The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Home Version

How do you keep a bunch of ten-year-olds occupied?  How do you make sure they're not so bored that they will be destructive and break the windshield of your neighbor's Thunderbird convertible?  More importantly, how do you prevent them from spending all day in front of the television set watching game shows?

Well, you send them outside with the home version of the TV game show.

I don't know what intrigued about these board games, but, if it was a hit on television, I wanted to play it at home.  Or with my chums "up the block."  If it was a TV game with celebrities, even better.  We could channel up their personae in a heartbeat.  We would sit on somebody's front stoop and turn our world into some NBC studio.  Ladies and gentlemen, our guests today are Orson Bean and Tom Poston.  Your emcee is Allen Ludden.

Yeah, we could be pretty damn goofy when we wanted to be.

Here's some of the more popular games from my closet.

Yes, even then.  This was pre-pre-pre-pre-Alex Trebek.  These days, you can play this on a computer.  Back when, you had this book of answers that were loaded into this box.  Somebody had to be Art Fleming or the master of ceremonies.  Before the game, you had to prep the game by manually loading in all the dollar amounts and the Daily Doubles.  It took 45 minutes to set up and 10 minutes to play.  For a buzzer, each contestant had a clicker which was nothing more than a castanet in search of Carmen Miranda.  Way too much work and noisy to boot.  And celebrity channeling was kept to a minimum.

"Forfeit 1 Gift."  "Take 1 Gift."  "Wild Card."

Concentration, hosted by Hugh Downs on the air, also had a home game that was uber-labor-instensive.  As a matter of fact, the game box and board was almost the same as Jeopardy.  Crafty, those folks at Milton Bradley.  As you made your matches from memory, little puzzle anagrams appeared and you had to guess what it said.  Again, there was a severe lack of celebrity channeling with this one.  Except I do remember our second grade teacher, Miss Baron, was once a contestant.  We all trooped down to the TV room to watch her appearance.  As it was pre-taped, she was standing behind us as we saw her on the TV screen.  A really powerful way to confuse some innocent seven-year-olds.

"Wally Cox to win!"

Ah, now we're talking celebs!   The Big Kahuna of TV home games.  The Hollywood Squares.  With whoever you wanted to have sitting in those little cubicles.  Yes, I was always Paul Lynde, complete with spot-on impression that I once did for Paul himself.  In retrospect, I should have been more worried about myself.  Knowing what I do now about Mr. Lynde...  Still, back in the day, this home version kept us busy and laughing for hours.  With or without your "peek-a-boo serape."


"Hot..................cold."

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. 

Or something like that.  The thing I most remember about the home version of Password was the little plastic word holder that gave you the password.  You couldn't see it unless you looked through this little red slit.  One of the earliest versions of 3-D glasses.  The plastic "envelope" had that great "new toy" smell, which might have a nine-year-old's first exposure to a cocaine high.

Never heard of Your First Impression?  I'm not surprised.  It was only on NBC for two years.  It was hosted by Bill Leyden and I loved it.  Celebrity guests guessing the identity of a celebrity mystery guest.  The home version, however, put a decidedly educational spin on it.  The celebrity mystery guests were now historical figures which you place on this small cylinder which reminded me of an empty paper towel roll.  So, with the questions given, you had to figure out if the mystery guest was Henry the Eighth or Thomas Edison.  My mother must have approved of this game and its' teaching values because she let me take it to school one day.  Naturally, celebrity channeling opportunities were nil.  I can't do a spot-on imitation of Benjamin Disraeli.

Long before Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly, NBC ran a less jokey version of the Match Game.  There were two teams of three people, each with a celebrity captain.  They transferred it all to a home version which I gobbled up, but soon realized that it worked better on TV.  You needed six people to play this and, even after I had gotten my buddy Leo and his two kid brothers signed on, we were still two contestants short.  It was ideal for that neighborhood family who didn't practice birth control.

Still, we had fun.  And nobody fought over who got to be either Don Pardo or Johnny Olson.

Dinner last night:  Spaghetti and meatballs at La Piazza.