MY FAVORITE GAME SHOW THEMES

      Being a huge game show fan, I also happen to have been smitten with quite a bit of the theme songs that go along with these programs.  I would like to tell you mostly about the ones I really like (in no particular order) and maybe a few that irritate the hell out of me.                                                                                                                                                 1.  The Price Is Right (1972-present):  To me, this is the ultimate game show theme.  Written by Edd Kalehoff, this tune is one of the first game show theme songs to use a Moog Synthesizer and and is a very intricate theme with several chord changes and not just a bouncy little tune that tells you that "hey, my show is on now!".  When Bob Barker retired in 2007, Kalehoff was asked to do a rerecording of the song to 'update' it for modern audiences.  He didn't update it much.  Thank God!                                                       2. Scrabble (1984-1990):  This is the first game show theme that actually sounds like the 1980s!  Cheesy synths and primitive drum machines are all over this one.  And I wouldn't change a thing.  Written and performed by Ray and Marc Ellis; otherwise known as the Ellis Brothers.                                                                                                                         3.  Match Game (1973-present):  Gene Rayburn also hosted a 1960s version of the show with the same name but a slightly different format.  The contestant still had to fill in the blank and match answers given by a celebrity panel, but the questions were not supposed to be silly; for example: 'The largest breed of dog is the (blank).'  The phrases got more humorous as the decade passed but never as risque and double-entendre filled as the 70s version.  The theme was udpated too.  1970s viewers wanted funk...and then some upbeat filled Latin music for some reason and they definitely got both!  This score was written by Ken Bichel and is still used on the current version hosted by Alec Baldwin.                                                                                                                                           4.  Jeopardy (1984-present):   I know what you're thinking; you're missing the earlier versions of the show hosted by Art James.  Precisely.  That's because the current day theme song called 'Think' was only used during the Final Jeopardy and other various songs (all written by creator Merv Griffin) were used for main theme music.  Only when Jeopardy started its syndicated run in 1984 did Griffin decide to use it for both the main theme and Final Jeopardy music.  This little ditty alone made Griffin $70 million during his lifetime!                                                                                                                                         5.  To Tell The Truth (1969-1978):  This version of the the long running panel-based quiz was recorded in 1969 and seemed to be aiming for a younger audience with its AM Radio pop-based theme complete with lyrics about someone's loved one who just doesn't 'know how to tell the truth.'  I can't believe this didn't make the pop charts.  It's a perfect combination of the era: The Association meets The 1910 Fruitgum Company!

THE WORST GAME SHOW THEME (THAT I'VE HEARD):

      Chain Reaction (1980; 1986-1991):  This game show, whose reboot on GSN since the mid 2000s has become a big success (with a different theme, obviously), originally was a very short lived affair that was hosted by Bill Cullen.  It was revived later in the decade as a program shot on the cheap in Canada (hence the re-use of the horrible theme song) and first hosted by Canadian Blake Emmons and then by American Geoff Edwards (who subbed for Cullen for two weeks on the original version.  The tune is a prime example of the worst of generic disco music that was written for many TV series of the era.  The show itself  has a very sold premise and has had many successful international versions produced.  

WALTER MATTHAU'S BAD ASS TRILOGY

     

