A ________-ing great time
Ever do something that you think to yourself, "Hey, let's give this a shot and see if it works" and then it goes beyond anything you ever expected? That's what happened with the big "Match Game-North Hollywood Squares Hour" party last night. It's not like we haven't done game show-themed parties before. The first one Ted, Larry, and I threw was the "Match Game 2001" party. We've also had a "Weakest Link" party and a "Press Your Pot-Luck" party.
This acutally began about a month ago...we were thinking of what themed party to do next. I'd always wanted to do a "Match Game 2002" party. I think it was just after we'd seen a taping of "Hollywood Squares" that Larry and Ted looked at our living room and thought...how about "North Hollywood Squares?" Well before you could say, "You put my peanut butter in my chocolate and you put your chocolate in my peanut butter" the "Match Game-North Hollywood Squares" party was born. Just like the "Match Game 2001" party, we'd have everybody dress as a B-celebrity and play the game. Ted and Larry came up with a brilliant idea on how simulate the "Squares" using a sheet of butcher paper hanging from the ceiling with squares cut out to pop our heads through.
So the invites were sent and the planning commenced. For the first time, we enlisted some outside help. I brought Drew on board to help out with writing the questions and to test his game show-writing chops. And he did quite a good job. By party time, he and I put together a couple hundred questions for "Squares" and about 60 or so for "Match Game." Needless to say, we were quite prepped for material for the gaming. Later on, Matt helped out with the "set-making" as the butcher paper idea evolved into this excellent felt "Squares" came board complete with "X" and "O" indicators and a show logo above it. I'll have pics of it up here eventually...
While this all sounds fine and dandy, we had quite a scare Friday night...we came home to discover the air conditioner wasn't working. Needless to say, we were NOT happy campers. We were picturing a house full of 50 people sweating with our windows open for all the neighbors to hear. Fortunately, a call to our landlord resolved the problem quite quickly the next day. It turned out to be a flipped circuit breaker...
Flash forward to last night...The party was a HUGE success. Everybody seemed to have a blast and everybody seemed to get in the game. The costumes...oh the costumes...Ted was Paul Lynde, Larry was Madame (yes...Madame, the puppet...NOT Wayland Flowers), Matt was Don Knotts, Drew was Peter Marshall (or Jon Bauman or John Davidson or Tom Bergeron depending on the point in the evening), and I was Gene Rayburn. We also had a Wally Cox, JM J Bullock, Richard Dawson, Anna Nicole Charo, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ozzy Osbourne, JoAnne Worley, Bob Denver, and Dick Gautier..JUST to name a few of the celeb people came dressed up as. Now if that wasn't enough, we had quite an interesting mix of guests. In addition to our usual gang of friends, we had a few REAL game show personalities drop by. Bob Bergen was there armed with his repertoire of great voices. Bob's actually been to our place before. He's a really good friend of Ted's...If that wasn't enough, Randy West, as well. I've seen Randy on many occasions at game show tapings and other game show confabs. And it was because of his help that Todd Newton first saw my website. And on top of that...HENRY POLIC II, whom the 80s generation probably remembers from his numerous appearances as Uncle Jerry on "Webster" and his excellent playing on "The $25,000/$100,000 Pyramid," came to the party as well! We met him through Matt and another friend of ours, Tim. We were introduced to him by our friends at a play that he directed called "Fools." All of them were really nice and sweet and they really got into the fun. They could not have been better guests! All three are really witty, funny guys. Randy even did little bit of his Kenny Williams impersonation for us. :-) And Henry had many zingers...I never realized how funny a guy he is. Very quick and sharp. I gotta say, that it really didn't hit me until the party ended what a monster we created and how surreal the whole evening was. There were TWO people who hosted game shows in our living room! And at one point I was asking them to fill in the blanks on "Match Game" questions we wrote up. Too weird...too, too weird...it's amazing how much my life has changed in such a short time and really to think that just a few years ago, I was just another viewer watching game shows and trading tapes of old game shows with other game show fans. Moments like last night make me really appreciate where I am now and how LUCKY I've been...
This party was really one for the books...and I think what made it such a success was that we had great guests who were pretty much all involved with the gaming and we had a great team involved in prepping the party. It makes me wonder what else our bunch can do if we put our minds to it. Good good stuff...And if you're reading this and were at the party, THANK YOU for coming!
