Yes, I was raised on television. I had one in my room as a kid. This probably had short and long range bad effects on me.
That being said… I am always happy to discover something obscure. Even more so because I’ve made one of my first posts to Wikipedia
When I was a kid… (Let’s avoid the references to when the rocks were soft) there were 3 main stations. ABC, NBC, and CBS. (There was PBS, and a bunch of hard to tune UHF stations as well)… Oh yeah.. there was a lot of fuzzy white-noise space between them.
My one thrill a year was a program called, “Battle of the Network Stars.” Back before greed had gotten out of control, the three networks would collaborate to host a series of fun physical challenges between teams made from the stars of their prime time shows.
The show stared Howard Cosell as sports commentator. Cosell was a television institution that I regret is slowly fading from memory and history.
The show was fun. There was an obstacle course, tug of war, swimming, even one year a pinball contest (which ironically was quickly lost by Elton John) But my fondest memory was of “Simon Says.” Not even really a part of the competition it was one man calling the game vs. most of the stars. And the caller was deadly. For years… I’ve tried to remember anything I can about it. Some of my friends have even fallen prey to my ability to make them lose “Simon Says” in less than 5 moves.
Well tonight while YouTube surfing on my AppleTV (A prize I won at work for helping to test our software), I found a video of Simon Says. The video gave me the master’s name. “Lou Goldstein” (Who despite being probably 80 may still be travelling and entertaining. Damn those Borscht Belt mensches!)
So, I appended the article. There was no information on Goldstein. The article now references him and includes an external link to the footage.
In some ways it may seem dated. But it’s a pearl of history. And I’m very, VERY, VERY happy to see it still exists. I wish I could explain the really warm feeling I got… get from putting this piece of Television history in Wikipedia.