Sunday, July 9, 2006

Games People Play

Next weekend — July 13-16 — the fifth annual Game Show Congress is being held at the Hilton Burbank Airport and Convention Center, which is located across from the airport in Beautiful Downtown Guess Where. This is a yearly gathering of game show buffs and the program includes panel discussions and interviews with folks in that line of work, rare game show screenings, re-creations of classic game shows and a luncheon which will honor Peter Marshall (the "Master of the Hollywood Squares") and Mark Itkin, a top agent with the William Morris Agency who has been responsible for the packaging of many top quiz programs. Among the other celebs who'll be present are Betsy Palmer (from the original I've Got a Secret), Rose Marie and game show hosts Wink Martindale, Tom Kennedy, Monty Hall, Jack Narz and Larry Anderson. For details, go to this website.

One of the big events of the G.S.C. will be an installment of the live version of What's My Line? that I've written about several times...here, for instance. This is the show that takes place every Wednesday evening at the Acme Comedy Theater in Hollywood and it's a clever, loving resurrection of a great program, expertly hosted by J. Keith van Straaten. It's also coming to an end, at least for now. The performance this Wednesday night is the last at the Acme for the foreseeable future. So if you've always wanted to see this — if you have and want to see it again — hurry to the Acme this Wednesday evening. Details are over here.

After that, there's only one more installment of J. Keith's What's My Line? scheduled and it's at the Game Show Congress on Friday, July 14 at 8 PM. They're doing the show for the G.S.C. and have we got a treat for you! Ordinarily, admission is $20 but as a reader of this website, you can get in free. All you have to do is R.S.V.P. Write to Jim Newman (who's done such a fine job producing these shows) at wardenclyffe@eudoramail.com. Tell him you're a devout news from me reader and that you want to attend. Then show up Friday night at the Hilton Burbank, enjoy the show and see if you can guess the Mystery Guest before the panel (which will include the lovely Betsy Palmer).

While I'm at it, I might as well mention that Saturday and Sunday, the Hilton Burbank is also playing host to the Hollywood Collectors Show, where celebs sell autographed photos of themselves. Some of the Game Show Congress stars will be there along with Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, June Foray, Alan Young, Betty Lynn, Gary Coleman and many, many more. The full current list and more info can be found at this website.

• Posted at 10:56 PM · LINK

Con Job

The full programming schedule is up for the Comic-Con International. You can read the Thursday schedule. You can read the Friday schedule. You can read the Saturday schedule. You can read the Sunday schedule.

Or you can just do the smart thing and click below. This will take you to a list of the program items being hosted by Yours Truly, which are the ones you really don't want to miss.

• Posted at 9:57 PM · LINK

Cookie Flashback

I don't think I've eaten one since I was about twelve...but for some reason, I got to thinking today about the favorite cookie of my childhood. The Sunshine company put out these things called Toy Cookies, which were like animal crackers but in the shapes of toys. You could eat one shaped like a drum, one shaped like a blimp, one shaped like a watch, one shaped like a truck, etc. That was not particularly the appeal of them. The appeal was that they tasted pretty good, regardless of the shapes. Actually, the only interesting thing about the shapes was that in every box, you always found a few malformed ones and it was fun to guess what they looked like. I once got one that I think started out to be a baby carriage but wound up looking more like a penis. I was afraid to eat it.

When I hit my teens, I abandoned Toy Cookies, not because I no longer liked them but because they seemed like a baby cookie...a very bad reason to switch to Chips Ahoy or Oreos. I don't know when they stopped making them but I recall seeing some more sophisticated packaging in the market, an obvious and apparently unsuccessful attempt to position the product for a slightly older audience. What finally occurred to me — and I wonder if it occurred to the manufacturer — is that the very shapes had gotten out of date. Alphabet blocks? Toy soldiers? By the sixties, those weren't toys to most kids. They should have made the cookies look like Barbie dolls, skateboards and Aurora monster models. (Today, they'd have to look like XBox controls and Star Wars action figures.)

I don't particularly miss Sunshine Toy Cookies. Matter of fact, I've given up all kinds of cookies and don't miss them one bit. But when I came across the above pictures of the old box and bucket packaging, they brought a smile to my face. And I had to share them here, just in case they have the same effect on you.

• Posted at 8:26 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Conan O'Brien gives a commencement speech at Lincoln Center for the 2006 graduating class of Stuyvesant High School. The video is handheld and shaky but not unwatchable. It runs a little under 17 minutes.

• Posted at 1:24 AM · LINK

July 10, 2006 • Current • July 8, 2006