Yearly Archives: 2015

We're flashing back to June 1, 2002 for this rerun. Shortly after I wrote about this game show, someone sent me VHS tapes of the one or two episodes of Video Village that are known to exist. It was about as I remembered except that, as so many old shows do when you see them again, it looked a lot cheaper than I recalled and I wondered if they'd been refilmed on a lower budget. I call this the Man From U.N.C.L.E. effect…

Game shows of the MTV generation usually look for physical player involvement, so I'm surprised no one has thought to revive Video Village, a silly but fun series that ran from 1960 to 1962 on CBS.  Format-wise, it was pretty simple: Two players competed as life-size "pieces" on a studio-sized game board.  Each would bring a friend or relative along to roll the dice for them and, based on that roll, contestants would move one to six spaces along the "street."  Some spaces paid little prizes — merchandise or money — some spaces cost you a turn or took your prizes away.  On the last of the three "streets," the prizes became considerable…and, of course, the object of the game was to reach the finish line before your opponent.

There was also a kid's version of the show briefly on Saturday morning.  As I recall, it was called Video Village Jr. in the TV Guide and it was called Kideo Village on the show itself — or perhaps it was the other way around.  I was ten at the time and bothered more than anyone should have been by this discrepancy.  Years later, when I met its host, Monty Hall, I saw my chance to finally get this age-old riddle answered and off my widdle mind.  I asked him why the show had one name in TV Guide and another on the air.  His reply was, "It did?"  Thank you, Monty Hall.  (In 1964, the same production company — Heatter-Quigley — did another kids' version of Video Village.  This one was called Shenanigans and was hosted by Stubby Kaye.)

Monty Hall was actually the third host of Video Village, following Jack Narz and Red Rowe.  As was the custom in the board game versions of TV quiz programs, no real host is depicted on the box cover of the Milton Bradley version above.  I had always assumed that this practice was because the owners of the show didn't want to share the loot with the host, and that may have been the reason in some cases.  But an expert at such things — a collector of board games based on TV shows — once told me that wasn't the main reason.  The main reason was so that the board game could be sold overseas (where game shows were often produced with local hosts) and so that the toy company didn't get stuck with an out-of-date box on already-manufactured items if the show changed hosts.  Changing stars in mid-stream was more common then than it is now…although, at some point, every one of us is going to get to be the host of Family Feud.

Back when I was twelve, I loved to play the home version of Video Village, often with a friend of mine named Alan.  Oddly, Alan didn't want to play against me.  The only way he enjoyed the game was if we found a third person to compete, whereupon Alan could function as Monty Hall.  Though the board game was designed to be played one-on-one with no emcee, Alan loved to preside and to do all the unnecessary game show host patter that Monty did on the air, even asking the announcer (whose voice he'd also do) to tell us what we'd all won.  Unfortunately, when I went over to Alan's house, the only third party available was usually his younger sister who was thoroughly uninterested in his silly games.  I'd say to Alan, "Let's play Stadium Checkers, instead."  But Alan wanted to play Game Show Host, so he'd start bribing Sis the way an older brother can bribe a sibling: "If you'll play two games with us, I promise not to yell at you for a week and to let you ride up front next time Mom takes us to the market."  His sister would counter, "Throw in that you'll take the trash out and tell Mom that you were the one who broke her vase."  It all foreshadowed Monty's subsequent TV program, Let's Make A Deal, except that it was more mature since no one had to dress up like a giant hubbard squash.

It also never worked.  Once we got into the game, Alan, being the gracious host, would ask her, "So, where are you from and what do you for a living?"  He'd expect her to say, "Well, Alan, I'm a stenographer from Lansing, Michigan and I have three wonderful children," but she'd say. "I'm from the same place as you, doo-doo head, and I'm ten years old.  I don't have a job."  He'd scream at her for not playing along and she'd scream at him for using her toys in the swimming pool and that would be the end of today's episode of Video Village.  Come to think of it…though we didn't know it at the time, we were actually playing the home version of The Jerry Springer Show.  You know, I bet that would sell.

