C is for Cullen

Given the "new normal" that's come to pass in recent months, most of us are probably watching a little more TV than we used to. Around my house, we've recently discovered the vintage game show Blockbusters, which aired on NBC's daytime schedule from 1980 to 1982. Visit YouTube if you want to see some episodes.

This Goodson-Todman production revolves around a giant game board consisting of linked hexagons. Competing players try to win spots on the board by being first to answer an array of quiz questions, ranging from pop culture to world history, knowing only that the correct response begins with a certain letter of the alphabet. Overseeing the proceedings is the man commonly described as TV's best-ever game show emcee, affable and witty Bill Cullen.

One of the mysteries surrounding this engaging game is why it wasn't a bigger hit, running less than two years. For answers, I turned to a book I'd been meaning to read for awhile anyway, Adam Nedeff's Quizmaster: The Life and Times and Fun and Games of Bill Cullen (BearManor Media). It offers a satisfying chapter on this show's history in particular, as well as a thoroughly researched and highly readable account of Cullen's life. If you like a dose of tragedy in your biographies, this probably isn't the book for you. Despite a childhood bout with polio that left him with a permanent limp, Cullen was a happy man, doing what he loved and more than satisfied with his lot in life. Interviews with the star's fans and colleagues help elucidate just what he did that made him so good at a job many would have thought any smiling guy in a nice suit could do.

So at least my TV watching is leading to more reading. That's a good thing, right? Except for maybe a little eye strain.

Getting to Know Gene Rayburn

Adam Nedeff's The Matchless Gene Rayburn (BearManor Media, $32.95) is an amazingly detailed, authoritative biography of the man who, for all his other accomplishments, is best-
remembered as the zany host of one of TV's most popular game shows, Match Game. 

By Nedeff's account, Rayburn was often frustrated by the way Match Game overshadowed other aspects of his career, and how he was pigeonholed as a game show host. I think the man himself would be pleased by the amount of attention given in this book to his work as a radio disc jockey and announcer for The Tonight Show, as well as his Broadway performances. Nedeff says, "My hope for this book is that it makes that image on the TV screen a little more three-dimensional." I'd say that's a goal he fully accomplishes. Two important elements that help are the author's access to some of the late star's own reminiscences, and interviews with many people important to both his personal and professional life, including his daughter Lynne.

But if you want to know about Match Game (I certainly did), there's a lengthy and fascinating section devoted to that topic. I was interested to read about the sometimes-tense relationship between Rayburn, who had his own freewheeling, improvisational style as an emcee, and producer Mark Goodson, a purist who thought nothing should distract attention from the game itself. The show's long history, from its original, more staid version in the 1960s, to its revival as Match Game '73, and even the disastrous 1983-84 revival that welded it to Hollywood Squares in an hour-long version that quickly tanked, is covered in full. I found it great fun to learn about how those wacky Match Game questions were contrived, the trouble that arose from time to time with CBS censors, and the ways in which network scheduling unnecessarily shortened its run.

Nedeff is also the author of other books on game shows, including a biography of Quizmaster Bill Cullen, which I plan to investigate sooner rather than later. He also has a website, Game Show Utopia. 

P.S. No disclaimer today --  I bought my own copy at full price, and didn't even get any parting gifts.