Bad At Apologies

I was a Match Game kid. It's absolutely not an exaggeration to say that when I was growing up, I spent far more time with Gene Rayburn, Fannie Flagg, Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly than with my actual parents. And while I can't exactly say I wanted to grow up to be Charles Nelson Reilly--I mean, come on, look at me, I'm Fannie Flagg all over, except maybe in the bra department--Charles' unrepentant, fearless queerness and his merciless rapier wit were a source of endless inspiration....and were a lot easier to emulate, at least until the hormones kicked in. From Match Game to Carson to Lidsville, he was my guy. Oh, Lynde was funnier from time to time, more camp and outrageous, but obviously meaner and just palpably miserable. One got the sense that Reilly was not only open about who he was, he was happy about it, and that lesson mattered more to me than anything else. His X-Files was by far the best episode of the series. I only wish I'd been able to catch his one man show a few years back.

Bad couple of months for beloved game show panelists. Sigh. Also, I'm running out of favorite character actors to cast in my dream-versions of screenplays I'm writing. Somehow Jon "Bowser" Bowman is just not gonna cut it.