Speaker 1: Ah boy, oh man. The tough part about being like
Speaker 1: caught up on episodes more or less is that we
Speaker 1: recorded yesterday. I have no new banter for you. Nothing
Speaker 1: has happened since then. All I could talk about is, like,
Speaker 1: recorded a podcast episode yesterday. No one cares, No one
Speaker 1: wants to hear bad podcast. Oh no, it's the last
Speaker 1: thing our listeners want to hear about going on about
Speaker 1: our podcast. That's real, though. I don't know. There's something
Speaker 1: about having been in the world of self promotion for
Speaker 1: so long that I'm like so burned out on it
Speaker 1: and nobody cares about your dumb projects. And then someone
Speaker 1: asks and you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I do this
Speaker 1: project and they're like, wow, cool, tell me more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you want to know. I don't know. I always
Speaker 1: do that, like not to name drop this constantly, but
Speaker 1: I worked a little bit on the show Stranger Things
Speaker 1: when I was doing props on set, and you know,
Speaker 1: that show excites people, and also, like you know, it's
Speaker 1: name droppy. Like I'm not going to walk into a
Speaker 1: party and be like, hey, everybody, I've got stories for you,
Speaker 1: because I assume people like you know, they don't care.
Speaker 1: They want to hear about my work day. But then
Speaker 1: someone will randomly be like, oh, I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you about it, but I think you're sick of talking
Speaker 1: about it. I'm like, no, no, I'm actually fine talking
Speaker 1: about it. I thought you were sick of hearing about it,
Speaker 1: and we end up just not saying anything. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: best to just talk about it. Yeah. Well, hopefully you all, beautiful, wonderful,
Speaker 1: talented listeners are out there smoothing for us, telling everyone
Speaker 1: that your parties about our show because we we we'd
Speaker 1: love to have them. We'd love to have your friends
Speaker 1: in here too. Friends together, talk it up, talk it up,
Speaker 1: never ever, ever, stop talking about ridiculous romance. I want
Speaker 1: you to make it your entire person a reality. I
Speaker 1: want you to lose friends because you're the person who
Speaker 1: never shuts up about that podcast you listen to. You're
Speaker 1: wishing some bad future upon It's better for them. You
Speaker 1: didn't need those friends, Okay, you have us, no lies,
Speaker 1: really trying to encourage the pair of social relationships. If
Speaker 1: it gets us those those sweet, sweet downloads, I'll do anything.
Speaker 1: Can you tell our renewal is coming up soon? Yeah? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: today's episode is fun. A little trivia mixed in here
Speaker 1: some classic television stuff we haven't been to in a while.
Speaker 1: That since oh jees, I mean we've done some movies
Speaker 1: in Hollywood and stuff like you know, these these TV
Speaker 1: royals we haven't gotten into since, like Dassy and Lucy.
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, uh, and it's such a cool world.
Speaker 1: And I figured, you know, given the subject at today's show,
Speaker 1: we need a job start format a little bit. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Diana Europe, I want you to go ahead and
Speaker 1: choose a category. Um, I'll take Ridiculous Romance for five, please,
Speaker 1: all right. The idea for this popular game show, known
Speaker 1: for giving contestants the answer and asking for the question
Speaker 1: in response, was created by a husband wife team in
Speaker 1: nine What is Jeopardy? That is correct ray and that
Speaker 1: means you're going to win a copy of our home game,
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Pursuit. Actually that would be a really fun game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: please podcast, we'll put it in ridicution. We'll have ridiculous
Speaker 1: definitely with all the shows. Oh my god, you could
Speaker 1: land on like a side piece space and they have
Speaker 1: a couple those around the board. That right. I don't
Speaker 1: know how the mechanics work. Get game developers get at
Speaker 1: well yeah, it works. This is a new idea. But
Speaker 1: today we're talking about Jeopardy, which is probably the most
Speaker 1: popular game show ever made. It's famous for its inverted
Speaker 1: answer question format. But the show's creator, Merv Griffin, he
Speaker 1: didn't come up with the idea all by himself. Once again,
Speaker 1: like Lucy and Desi TV, history was made by a
Speaker 1: couple that found each other at the perfect time and
Speaker 1: came together to create a legacy that would change the
Speaker 1: industry forever. So let us do this action. What is go?