Back to May 9, 2002 for this post about the animals I was then feeding in my backyard. I'm currently down to two cats and the occasional possum. Raccoons come around but I decided it was in the best interest of all not to feed them so when they grab a bite, it's in spite of my best efforts. Currently, I give the cats Friskies canned cat food and a Friskies dry cat food called Seafood Sensations that probably has about as much to do with seafood as a package of Goldfish crackers.

Since I wrote this, the main thing that has changed apart from the identities of the animals is that there's no more Alpo brand cat food. It disappeared shortly after this post as the Nestlé company, which had acquired the Alpo company a few years earlier, shut down that brand and folded it into the Ralston Purina company, which they'd also acquired…and now they make all their pet food under the Friskies label. So that's what the Nestlé corporation does when it's not bottling all the remaining water in California so they can sell it to us. Soon, thirsty neighbors will be begging for H2O at my back door like the animals who demand their Friskies.

And yes, I actually did take the photo below of a family of raccoons on my back porch one night and I don't live in the hills or in the countryside. I live in the middle of the city — and there were more of them out there than you can see in this picture…

I feed a menagerie on my back porch.  It includes several cats, possums and raccoons who amble by on a nightly basis to stuff their furry faces.  For a time, I paid scant attention to what I put in the bowls.  One brand, I figured, is just like another and I always mocked the blurbs where they tout "better taste."  A lot of pet food advertising, I believe, is based on the premise that we purchase it as if we're going to be the ones dining on it.  We look at the label for Alpo Sliced Beef in Gravy and we say, "Mmm…sliced beef in gravy.  That sounds yummy."  As if what sounds good to our palates has anything to do with what our animals will like.  So, in that spirit, I purchased whatever was on sale.

For a while, that's been Friskies Chef's Blend and it seemed to be acceptable to all, disappearing like chopped liver at a Bar Mitzvah reception.  I had no reason to change until one evening, I was out of food and in my friendly neighborhood Sav-On Pharmacy.  They didn't have any Chef's Blend so I bought the cheapest thing on their shelves, which was the store brand of Albertson's, a supermarket chain owned by the same corporation.  I took it home and filled the dish…and they wouldn't eat the stuff.

The cats wouldn't eat it.  The raccoons wouldn't eat it.  Even the possums, which supposedly will eat just about anything, wouldn't eat Albertson's "Original Formula" cat food.  There was a bit of nibbling around the edges but, for the most part, the vittles went untouched.

At first, I thought, well, maybe no animals came by but, the next day, after a trip to the market, I put a dish of Friskies out next to the Albertsons food.  The following morning, the Albertson's food was all there — every morsel of it — but the other bowl had been licked clean.

So what was I to do with the whole bag of the Albertson's food?  I didn't want to waste it so, the next evening, I tried filling both dishes with a mixture of the two brands.  I thought this was very resourceful but later, when I walked through the kitchen, I noticed a raccoon out there, carefully picking the Friskies food out…and with much the same precision I use to take the peas I can't eat out of Campbell's Vegetable Soup.  As he did this, he glared at me with a look that seemed to say, "You're making this very difficult, you know."

I finally wound up putting the Albertson's food out during the day, when starlings and crows sometimes swoop down on the cat dishes.  I'm not sure if the birds actually eat it or if they just "bathe" in the bowls and scatter the food all over so the gardener will sweep it up and throw it out.  Either way, I finally got rid of the food the animals won't eat and I now serve only Friskies Chef's Blend out there.  Earlier this evening, I noticed a raccoon nosing around the dishes, which were empty.  I went out to fill them, scaring him away.  Then, once I came back in and closed the door, I waited to see if he'd come back.  He did.  He snuck up, sniffed the Friskies, tasted a few bites.  Then he looked at me with an expression that could only have meant, "I'm glad to see you've learned something."