2. From a recent "This American Life" episode titled "I Was So High," there was a segment about a guy named Josh Androsky who'd been drinking and "doing mushrooms," who for some reason thinks it's a good idea to join the studio audience of "The Price is Right" and the gets the "Come on down" call:
Already without mushrooms it would have been crazy.... Because, literally, old people are dancing with children in the aisles. This one old lady starts booty dancing on Drew Carey. There were just dollar signs and flashing lights. I mean, everybody's going crazy. We were, demonstrably, the least high-looking people there.Hilarity ensues as he bids $1 on everything, actually wins once (on some damn ring everyone else overprices), and — asked what he does for a living — says he's "a skateboard rabbi."
Drew Carey turns to me and goes, how do you incorporate skateboards into Judaism? I was like, well, Drew Carey, we go to local high schools and attempt to turn religious extremism into religious "X-tremism!"That fabulous joke did not make the edit of the show that airs, which you can partake of here.
3. I'm not too familiar with the show in its recent form, and by recent, I mean anything after Bill Cullen. It's not just Drew Carey that's unfamiliar. Even Bob Barker doesn't seem to belong. To me Bob Barker belongs on "Truth or Consequences."
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Congrats, Professor, you have won a round of "squarer than you". Barker's been the faceman for Price is Right longer than I've been alive.
Speaking of "Truth" in game shows, here's Bette Davis on "To Tell the Truth" (behind a screen with the impostors).
Kitty Carlisle asks, "You invited me and my husband to a clambake at your home. Where did you get the lobsters from?"
It's like watching the Jimmy Gator "What Do Kids Know" show" on the film "Magnolia." Remember Stanley Spector?
We used to declare Bud Collyer Day when I was in high school. We wore bow ties.
You got your kicks where you could.
Now that he's lost some weight, Drew Carey looks like Bill Cullen. And Cullen was a wittier host (or less pandering) than Bob Barker was on The Price Is Right, though that may be due to the way East Coast and West Coast-based game shows were designed to be in the 1960s and 70s
Remember "Play Your Hunch" with Merv Griffin?
Remember "Dotto" with Jack Narz?
Remember "Concentration" with Hugh Downs?
Remember "Who Do You Trust?" with Johnny Carson.
I sure do!
The difference between Bill Cullen "Price Is Right" episodes and Bob Barker "Price Is Right" episodes is the same as the difference between the original "Match Game" and the "New Match Game," both of which had the same host, Gene Rayburn.
Which means it's really the difference between the 60s and the 70s.
My favorite Truth or Consequences.
Old lady contestant told she can keep all the paper money she can grab, but the bills are attached to a lion (show video of real lion, "backstage").
So, they blindfold her, and the fat sidekick comes out on all fours in a furry lion costume with bills attached.
Blindfolded Nervous lady starts pulling bills,"Lion" roars and paws at her arm, lady grabs chest and says" Oh, my heart".
Game over, immediately.
Woman is ok, everybody laughs.
The decade made a difference, but even in the 70s when Cullen was doing the $10,000 Pyramid, there wasn't the same smarminess with the "Aren't we naughty?" Double-entendres you had with the Hollywood-based game shows (and that was true for 'Pyramid' even with Dick Clark hosting)
"Video Village" 1960-1962, Jack Narz/Monty Hall
On another front:
June 12, 1970: Dock Ellis (Pittsburgh Pirates) vs. San Diego Padres
“So there I was out there, high as a Georgia Pine, trippin’ on acid,” he said. “I really didn’t see the hitters. All I could tell was if they were on the right side, or the left side. As far as seeing the target, the catcher put tape on his fingers so I could see the signals. The opposing team and my teammates, they knew I was high. But they didn’t know what I was high on. They didn’t really see it, but I had the acid in me, and I didn’t know what I looked like with that acid. I had lost all concept of time.”
Nine innings, eight walks, six strikeouts, and two hit batsmen later, and Ellis had done the impossible: he’d pitched a no-hitter high on LSD.
“It was easier to pitch with the LSD because I was so used to medicating myself,” added Ellis. “That’s the way that I was dealing with the fear of failure. You know that if Dock’s pitching, he’s high. But how high is he? I pitched every game in the major leagues under the influence of drugs.”
In addition to LSD, Ellis took loads of cocaine, marijuana, alcohol, mescaline, crank, and later, heroin. Before starts, he’d take as many “Greenies”—or amphetamines—as he could swallow to keep himself sharp.
“I would try to out-milligram any opponent,” said Ellis. “Before a game, I would take a maximum of 15-17 pills. Not to say that I didn’t have enough stuff to pitch in the major leagues, I just tried to get a little edge.”
Ellis was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in 2007, and passed away from the ailment on Dec. 19, 2008.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/05/no-no-a-documentary-on-mlb-pitcher-dock-ellis-who-pitched-a-no-hitter-while-tripping-on-acid.html
Ah, but, Professor, the winner is....."Queen for a Day."
One contestant wants a wheelchair for her son who has cerebral palsy. Another has four children...plus triplets! She needs a diaper service. The third contestant has lost her two sons, husband, and mother and wants a vacation. The last contestant seeks bunking equipment for her Navy sons who bring home friends....
And the winner is....
But first ads from
"Cat Yummies" and "Dog Yummies" in the bright orange packages where all pet products are sold!
And Ex-Lax, a "product that can be used with complete confidence!"
And "Arrestin" cough medicine!
The winner gets...a Wheelchair (brought on stage by a model in a tutu-ed mini-skirt)
@RLC I blogged about that here.
In my youth, we would often play the game of let's get high and do X. Rest assured it was never driving or operating heavy machinery, more like ride a bus; play pool, play scrabble, etc. Never in our drug addled minds did we ever think, let's get high and be contestants on Price is Right. Wow, jut wow.
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