Speaker 1: Hey the French? Come listen. Well, Elien and Diana got
Speaker 1: some stories to tell. There's no match making, all romantic tips.
Speaker 1: It's just about pridiculous relationships, a lover, it might be
Speaker 1: any type of person at all, and abstract consent on
Speaker 1: a concrete ball. But if there's a story where the
Speaker 1: second glance ridiculous role, that's a production of iHeart Radio. Okay,
Speaker 1: So before we can get to Merv and Julian Griffin
Speaker 1: creating Jeopardy, first we need to know where the show
Speaker 1: came from. And you know what that means. Means before
Speaker 1: we settle down into something serious, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick fling with history. Just answer the question. In nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty eight, both the first radio and TV game shows
Speaker 1: were broadcast. On the radio, the show was called Information Please,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of the standard panel quiz show with
Speaker 1: funny answer is like a wait, wait, don't tell me
Speaker 1: or something like that. Now on TV, the first game
Speaker 1: show was a British series. There's only about four episodes.
Speaker 1: It was called Spelling B. Was actually adapted from a
Speaker 1: radio show and they just put it on camera. And
Speaker 1: this show was where contestants competed against well known celebrities
Speaker 1: and just like your usual Spelling B format. Sure classic
Speaker 1: also four episodes in Britain, that long running series. Yeah,
Speaker 1: season two might come out any day now. So of
Speaker 1: course these were big hits. And by the midnight teen
Speaker 1: forties TV game shows we're starting to get really popular.
Speaker 1: But they were all still pretty like low stakes, kind
Speaker 1: of silly jokes and prizes. Nothing major. You know, you
Speaker 1: win a boxer, Ris Erroney, you win a new pillow. Sure,
Speaker 1: nothing life changing. Yeah. But then in nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court ruled in the case FCC versus American
Speaker 1: Broadcasting Company that game show giveaways were not considered gambling
Speaker 1: and that the shows could give away as much money
Speaker 1: as they wanted, as long as the contestants didn't pay
Speaker 1: any of their own money into it. So this changed
Speaker 1: everything and something that the networks were like, great, let's
Speaker 1: bring out the thousand, ten thousand dollar prizes even bigger
Speaker 1: and really get people excited about the stakes here. High
Speaker 1: stakes quiz shows like twenty one and the sixty four
Speaker 1: thousand dollar Questions suddenly became all the rage. But then
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen fifties, a series of scandals rocked
Speaker 1: the quiz show world. So TV, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: beginning to really take root in American culture at this point,
Speaker 1: so people were still kind of innocent about it. Whatever
Speaker 1: they saw on TV must have been what was really happening.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's happening in the box in my living room.
Speaker 1: Obviously I can see it right there with my own eyes.
Speaker 1: TV never lies, But obviously we know better now. All
Speaker 1: that high stakes TV was incredibly staged. Producers would script
Speaker 1: episodes they helped popular contestants win so they could come back,
Speaker 1: or even the opposite, they would try and trip up
Speaker 1: contestants that they thought were boring the audience so that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't win. They had to keep put them on TV.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it sounds very much like how
Speaker 1: we know Reality TV to operate today. Absolutely, reality TV
Speaker 1: is some of the most fake ship in the world.
Speaker 1: Some of us may remember Dr Joyce Brothers, the famed psychologist.
Speaker 1: For example, History dot com says she won a few
Speaker 1: times on sixty four thousand dollar Question, but they felt
Speaker 1: like her streak was not good TV, so they tried
Speaker 1: to stretch questions out into categories that she wouldn't know.
Speaker 1: But she won anyway because she is from our lady.
Speaker 1: But in ninety seven, there's this kind of awkward, nerdy
Speaker 1: looking guy named Herb Stemple who had been dominating in
Speaker 1: the Game twenty one week after week, just cleaning him up.
