My 15 minutes of fame. Actually more like 45 minutes.

I came to Toronto for a visit in the winter of 1969. During my visit, Karen and I went to New York City. New York was the place I dreamed about visiting, literally. My cousin Julian and his family lived there and I felt sure I would see Robert Morse as J. Pierrepont Finch dancing his way down Fifth Avenue singing “You have the cool clear eyes of a seeker of wisdom and truth”. I didn’t see him. Apparently he was in Vegas that week. Who knew?

We did the usual touristy stuff, Empire State Building, Greenwich Village, Staten Island Ferry and the Statue of Liberty.

We were staying at the Park Royal on 73^rd and Central Park West. Park Royal was a small residential hotel managed by Karen’s aunt Anne. Most of the residents were characters out of a Damon Runyon novel. But Anne was the savviest character of them all. Rumour had it that she and the owner were “involved”. But that’s another story.

Concentration

One day we were skating at the Rockefeller Centre where the NBC studios are housed. After skating we visited 30 Rock and saw that there was a game show being recorded and they needed audience members. So in we went. At the end of the show the audience was asked by the staff if anyone wanted to be a contestant. My hand shot up and I was picked. The next day I was on the TV show Concentration and Bob Clayton was the host.

Essentially the game involves solving a rebus of a common phrase. Not too difficult but the phrases were American and I was unfamiliar with them. Nevertheless I drew one game and won one game. This meant I had to stay another day longer than anticipated. This could be a problem because my flight home was in the evening of the next day.

I had to arrive early for my make-up and hair dressing appointment. Then it was show time. Fortunately I lost the game and ran out of there at full speed to get my flight to Toronto and then my overnight flight to London.

My car was being repaired while I was away and so I took a cab from Heathrow to the repair shop. Half asleep and groggy from the time difference and overnight flight I stumbled into the repair shop. My car was ready but I had to use the washroom first. I went to wash my hands and as I looked up I could see to my shock and surprise that I was still wearing the make-up from the TV show. OMG! What on earth did the guy in the seat beside me think? What did the flight crew think? Men in 1970 did not wear make-up. Oh well, another story for my book.

You’re probably wondering what I won on the show. Well I won 2 pieces of American Tourister Luggage. One piece I still have, a 35mm camera, 50 records of Wayne Newton singing Connie Francis and $500 cash. I now had more money in the U.S. than I did in the U.K. It wasn’t really 50 records of Wayne Newton. It was a collection of somewhat obscure artists including The Guess Who when you really didn’t know the answer. I gave many of the records away but I still have quite a few of them. The camera has long gone. I loaned it to one of my kids and it was stolen. The same with the money. But I was bitten by the bug.

Face The Music

I was now living in Toronto having immigrated in 1970. I came to be with my money. Oh and Karen too.

We were married and living on Redpath Avenue in the centre of Toronto. In the mid to late 70’s trivia competitions were all the rage and Karen and I were the B’nai Brith Trivia Champs. We were well sought after by trivia teams because of our knowledge of 50’s and 60’s music and our knowledge of show tunes.

One day Karen showed me an ad for a new Canadian show to be called “Face The Music”. It was shooting in Hamilton, Ontario at the CHCH TV studio. “Face the Music” was similar to “Name That Tune” on American TV. Canadian TV shows were not known at that time for giving out big prizes. They still aren’t, but the prizes are tax free. This show was different. The winner got an AMC Pacer. We really needed a second car. If you remember, that was the car that god drove in the movie “Oh, God!”. If it was good enough for …… well you know the rest.

First we had to qualify and of course we did. So on a bright day in May we drove down to Hamilton about 45 minutes from where we lived. The concept of the show can be found here. Needless to say we quizzed ourselves on pop music and Broadway shows. I was convinced there would be a question whose answer would be “I can’t get started with you”. I was wrong, but it didn’t stop me from guessing. The other song that we could not remember the answer to was the name of the theme from The Godfather. Drove us both crazy. And of course it did come up in the show as the final question that we needed to guess before winning the car.

At this point you should watch the show and enjoy.

Opposite,Opposite Sexes

To say that we were “on a roll” is an understatement. We were bitten by the bug. We applied for everything that came up and now our friends were bitten as well. One show we went on was called “Opposite, Opposite Sexes”. It was such an underwhelming success that it was hard to find any mention of it on the web. I did record it but the recording was so poor that it is hard to watch. We won second prize which was a year’s supply of C Plus orange drink. Can you imagine drinking 365 cans of C Plus? You’d be peeing orange within days. We gave most of it to the Holy Blossom Temple Nursery School. The rest we guzzled. Funny thing was the day of delivery was Yom Kippur and we lived two doors down from the Temple so there were no places for the van to park. The deliveryman had to park several blocks away and bring it in by trolley.

