He was affable. Damn affable. A nice guy.
Being a quiz show host looks easy but it's not. The best of them have a tricky, quirky attitude...a simultaneous amusement and disgust at their greedy but fallible and silly contestants. Bob Barker had that, as did Monty Hall. Taking it up or down a notch, Bob Eubanks leered and provoked idiot newleyweds while Richard Dawson was the kissin' curmudgeon.
Ron Ely, who has had a tragic last few years, was a handsome (best remembered as TV's "Tarzan") guy who moved to the daytime quiz "Face The Music" in 1980, after his acting career began to slow. He is noted for having invented the "double finger point," using the index fingers on BOTH hands to urge viewers to come back and enjoy more sadism.
Better known is "Name that Tune," which probably had its biggest audience when it was hosted by Tom Kennedy (in the 70's). Tom's previous biggie was "You Don't Say" in the 60's, and he took over for Allen Ludden on "Password Plus" in 1980.
We will not see the likes of Tom Kennedy again...nor "Name that Tune" or "Face the Music." At one time, music was our great joy. It brought families together, whether to awfully "Sing Along with Mitch" on anything from folk songs to pop hits, or to watch "The Ed Sullivan Show" and not turn away from the opera singer or country singer, teen rock star or beltin' Broadway crone. Now? Music does not bring us together.
Joe Biden, with the help of a reported vaccine for Covid-19, might bring us together for a little while, but this is a changed world, and you can hardly count on your fingers the hit songs from 2019, 2018 or 2017 that you can sing the lyrics to. You can hardly name a single you BOUGHT. The Grammy awards is a travesty that now ignores classical and jazz and highlights C&W, crossover wimps like Sam Smith or Adele, and anyone of color who raps. None of these categories appeal to the young and old of all races.
Maybe, like clean air, we ran out of MELODIES. How "catchy" has McCartney been in the past 20 years, or Elton? What greatness has come out of Broadway in 20 years?
Another problem with MUSIC quiz shows is the lazy rights owner fat-cats from RIAA and the other organizations, who sit back and charge huge fees for the use of music that the composers barely make a penny on.
It is much less expensive to do "Wheel of Fortune" or "Family Feud" than pay for every fresh 10 seconds of music on a half hour show....only to find that Gramps does not know who Jay-Z is, Mom never heard of K-Pop, and Mr. Cool Kid grins and says "Before my time, Dude" when he listens to 10 seconds of "Michelle" or "Yesterday."
At one time, music did bring us together. Even songs sung in Italian or Japanese made the charts, and artists such as Connie Francis and Neil Sedaka put out albums of ethnic hits so the point where you didn't know what their race or religion might be. Now, you're lucky if a few people can sing along to some dopey Disney thing like "You've got a Friend In Me," because most people don't want or care about friends OR music outside their own race and religion now.
You can find a few examples of Tom Kennedy's "Name that Tune" on GooTube, which I don't feel like linking to, since it slows down the page. Today the guy could never get work. A white guy. Nobody wants that anymore. Gotta be a professional actor if you're a white guy (Alec Baldwin badly hosting "Match Game") or an affable Steve Harvey pro comedian squeezing laughs on every "booty" reference.
Kennedy was actually born James Narz, by the way. His older brother was already a successful quiz host (Jim Narz) so he called himself Tom Kennedy (February 26, 1927-October 7, 2020).
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