Speaker 1: But then this clean cut, handsome TV type named Charles
Speaker 1: Van Doren came in handily beat Herb, and the show
Speaker 1: then turned Van Doren into like an American hero and celebrity.
Speaker 1: He became a new reigning champion, and historian Maxine Fabe
Speaker 1: said Van Doren was quote too likable, too special, too important,
Speaker 1: an icon to the American dream of success to fade
Speaker 1: from view. And it turns out the producers were actually
Speaker 1: coaching Van Doren. Before every taping session of the show,
Speaker 1: they would tell him everything, and not just the answers
Speaker 1: to the questions, but like when he should pause and
Speaker 1: think about it, or when he should like wipe his
Speaker 1: forehead when he was too hard, like has what I
Speaker 1: need to really stock sweating? Mr? Van Dorn? Question make
Speaker 1: you nervous that this one you're gonna have to get
Speaker 1: up and go pee while you think about it. So
Speaker 1: it turned out that all of this was completely choreographed
Speaker 1: and staged, and it wasn't just Van Doren getting coached
Speaker 1: that nerdy guy Herb Stemple. He was told by the
Speaker 1: network that if he threw the show and lost, they
Speaker 1: would give him a high salary job. So even though
Speaker 1: his like big question versus Charles Van Doren was about
Speaker 1: his own favorite movie, Marty her pretended that he didn't
Speaker 1: know that it was the Best Picture winner that year.
Speaker 1: He got the question wrong, and now Van Dorn was
Speaker 1: the new champion. Well guess what when it came to it,
Speaker 1: the network did not give her that job. Obviously, he
Speaker 1: was pretty pissed that he'd thrown his fame in the
Speaker 1: trash and also didn't get a good job now, so
Speaker 1: he started talking to reporters, talking to the police. You know,
Speaker 1: at first, nothing really came of it. NBC was pretty
Speaker 1: good about burying this kind of stuff, yep. But in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight, reporters got ahold of his story. Evidence
Speaker 1: started to come up, and soon the public and the
Speaker 1: d A of Manhattan, we're all made aware of what
Speaker 1: was going on here. Now, technically nothing that NBC or
Speaker 1: the game shows were doing was illegal, but they held
Speaker 1: all these hearings on it, and during the earrings, Grand
Speaker 1: Jerry estimated that two thirds of the witnesses they questioned
Speaker 1: lied under oath, including Van Dorn who later admitted to it.
Speaker 1: And this, of course was illegal. Thell like, we want
Speaker 1: to ask you about something you're doing that's not illegal,
Speaker 1: and everyone's like, I'm going to quickly break the law.
Speaker 1: Yeah right now. You know, everybody avoided jail time, but
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of fines, bunch of trouble. And then
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty this caused Congress to amend the Communications
Speaker 1: Act of nineteen thirty four, and this made fixing game
Speaker 1: shows quite illegally. Indeed, from that point on, you might
Speaker 1: have heard this story because you might have seen the
Speaker 1: nineteen movie Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford. This was
Speaker 1: all about this story between Herb and Van Doren. John
Speaker 1: Turturro played Herb's temple and Rafe Fines played Charles Van Dorn.
Speaker 1: We have not seen this. We need to watch this movie.
Speaker 1: I know that's pretty good casting. It's supposed to be
Speaker 1: one of the greats, like it's supposed to be just
Speaker 1: a really good Yeah, I've definitely watched. So spoiler alert
Speaker 1: for show movie. That's what happens. Guess what happens. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, the law changed. But the really the biggest
Speaker 1: thing about all this was public trust in these shows
Speaker 1: was gone. The people. The American public was shocked to
Speaker 1: learn that what they were seeing with their own eyes,
Speaker 1: on their own TVs and their own living rooms might
Speaker 1: not be true. Just heart attack all across America. Broken trust.
