst dozens of people. In the final analysis, as long as reruns of her shows play on TV (or DVD), she won't be truly be forgotten...compared to an Avery Schreiber.

I think I'll hold on to these DVR recordings for a while.

Keeping it trivial....

Fang Shih-yu, Shaolin Temple.

The Big Con: "TV on DVD"

I tell you, reissuing TV shows on DVD (or Blu-ray) may have been something the entertainment industry should've never started doing in the first place. There's nothing snobbish about my opinion, as I've a few of these sets in my collection; the problem I have with them --across the board-- is addressed by the photo of this collection of Gomer Pyle - USMC. What catches the eye on this cover, above all else? The word "COMPLETE". Whether a notation like this is on a set's packaging or not, the concept is implied as being there by the companies putting these out due to the DVD format.

Compared to those by-gone days when some of TV's classics got released on VHS tapes in big, bulky sets (mostly with little to no "extras"), the point that these discs were smaller in size, more flexible with holding video and audio than tape (opening it up for all kinds of "special features"), yet still play back with a sharp picture and sound, meant DVD sets could hold more while taking up less space on media shelves. Yes, DVDs trump VHS tapes, but the newer technology doesn't automatically guarantee "COMPLETE"; neither do the DVD makers, as it turns out.

Regardless if you've looked at these box sets in a discount store or online, it probably hasn't been taken long before you notice that the more recent the TV program (broadcast, syndicated or cable), the more complete it will be. (Two examples are NCIS and Friends.) On the other hand, the more you go back in time through the history of television, the more older sets will be less complete. On either end of the spectrum, consumers can be spoiled by the most ambitious of collections (whether they buy them or not); after newer ones, older sets like those for I Love Lucy or Adventures of Superman were lovingly assembled with uncut episodes and an array of extras that make other sets look anemic. (The Lucy sets really raised the bar in this department.) In-between these old and new "deluxe editions", what is there? Where to start?!

Let's begin by establishing this: above all else, what a DVD set of TV shows should contain is complete, uncut episodes, no matter how long it runs/ran; anything more is much overkill! This comes from someone who LOVES "extras", so Brother Fang is amazed he said it as much as the reader may be!

With that established, several sets fall short on this aspect alone for many reasons. Going back to the example of Gomer, once I started reading consumer feedback about all the box sets on Amazon, I was floored by what I read. As the first season set was deemed by purchasers to be COMPLETE, the rest of them weren't. (The other sets of seasons do NOT use "COMPLETE" anywhere in the copy printed on the insert sleeves.) What's missing from these other sets is a selection of songs sung by Jim Nabors, cut due to licensing hassles; how many, I can't recall. On top of this, the same cut shows in dispute run in syndication with the songs intact! (Sure, I can live without his singing, but several fans of Nabors are ticked off by the removal of the songs.) That those at Viacom (by way of CBS Video) would go all out to release complete runs of I Love Lucy, Star Trek and The Andy Griffith Show, then drop the ball on the hit Griffith "spin-off" (ranking as high as number two in the Neilsens in its heyday) is confusing; how bad are those licensing fees that they decided to edit episodes rather than pay off some music publishers? (Thank goodness they didn't sing "Happy Birthday" on all the shows!)

This is the same company who went through the hassle of putting out the first season of Love, American Style (on two sets, the shows presented in their original "hour" lengths), a show many find less essential than the worst Gomer episodes, and it never attained the ratings Gomer did, besides! Then, they dust off "second-tier" programs like The Lucy Show or Petticoat Junction and give them great starts while the long-running My Three Sons has its incidental music score ripped out of what shows have been released so far (replaced with synthesizer music) because of (again) licensing! (The last three noted shows are not completely out on DVD as of this date.) Needless to say, this is but a sampling of many inconsistencies going on at just ONE organization; there are others who contribute to the dilemma.

Space limits a listing of every flawed TV box set, but I can bring up some more examples. For every show that loses some of its music due to licensing (WKRP in Cincinnati has suffered the worst in its initial DVD reissue), there are those sets that contain "syndication prints"; these versions of episodes are all missing minutes of footage [to varying degrees] because of the need to accomodate the extra time for commercials that became the norm on TV since the '70s. All hit shows that have been syndicated over the years got/get trimmed, but for all those programs where complete shows were/are saved in storage for future use in some way (mainly, home video), others got trimmed but their original sources got misplaced or destroyed, leaving only the shorter versions left. While some workers on these collections have gone the extra mile of taking time to complete what shows they can by locating the missing footage from other films (or tapes) and combining them with the syndicated version into a composite edit (yielding a complete episode), some companies disregard trying to please potential consumers and release the chopped-up versions as is; sometimes, they mention this (in fine print) on the cases, or they don't. Oblivious buyers find out the hard way, by putting down their hard-earned money for these sets (like ones for The Real McCoys, ALF or Mama's Family), only to find out they've been had after playing the first disc! (Sometimes "extras" are used to try to make up for these shortcomings.)

If any of the episodes of a given season of whatever TV show in a set cannot be complete in length, the DVD producer should either say so in big letters on the set's case or NOT put out a set at all! It all comes back to what the buyer wants these collections to be the most: "COMPLETE"!

After licensing and source material, other problems would relate to the packaging (cardboard cases and discs in sleeves aren't the best ideas, no matter how they're used in a great design scheme), technical aspects (worst of these, the "flipper" discs that contain stuff on both sides, which are alleged to be less durable than regular DVDs), etc. The mess goes on without any end in sight.

Until all entertainment companies (including smaller reissue labels who license shows from the big guys) treat all TV shows (new or old) equally via the almighty Digital Video Disc, don't expect me to patronize the syndicated reruns of any program on the air now; they are nothing more than "carrots" being proverbially waved in my face to entice me to buy the crap they want me to buy, NOT the stuff Brother Fang actually desires! It's never too late for a company like Viacom to do the right thing; I've got the rest of my life to wait!

Keeping it trivial....

Fang Shih-yu, Shaolin Temple.