Walter Matthau would be my favorite actor if he had only done "The Sunshine Boys" but he did so many great movies and even not-so-great movies where he still gave incredible performances that there is no doubt that if an actor who looks as mis-shapen as Matthau does could be so talented, there is hope for all of us.  Plus, it doesn't hurt that Matthau is the creator of one the greatest quotes in showbiz history when he said of his co-star in 1969's "Hello, Dolly", Barbra Streisand: 'I have more talent in my smallest fart then she does in her entire body', even though I think he might have only been half-joking......                                                                                                                                                           At the beginning of his career, he played his share of bit parts of creeps and heavys and now that he became famous in big time Hollywood productions and hilarious comedies, he wanted to stretch his wings a bit. In 1970, he played in elderly man who takes in a free-spirited pregnant young woman (weren't they always free-spirited in that era?) in the drama "Kotch", the only movie directed by his frequent co-star Jack Lemmon.  He then made two romantic (but dark) comedy-dramas, "Pete'N'Tillie" with Carol Burnett and "A New Leaf" with Elaine May.  Matthau as a romantic lead?  Anything went in the 70's, man!  Then Old Walt decided to show off his darker side in three sraight action movies.  Guys who loved donuts; is there anything they couldn't do?                                                                                         First up was 1973's "Charley Varrick" directed by frequent Clint Eastwood collaborator Don Siegel.  Here Matthau plays a former crop-duster turned bank robber.  After robbing a Nevada bank with his two partners in crime and with his wife Nadine in tow, something goes wrong and only Varrick and his inexperienced accomplice Harman end up surviving...and with shitloads more money in the bags they got away with leading Varrick to suspect that the bank was a money laundering front for the Mafia.  What first strikes me about Varrick is how little remorse he shows after Nadine's death.                     Next, young and wild Harman develops plans on how to use his share of the money.  Varrick knows the Mob are their trail so he devises a plan on how to help the Mob 'dispose' of Harman as I don't believe Charley ever had any plans to ever share the money.  The Mafia apparently outsources now as they hire a  big and burly hitman named Molly (Joe Don Baker) to knock off the pair quickly and take the money and probably not run but trot back since this is Baker we're taking about.  Well, Varrick soon disappears with the loot leaving Harman dead after Molly finds Varrick gone and Harman not knowing where the cash went.  Finally, Molly catches up with Charley in a showdown for the ages and a stuntman's dream (or nightmare).  Let's just say that the film ends with brains and ice water veins winning the day.                                                                                                                                                  The next flick is "The Laughing Policeman", also from 1973.  Based a a Swedish novel (kinky!), the action moves from Stockholm to San Francisco with Seargent Jake Martin (Matthau) who just lost his partner Dave Evans after he is gunned down by a ruthless cross dressing killer who he had privately been tailing to find out why the killer murdered a previous victim.  Martin is assigned a new partner named Leo Larsen (played by Bruce Dern), a loose and easy going guy who clashes with Martin's brash and blunt persona.  During the film Matthau argues non-stop with his wife, finds his son in a porn theater and throws him out in the street, almost strangles a ladyfriend of the killer played by Cathy Lee Crobsy and also finds time to butt heads with another Inspector played by Louis Gossett Jr., who is even meaner than Martin.  Catching the killer is only half the fun in this dark time capsule of San Francisco just a few years after the Summer of Love.                                                                                      The final film is 1974's iconic "The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three" in which a group of sadistic theives that hijack a New York City Subway Train headed up by Robert Shaw who plays the head of the gang who are only known by their colorful last names, Blue, Green, Grey and Brown (which Director and professional copycat Quentin Tarantino used again in a similar style for his movie "Reservoir Dogs").  This time Matthau's character Lieutenant is a more methodical and less tightly wound  individual who works together who works together with fellow Lieutenant Rico Patrone (played with dramatic panache by usual funnyman Jerry Stiller) and Subway Engineer Frank Correll (a great Dick O'Neill) to stop these evil men.  Everything works brillaintly here even though some over-the-top buffoonish local politicians played by Lee Wallace and Tony Roberts threaten to, uh, derail the perfect rhythm of the story but can't.                                                                                                                              All three movies have become cult if not outright genre classics and are highly recommended.  And , remember, don't let the goofy looking face fool you.

IT'S THE NEW SENSATION THAT'S SWEEPING THE NATION

      Have you ever seen the Mel Brooks movie  "History Of The World: Part One"?  I think it's one of the most overlooked films in the Brooks canon.  Mel can sure write a funny and catchy tune.  One of his best,  "The Inquisition", comes from this film.  A satirical song based upon the Catholic Church's quest to forcefully convert all Non-Catholics to Catholicism or be punished (with death being the ultimate example).                                                                                                                                                            The words 'Inquisition' and 'Insurrection' have the same number of syllables and both activities share some similar and very unsavory traits like taking over something and making your beliefs the only beliefs as well as the new law of the land.  The Insurrection that occurred earlier this month will be a sad chapter in our nation's history but certainly not the first sad one.  In fact, the history of this country shows things like this happening over and over again.  Maybe on a different sized scale but definitely very similar events.  I believe that a lack or an indifference to a decent education is to blame.  And, no, you shouldn't have to be an elite to to get one.  And, yes, this is from where much of the confusion arises.                                                                                                                                                 Education is something that is being taken less seriously by the general public at large.  Joe and Judy Six-Pack are working more hours a week for less pay and when they home do they want to learn anything.  No.  They want ideas and opinions pre-packaged and syndicated straight into their brain cells by those clusters of pixels they stare at until they pass out drunk and/or fall asleep for the evening.  I been watching documentaries from the 1960s and 1970s where the filmmaker talks to the average man or woman on the street.  They don't necessarily talk like Patrick Stewart or Dame Maggie Smith but many of these people sound like executives from Fortune 500 companies with their higher than average IQ levels.  It's no surprise that many of the wealthiest people (including many who just happened to be born into it) have done their best to make sure the under-educated stay that way permanently.  How?  By having people work more hours a week for less pay and making sure they stay on that treadmill until retirement or death (whichever comes first).

