The Photoshop middle finger...is a FUCK YOU to the Grim Reaper, for taking down Hugh before he could reach 100.
Yes, Hugh Downs is gone. Hugh who? Well, Yoo Hoo to you, too. And too bad if you were too young to enjoy a low-key gentleman from the golden (i.e. CLASSY) days of television.
July got off to a rotten start with the deaths of Max “Runaway” Crook, and a man not known for his musical triumphs: Hugh Downs.
It’s been said that TV is a “cool medium,” and it was certainly true in its formative days, when comfortable and calm personalities such as Mister Rogers and Hugh Downs were welcomed into the living room, and not harridan twats like Judge Judy and brainless bimbo cunts like the Kardashians.
Downs, living up to his name, downplayed drama when he hosted an amiable, news-accented version of “The Today Show." He had been the tongue-in-cheek announcer for Jack Paar’s “Tonight Show,” where conversation, rather than Fallon-fucked stunts, prevailed. The idea was for people to be adult and talk to each other in a witty, informative manner...oh, with a risque joke now and then, or a drunken evening from Garland or Rooney, or a freewheeling session with Jonathan Winters.
In the world of frantic quiz shows, with hyped up prizes and a variety of risque remarks and “consequences” for contestants to act out, Hugh hosted “Concentration” from 1958-1969. So, for a time he was doing both the quiz show and the Paar show, and or the quiz show and "The Today Show." That was kind of a super-load for this mild mannered gent.
As its name implies, "Concentration" was not a quiz show you could merely glance at. It wasn’t a show that a housewife could listen to while dusting the furniture. The show involved remembering little portions of a rebus puzzle, and being the first to deduce and solve the whole thing. “Not a match,” Hugh would softly say, “the board goes back.” David Letterman even adopted that as a (now meaningless) catch-phrase.
Downs got to be so popular that, no surprise, a record label asked him to do some singing. As you'd expect, he had a smooth voice and a pleasant way with a folk song. Yes, Hugh was fond of folk songs. He also liked country and western, especially Red Foley. From the album notes:
"I think Red Foley is one of the greatest singers of all time. And I include him with Caruso…I'm serious. His singing represents life and that's what music should do." This was also the era of Burl Ives, and Burl's style is pretty evident in the way Hugh handles "Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes" and "The Ride Back from Boot Hill." Downs recalled (for the liner notes) that he did meet Ives. He "told me I deserved to wear a beard. I told him I wouldn't grow one. I had a mustache for five years but I finally did it in. It was sapping my strength."
Two from HUGH:
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