Speaker 1: No one was going to come back from this. They
Speaker 1: rejected big dollar quiz shows after that, ratings dropped, shows
Speaker 1: were canceled. It was crazy, but that all brings us
Speaker 1: to our central old romance merv and Julan born in
Speaker 1: Julianne Right wanted to be an actress, so she moved
Speaker 1: to New York City after high school. She said in
Speaker 1: an interview with full Vonna Review dot com in that
Speaker 1: a lot of the jobs she had at the time
Speaker 1: don't even exist anymore, like operating an address a graph
Speaker 1: which basically prints addresses on envelopes. Probably probably that machine
Speaker 1: is probably the size of a room. Yeah, right now,
Speaker 1: it's the size of my palm. Well. In nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: Julian was working as a secretary on the Robert Q.
Speaker 1: Lewis Show, and she had to bring Robert Q. Lewis
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee on camera. Of course, ju Land's
Speaker 1: wearing heels. She's extremely nervous, so when she walks out
Speaker 1: on stage, she spilled the coffee everywhere, and Lewis sent
Speaker 1: her to a microphone and asked her why just spill
Speaker 1: my coffee. She said her balance was off because she
Speaker 1: quote lost two pounds last night. When Louis aster how
Speaker 1: she lost two pounds in one night, she said, quote, well,
Speaker 1: I wanted to lose it, and I knew if my
Speaker 1: body temperature went down, I would, So I slept naked
Speaker 1: with the window open and snow coming in, which the
Speaker 1: audience thought was the funniest damn thing they ever heard.
Speaker 1: It was a different time. It's a different time. I know.
Speaker 1: I was like I didn't feel the need to laugh,
Speaker 1: but hey, it really worked for them. Comedy is different
Speaker 1: back then it worked. They were like who would have
Speaker 1: the snow coming in? I guess right, or they were
Speaker 1: like a lady can be naked, implied boobs at Anyway,
Speaker 1: she got huge laughs for this, and Robert Huluis was like, okay,
Speaker 1: star powers, so he started bringing her on the show
Speaker 1: regularly now. Merv Griffin was born in nineteen five in
Speaker 1: San Mateo, California. His father was a stockbroker, so you
Speaker 1: can imagine things weren't great for his family when he
Speaker 1: was young. As a kid, Merv would sell magazine's door
Speaker 1: to door to earn money for the family. He also
Speaker 1: played organ at his church. I was actually really talented
Speaker 1: musician at a young age, and by age nineteen he
Speaker 1: was singing on the radio. He was drafted for World
Speaker 1: War Two, but the military rejected him because he was
Speaker 1: overweight and had a heart murmur. His fame kind of
Speaker 1: turned against him as a radio singer because when fans
Speaker 1: saw him in person, they were like incredibly rude that
Speaker 1: he didn't look like they thought he would, that he
Speaker 1: was an overweight guy instead of like Mr handsome, you know,
Speaker 1: so he sounded like a sexy friend. I think they
Speaker 1: were picturing. Yeah, they were like, that's not what I thought.
Speaker 1: M that's rude. He said in New York Times in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, that quote, because of my weight, I
Speaker 1: had to hide. Listeners would write romantic letters into the
Speaker 1: radio station, but the network kept me a mystery. When
Speaker 1: he first started on TV, he said they would do
Speaker 1: whatever they could to hide him. He said, quote their
Speaker 1: favorite device was to use me in a beach number.
Speaker 1: I was always singing behind an umbrella or a waterfall.
Speaker 1: Just brutal. I mean, you know, talk about image issues
Speaker 1: on camera. They've certainly been around since cameras have been around.
Speaker 1: He said he was so embarrassed by all this that
Speaker 1: he ended up taking a year off and he lost
Speaker 1: eighty pounds in four months. How sounds unhealthy. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: probably puts some strain on his heart. I feel he
Speaker 1: already had a heart murmur. That's probably a bad idea,
Speaker 1: but whatever, Maybe he just ate right and exercised and
Speaker 1: managed to drop it all. Either way. By five, he
Speaker 1: had enough money to start his own record label, and
Speaker 1: he started singing in popular nightclubs across the country. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty he's staging with Freddy Martin's orchestra and
Speaker 1: recorded the hit song I've Got a Lovely Bunch of
Speaker 1: Coconuts Oh Wow, classic made famous by z of course
Speaker 1: in his Bone Cage. This song sold three million copies,
Speaker 1: but Merv only made fifty bucks. What, which is around
Speaker 1: six hundred dollars today. That's really not that much for
Speaker 1: three million copies of a song. Damn, it's like streaming service.