That leaves the question...what's next on the horizon? Well, there's talk of a "Pyramid" party some time later on in the summer. It really all depends on coordinating everybody's schedule especially since I might be out of town throughout the summer to go to Orlando for the tapings of the new "Beat the Clock." More on that clock-watching later... :-)
Ever do something that you think to yourself, "Hey, let's give this a shot and see if it works" and then it goes beyond anything you ever expected? That's what happened with the big "Match Game-North Hollywood Squares Hour" party last night. It's not like we haven't done game show-themed parties before. The first one Ted, Larry, and I threw was the "Match Game 2001" party. We've also had a "Weakest Link" party and a "Press Your Pot-Luck" party.
This acutally began about a month ago...we were thinking of what themed party to do next. I'd always wanted to do a "Match Game 2002" party. I think it was just after we'd seen a taping of "Hollywood Squares" that Larry and Ted looked at our living room and thought...how about "North Hollywood Squares?" Well before you could say, "You put my peanut butter in my chocolate and you put your chocolate in my peanut butter" the "Match Game-North Hollywood Squares" party was born. Just like the "Match Game 2001" party, we'd have everybody dress as a B-celebrity and play the game. Ted and Larry came up with a brilliant idea on how simulate the "Squares" using a sheet of butcher paper hanging from the ceiling with squares cut out to pop our heads through.
So the invites were sent and the planning commenced. For the first time, we enlisted some outside help. I brought Drew on board to help out with writing the questions and to test his game show-writing chops. And he did quite a good job. By party time, he and I put together a couple hundred questions for "Squares" and about 60 or so for "Match Game." Needless to say, we were quite prepped for material for the gaming. Later on, Matt helped out with the "set-making" as the butcher paper idea evolved into this excellent felt "Squares" came board complete with "X" and "O" indicators and a show logo above it. I'll have pics of it up here eventually...
While this all sounds fine and dandy, we had quite a scare Friday night...we came home to discover the air conditioner wasn't working. Needless to say, we were NOT happy campers. We were picturing a house full of 50 people sweating with our windows open for all the neighbors to hear. Fortunately, a call to our landlord resolved the problem quite quickly the next day. It turned out to be a flipped circuit breaker...
Flash forward to last night...The party was a HUGE success. Everybody seemed to have a blast and everybody seemed to get in the game. The costumes...oh the costumes...Ted was Paul Lynde, Larry was Madame (yes...Madame, the puppet...NOT Wayland Flowers), Matt was Don Knotts, Drew was Peter Marshall (or Jon Bauman or John Davidson or Tom Bergeron depending on the point in the evening), and I was Gene Rayburn. We also had a Wally Cox, JM J Bullock, Richard Dawson, Anna Nicole Charo, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ozzy Osbourne, JoAnne Worley, Bob Denver, and Dick Gautier..JUST to name a few of the celeb people came dressed up as. Now if that wasn't enough, we had quite an interesting mix of guests. In addition to our usual gang of friends, we had a few REAL game show personalities drop by. Bob Bergen was there armed with his repertoire of great voices. Bob's actually been to our place before. He's a really good friend of Ted's...If that wasn't enough, Randy West, as well. I've seen Randy on many occasions at game show tapings and other game show confabs. And it was because of his help that Todd Newton first saw my website. And on top of that...HENRY POLIC II, whom the 80s generation probably remembers from his numerous appearances as Uncle Jerry on "Webster" and his excellent playing on "The $25,000/$100,000 Pyramid," came to the party as well! We met him through Matt and another friend of ours, Tim. We were introduced to him by our friends at a play that he directed called "Fools." All of them were really nice and sweet and they really got into the fun. They could not have been better guests! All three are really witty, funny guys. Randy even did little bit of his Kenny Williams impersonation for us. :-) And Henry had many zingers...I never realized how funny a guy he is. Very quick and sharp. I gotta say, that it really didn't hit me until the party ended what a monster we created and how surreal the whole evening was. There were TWO people who hosted game shows in our living room! And at one point I was asking them to fill in the blanks on "Match Game" questions we wrote up. Too weird...too, too weird...it's amazing how much my life has changed in such a short time and really to think that just a few years ago, I was just another viewer watching game shows and trading tapes of old game shows with other game show fans. Moments like last night make me really appreciate where I am now and how LUCKY I've been...
This party was really one for the books...and I think what made it such a success was that we had great guests who were pretty much all involved with the gaming and we had a great team involved in prepping the party. It makes me wonder what else our bunch can do if we put our minds to it. Good good stuff...And if you're reading this and were at the party, THANK YOU for coming!
That leaves the question...what's next on the horizon? Well, there's talk of a "Pyramid" party some time later on in the summer. It really all depends on coordinating everybody's schedule especially since I might be out of town throughout the summer to go to Orlando for the tapings of the new "Beat the Clock." More on that clock-watching later... :-)
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