The other funny thing was that our friends, Dorothy and Stan were also contestants on a different episode of the show. Given the show’s topic we couldn’t wait to see them on TV. Dorothy is a 5 foot bundle of energy. Funny, friendly and very talkative. She has a funny story about everything. Stan was a charismatic, good natured guy and a perfect partner and straight man for Dorothy.

The episode was recorded and we waited with great anticipation to hear all the funny answers that Dorothy was very likely to come up with. We spoke to Dorothy and Stan soon after the show’s recording. “So? How’d it go?” Karen asked impatient to hear the stories. “Well, not great”, came the unexpected reply. “Oh no, what happened?” we asked. Dorothy told us that she was so nervous about the show that she had taken a valium to calm herself down. Consequently, this bundle of energy fizzled out, and sat like a zombie during the taping giving monosyllabic answers, gazing at the camera in a stupor. What a letdown! Oh well! The show aired sometime later and of course Karen watched it and immediately phoned Dorothy. The story is that when Dorothy picked up the phone and heard Karen’s voice they both started laughing and after a few minutes of hysterics they both put the phone down, neither having said a word. We still laugh about it today almost 40 years later.

Just Like Mum

Just Like Mum. The year was 1981. The host introduces three mothers who are asked questions such as “What does your child do when he or she accompanies you to the supermarket?” The answers were noted and then the child was introduced and asked the same question. If the answers matched, points were scored. Then a bake-off which allows the moms to guess which daily recipe was put together by their child. The winners go on to spin a wheel with many prizes the most valuable of which was a trip to DISNEY WORLD.

The bake-off is worth a lot of points and if you guess correctly you usually won the right to spin the wheel for a big prize. The problem with the bake-off concept was that the outcome could be manipulated. All that had to be done was to overload the recipe with the worst tasting ingredient.

Karen got the answer correct and they won the right to spin the wheel. They won a portable TV radio combo and a bar-b-que. All in all, a good day’s work.

That was pretty much the end of our game show career. We tried out for a few others but soon we left for London, Ontario.

Still we had a good run for our money.

Jenny Jones Show

In March 1990, my son Adam and I, went by train from London, Ontario to Chicago. It was Spring Break and we were ready for an adventure. The train journey took about 8 hours and we arrived at our hotel in the early evening.

The next few days we did all the usual touristy things. Walked The Magic Mile, saw the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, went to the aquarium and rode on the El. Then we went to get tickets for the Jenny Jones Show. A very popular TV show at that time. Jenny was from around London, Ontario and was making a big name for herself as a North American Talk-Show Host.

We went to the studio to get the tickets for the next day. They told us what not to wear in the audience and home to the hotel we went.

The next day we arrived at the studio, got in line and waited. Just before we were allowed into the studio one of the Pages came out and asked if anyone wanted to ask a question of the guest, psychologist Dr. Marty Klein, during the show. In other words be on TV. My hand shot up, of course. The 4 or 5 volunteers were taken to an anteroom where we were told the topic of the show. It was Sexual Etiquette. Oh g-d, my 15 year old son is in the audience. We hadn’t had “that chat” yet. The Page gave me my question to ask. I read it and said “Uh-uh I’m not reading this out on National TV with my son in the audience.”. The Page gave me another question. I shook my head again and said no way. The Page handed me the stack of questions and said “Ok, you find one”.

I sorted through them all until I found the most innocuous question I could find. This was going to be tough. The Page took us into the studio and I sat next to Adam who was quite white and clearly was unsure what was going to happen next.

The show started, the guest, Dr. Marty Klein, was introduced. The fun began. Adam was silent. You can see the video clip of the show here. https://youtu.be/d9G0q138Zv0 You can see me at 7:08 minutes. Adam sat motionless on my right.

The question I asked was, “if you’re in bed with a woman and you have to pass gas, what should you do?” That was the most innocuous question I could find.

At the end of the show, the audience usually runs up on stage to meet Jenny and the guest. Adam and I ran up on to the stage and yelled “Hi Jenny, we’re from London, Ontario”. From behind us we heard three female voices sing out “So are we”. We turned around, it was three of Adam’s class mates. What were the odds of that?

In 60 minutes Adam had learned more about sex than I could ever have taught him.