We are leaving this week for London, with a stop over in New York for Tony weekend. The fact that the Tony's are on this Sunday was just an accident of scheduling, but it is nice to be there and remember last years festivities. I guess once the Tony is in your blood, you always have a twinge when they come around again.

So last Friday I was the "live" in studio guest for GSN (the Game Show Network). I did not realize my connection to games shows is as strong as it is. I have hosted two game shows and appeared on countless others. GSN has them all in the vaults of the Los Angeles studio. I appeared between breaks of vintage game show repeats with hosts of the live show Fred and Heidi. We talked about lots of things, sort of a shot gun interview. They show clips from Soap and from the game shows I appeared in. It was a time warp on the screen bouncing back and forth between myself today and the image of a myself 28 years ago. It is an interesting observation to see yourself on screen in a situation so long ago it has been forgotten. One becomes almost an objective viewer seeing yourself as others saw you decades ago. I'm not sure if the feeling is spooky, embarrassing or completely narcissistic. Whatever the emotion; it is odd.

At some point I mentioned to one of the producers that Sandi and I did a week of "Tattletales" decades ago. Tattletales was sort of a celebrity Newlywed Game show. Celebrities and their partners would try to match correct answers for points. Bert Convey was host. The producer asked me when I had last seen a tape of that show. The fact is, I don't think I ever saw it. Like most game show tapings we did a week shows in one day. We probably set the VCR to record them when they aired, but I have not thought of that show since. I probably still have the VCR on Betamax in storage and don't have a player that could play it even if I found it.

At the end of the day, Gary, the young producer handed me three DVD's, dubs of the original Tattletales with Sandi and me. I was excited to get them and grabbed Sandi when I got home. "You have to see this... Remember Tattletales?" I said. She remembered but just as vaguely as me. I popped in the DVD and there we are, with Carol Lawrence and her husband, Robert Donner and his wife and Bert Convey. The hair and clothing was definitely vintage 80's and we were looking young and childless. In fact we looked like children ourselves.

The format of the show is not unfamiliar. The ladies are asked questions while the men are off stage and then they reverse the process asking the men questions while the girls are sequestered. As we are watching, I am actually hearing and seeing Sandi's answers for the first time. She is hearing the answers I gave while she was off stage for the first time as well.

At one point I take exception to one of Sandi's answers,
"Why did you say that about me?" There was a definite edge to my question, which caused an equally sharp response.
"Well, why did you say what you did on that last question."

The rest of the conversation went something like this.

" I was just trying to be funny, you know, play the game."
"But that wasn't funny."
"How could you admit that about me on television."
"You know that is not true about me."
"What kind of an answer is that."
"I was just kidding"
"That is unfair... I never would say that."

This continues until it dawns on us that we are arguing over ancient history. Statements lost in the ether, forgotten and buried in the vaults of GSN resurrected only as an amusement for the participants. In this case the amusement was giving way to conflict. We came around to our senses and called for a truce. We even laughed about it, but we have not watched any more of the shows so far. I think we have to have a little more than 27 years of distance before we can view them objectively.

As you were,
Jay