Speaker 1: Then Doris Day was at a nightclub where he was
Speaker 1: singing and insisted to Warner Brothers that they give him
Speaker 1: a screen test. That led to supporting roles in a
Speaker 1: few musical films, including So This Is Love in nine three,
Speaker 1: in which he scandalized America by sharing the first on
Speaker 1: screen open mouth kiss with Katherine Grayson. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: mouth fainting in the audience, tones vomiting outside the theater.
Speaker 1: They're shaking and crying, the world coming to It's basically pornography.
Speaker 1: Next thing you know, they'll be open mouth kissing horses
Speaker 1: on camera. Oh my god. Someone definitely said that. But
Speaker 1: it turned out that Merv Griffin was not that into
Speaker 1: the movie biz. He bought back his contract from Warner
Speaker 1: Brothers and decided he was more of a TV guy,
Speaker 1: and that led him eventually to regularly guest starring as
Speaker 1: a singer on The Robert Q. Lewis Show, where he
Speaker 1: would meet the lovely and talented ju Land Rights. We'll
Speaker 1: learn all about that coming up next. So don't go away.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Double Jeopardy where values are double. That's always the most
Speaker 1: exciting part of the show to me. Double Jeopardy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really anybody's game at this point. They always say that,
Speaker 1: they're like, it's really not anybody's game. It's one person's game.
Speaker 1: You never let more than one person win. The person
Speaker 1: in dead last can win in Final Jeopardy. That is true,
Speaker 1: and I do like I appreciate that about some games
Speaker 1: when you're like, I'm doing poorly, but I know the
Speaker 1: values go up and there's still a chance. So even
Speaker 1: if you're behind early on, you've got to keep keep
Speaker 1: hope alive. Unlike real life, I just give up now.
Speaker 1: So Julian Right was now a regular part of The
Speaker 1: Robert Q. Lewis Show. He was this classic nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: like horn rimmed glasses comedian, and she was the perfect
Speaker 1: goofy foil to him, she said, quote he brought out
Speaker 1: the worst of me and we always got laughs. We
Speaker 1: ad lived for years. She said it really changed her
Speaker 1: perception of famous people too, because she was a secretary.
Speaker 1: She used to bring all these celebrities coffee when they
Speaker 1: came on the show. But now that she was one
Speaker 1: of their peers, she was seeing that quote they were
Speaker 1: just regular people. Celebrities, They're just like us, just like us.
Speaker 1: Julianne said that she even saw some big actress come
Speaker 1: onto the show who was so nervous before she went
Speaker 1: out that julian had to show her to the bathroom
Speaker 1: so she could puke before him. She's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this this you know, movie star, this queen of glamour,
Speaker 1: and I'm showing her where she can puke because she's
Speaker 1: so scared of going on TV. Julian also had a
Speaker 1: big crush on this actor, Dick Haymes, who was the
Speaker 1: star of a movie called State Fair. But he came
Speaker 1: on the show and before he went on camera, his
Speaker 1: crown tooth came off, so she had to use her
Speaker 1: clear nail polish to help him stick it back on.
Speaker 1: She said, quote, I thought, here I am. My heart
Speaker 1: would flutter when I saw this guy, and now I'm
Speaker 1: putting his tooth back in It does demystify that a lot.
Speaker 1: But then came the singer Merv Griffin, who julian said
Speaker 1: had quote a gorgeous voice. Merv would laugh at everything,
Speaker 1: Julianne said, so they hit it off quickly and became
Speaker 1: best friends before long. I get it, I would be
Speaker 1: your friend if you laughed at everything. I'm like this,
Speaker 1: I need to hang out with you. Then Merv poach
Speaker 1: Julian to his own show in nineteen fifty six, which
Speaker 1: really piste off Robert Lewis and he hated Murv for years.
