I did a rotten morning show today. I was in a rotten mood, I couldn’t quite snap out of it and the show was just mediocre as all get out. Usually there’s something to point to with pride in a show that’s otherwise flat. Not today. This show just laid there and died.
I don’t linger on this sort of thing. Doing a three hour show 5 days a week (6 if one counts the pre-recorded Saturday morning show) is a marathon, not a sprint. There is always another chance to redeem the batting average within 24-48 hours. I have another chance tomorrow.
Changing topics for the moment: I’ve been reading a lot lately. Reading–along with TV binge-watching, semi-coherent eBay purchases and horrible food choices–is the way I deal with the crushing boredom and loneliness of my #quarantinelife. My current book is “Emcee”, by Monty Hall. Monty Hall is the guy who created and hosted “Let’s Make A Deal” decades before the current Wayne Brady version.
Monty Hall was quite possibly the best game show host of them all, although I’d say it’s a tie with Bob Barker. Both of them spent decades hosting incredibly complex shows with contestants who were not screened or pre-interviewed. “Let’s Make A Deal” was easily the hardest game show to host because every game had multiple temptations, multiple outcomes, and it all happened in real time with no editing or post-production shenanigans. (It would not surprise me to hear that Wayne Brady uses an earpiece or teleprompter to be fed cues and reminders…or perhaps he did in the beginning. Monty did it all ad-lib.)
“Emcee” as an autobiography is, thus far, pretty bitter stuff. It was written in 1974 after Hall had spent 10 years hosting the show on NBC (then ABC) daytime and in a nighttime syndication version. It’s a book written by somebody who seems to have completely lost perspective…it’s like a hardcover mid-life crisis. There’s a rather stunning section of the book where several of Hall’s game show coworkers write little essays about him. Each and every one of them sings his praises as an emcee, offers testimony to his decency as a human being and coworker…and every single one of them exhibits some mix of shock, irritation or frustration at Monty’s then-current attempts to break out of the game show mold.
You see, “Emcee” (deliberately or not, I’m not quite sure) becomes the story of a man who has national fame, all the money a person would want, respect from his peers…but it isn’t enough. He wants to be Bob Hope. Or Andy Williams. Or Richard Burton. And because he HAS all that fame and all that celebrity, he is able to get ABC to give him a prime-time variety special.
There’s a long, painful writeup in “Emcee” about the making of this special and how it didn’t turn out very well. Which makes me want to see it. Hold on a second.
Nope. Not on eBay.
Anyway…I haven’t finished the book but I was taken by this whole desire of Monty Hall’s to broaden his horizons and do projects that didn’t involve giant boxes, comedically-awarded donkeys or adults dressed as Raggedy Ann dolls. I think a lot of it had to do with how miserably the show was treated by critics. Before HBO, 24-hour news, reality shows, NYPD Blue, Ellen coming out, etc., the only thing uptight white people could point to and say “This is leading our nation down a moral sewer!” was “Let’s Make A Deal.” Because–greed! And avarice! And they’re dressed up in costumes and it isn’t even Halloween! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph! I didn’t get a “harrumph” out of you!
Seriously…”Let’s Make A Deal” got trounced in newspapers and magazines as if it was a sign of the apocalypse. I mean, if the headline on Panhandle Post every day was “Wentworth Morning Show Leading Nation Down Moral Sewer”, I might not feel too good about it. Today’s sewer-bound broadcast notwithstanding.
I honestly think that success on that huge scale can be a trap. Monty Hall had the clout to get his own singing, dancing TV variety special, but did anyone have the honesty to tell him, “You know, this may not be the thing for you”? I have to doubt it.
Now myself for example. I am not, like Monty Hall was, the very best in my field. There are literally tens of thousands of people in radio more talented than me. But I’m pretty darn good! Do I have appreciable, marketable talent in any other arena? Possibly as a writer. I’ve been in plays with our community theater group but that does not qualify me to play Professor Harold Hill on Broadway (or Kankakee, IL or anywhere else). I sing in commercials but even that is a violation of good taste.
But I can write commercials, and I can jockey discs. And those are unique skills. And it makes me sad to think that anyone who has a unique skill doesn’t feel it’s enough.
“Tomorrow is another day.” -Scarlet O’Hara
“Tomorrow is another show.” -Wenty
“Stand up, please. If you have a lipstick case I’ll give you $100.” -Monty Hall