“If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them."-George Orwell

WELCOME TO THE LAND OF FEAR

     

I know what you're thinking and I fear it as well.  You might think this post is about our current cultural climate.  Yes, but only to a degree.  It's interesting that I mention the word 'degree' because I'm about to drop a cold hard truth.....about me.  I don't think I exist without fear.  I am neuroticism personified.  I worry, I fret, I freak out; you name it-I own up to it.  I actually fear the concept of fear.  Fear is the ultimate paralyzer.  Once it works it way inside you can only hope for temporary relief because it never completely leaves you.  Three decades of therapy and medication keep it somewhat at bay but it is always leering over your shoulder.  Perhaps that why I dislike horror movies.  I'm my own ultimate fright fest.  I'm not completely this way 100% percent of the time.  I live.  I laugh.  I love.  Or maybe my best simulation of these.  I can't be sure.  Fear has kept me from achieving all I wanted to achieve in this life.  Fear has kept me from growing as a human being.  Fear of rejection is the ultimate poisoned apple.  Because of this I live on the outside looking in and between the margins of society.  It's safer but lonelier.  I think one can be lonely and unsafe but can one be safe and not lonely?  Society seems to say yes but I'm not completely convinced.  Who will convince me?  I may not find out in this life.  Isn't that a little scary?

INTERESTING READ-I'M TIRED OF WRITING RIGHT NOW.....

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/us/carl-lentz-hillsong-pastor.html

MISCELLANEOUS FILE

      I feel strongly that the "Sell Before" date is a more accurate economic indicator than the "Sell By" date because it gives consumers a much greater false sense of security.

     Dwight Eisenhower wrote a book called "Waging Peace" and Neil Young wrote a book called "Waging Heavy Peace."  However, Dwight's version of 'The Needle And The Damage Done', written about Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr.'s tragic mayonnaise overdose, is much more haunting.

     I feel that the internet could be much better organized if someone came up with an algorithm for it.

     If someone is looking disheveled, what do they look like when they're sheveled?

     If someone is acting disgruntled, what do they act like when they're gruntled?

     Is it 'aesthetically pleasing' or 'pleasingly aesthetic'?

     I know what it's like to have survived a character assassination attempt.

NO ONE SAID LIFE IS FAIR (ALTHOUGH SOME OF US TRIED TO HELP A LITTLE!)

   

I know this is difficult to believe but, at one time, there were rules and regulations on how the general public received their news and information.  Before the government was perceived as the enemy of the people, different factions of it attempted to set policies and procedures to make to the transmission of news and information by radio, TV and to a much lesser extent print media honest and factual.
     The Federal Communications Commission which, just by the title of the group, was probably started by some left-wing pinko deep state illuminati ski rental store disguised as a pizza parlor (you know because the name of the group has two 'Com's in it-you know, for Communism, of course), set up the first part of what came to be known as the Fairness Doctrine in 1941 which stated that radio stations, due to their public interest obligations, must remain neutral in matters of news and politics and were not allowed to give editorial support to any particular political position or candidate.  In 1949, the policy was somewhat modified to give time to a opposing viewpoint after each and every original view on a popular or controversial subject, mainly because of the rise of television after the end of World War II in 1945.
     One major overlooked part of this picture was that television, much more than radio, was always going to be a power struggle between information and entertainment.  The leaders of the few TV network there were at the time basically said "hey boys, we'll be nice and set aside a few hours each week for public affairs and news programs.  They'll be boring as hell and won't make us money but we don't any trouble from the government, see?"  I imagine Edward G. Robinson saying those words for some reason.  Anyway, most of these network Presidents were politically conservative but realized that in order to serve the greater good (and to make tons of money for their shareholders), the knew they had to play ball to keep the government off their backs.  And thus, their network news divisions were loss leaders so that they could get wealthy by getting General Electric and Kraft Cheese to sponsor their live plays of the week.  However, over time, these networks found out that they would have to keep making more money every year to satisfy the whims of their needy shareholders and so eventually they started making these news and public programs more and more sensationalistic and bombastic.  Honesty and facts become more and more an afterthought.
     Simultaneously, new technologies were coming the forefront that could also deliver information and, meanwhile in Washington D.C., the FCC were being seduced into reversing many of the earlier rules that encouraged not only fairness in showing both sides of a story, but also fairness in competition. 
     In the 1980s, it was argued that these policies and procedures regarding having a opposing view for every view regarding a controversial or vital public issue violated the 1st Amendment and so the FCC, during the Reagan administration, decided to do away with with the fairness doctrine.  It was very easy to do since almost everyone on the commission was appointed by the current President.  It also paved the way for our current state of cable news networks being horny cheerleaders for one political party or the other.  The broadcast networks also made more cutbacks to their news departments leading to cutbacks in journalistic integrity.  However, the true end of the doctrine ended in 2011 when the all parties involved could agree on exactly the correct language used in the law that sent the doctrine into the crapper.  Then the real party started.  Cue the cashflow.
     The 1996 FCC Telecommunications Act further eroded any resemblance of fairness deregulating most of the regulations that encouraged healthy competition by opposing journalistic and entertainment business monopolies since and, in essence, journalism and entertainment have done a pretty damn amazing job in merging with themselves.  It also made it easier for anyone to spout their opinions and then proclaim them the God's honest truth. And that's where we are today. You see; once you let the proverbial cat out of the bag, that darn cat just won't find the inside of the bag very attractive anymore.  But, hey, at least we tried, right?