Speaker 1: But mervyn Julian's friendship soon turned to romance, and in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine they got married. Later that year, they
Speaker 1: had a son, Tony Griffin. Things were just getting better
Speaker 1: and better for them. MERV was hosting a few shows
Speaker 1: on his own, including a few game shows. Now, because
Speaker 1: of all the recent scandals, the public didn't want anything
Speaker 1: to do with high stakes quiz shows. Industry surveys said
Speaker 1: between eight seven and nine percent of viewers knew about
Speaker 1: the quiz show scandals and did not trust them anymore, um,
Speaker 1: which is a huge I mean, I guess that show
Speaker 1: how much the news was like, there's one thing you
Speaker 1: gotta know about. Now, it's a little bit harder to
Speaker 1: get everybody on the same page. So most of the
Speaker 1: big quiz shows were canceled. Game shows became more about
Speaker 1: small prizes matchmaking like our favorite the Dating Game UM
Speaker 1: or celebrity panels, and Merv hosted a few of these.
Speaker 1: He even filled in on The Tonight Show after Jack
Speaker 1: Carr retired and before Johnny Carson took over. All right,
Speaker 1: but in nineteen sixty four, MERV wanted to develop a
Speaker 1: new game show. MERV and Julane were on an airplane
Speaker 1: when she told him that it had been years since
Speaker 1: a good quiz show was on and maybe it was
Speaker 1: time for industry to try again. But MERV, you know,
Speaker 1: explained to her audience still didn't trust those kinds of shows.
Speaker 1: They thought all the contestants got the answers ahead of time.
Speaker 1: So she said, quote, then come up with the show
Speaker 1: where you give them the answers and admit it, and
Speaker 1: then make them come up with the questions MERV, who
Speaker 1: knows a good idea when he hears that, go on,
Speaker 1: tell me more more? Huh, Julianne explained in her interview. Quote,
Speaker 1: so I said, the answer is five thousand, two hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty And MERV said the question is how many
Speaker 1: feet are in a mile? And I said, the answer
Speaker 1: is Cathy Fiscus. And he said, what's the name of
Speaker 1: the little girl who fell in the well? In the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties? She said to Baker Street, he said, where
Speaker 1: does Sherlock Holmes live? By the time the plane landed,
Speaker 1: they had a show. I hate to say it, but
Speaker 1: if you said the answer is five thousand two, I'd
Speaker 1: be like arbitrary number. MERV knows more than a number
Speaker 1: of days it's going to take before I get this
Speaker 1: one exactly. Well. MERV only had one concern about this format,
Speaker 1: and that it was that there wasn't enough tension in
Speaker 1: the show to keep it interesting. So Julianne said, quote,
Speaker 1: why not take money away when they get the answer wrong?
Speaker 1: That'll put him in jeopardy. Boom, say that one more time.
Speaker 1: I feel like, if you were making this into a biopic,
Speaker 1: it would feel unrealistic, right, But it is. That's so cute.
Speaker 1: I love that. You're totally right, that'll put him in jeopardy.
Speaker 1: What did you just say that? I'd be like, not true,
Speaker 1: can't be, can't be. He's sitting on the plane just humming.
Speaker 1: What was that? Hey, that's catchy. He actually side note,
Speaker 1: h Merv did write the song for that as a
Speaker 1: lullaby for his kid Ridge, Yeah, and then jazzed it
Speaker 1: up and made it the Jeopardy theme. It's called think
Speaker 1: and it's not in the public domain, and we're not
Speaker 1: going to pay for it on this show, so you're
Speaker 1: not gonna today. You just have to play it in
Speaker 1: your head for yourself. So they had this great idea.
Speaker 1: Julianne and her sister Maureen built model sets in their
Speaker 1: kitchen while Merv designed the layout of the game board.
Speaker 1: Julian said the executives at NBC were worried that the
Speaker 1: show was too hard for people like me who don't
Speaker 1: know about five thousand two or whatever, so they kept
Speaker 1: kind of dumbing it down for me, and eventually NBC
Speaker 1: picked it up without even shooting a pilot episode. They
Speaker 1: were just like, let's do this, and the show, of course,
Speaker 1: was a wild success. It first aired in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four with host Art Fleming. It's first champion was a
Speaker 1: witty twenty six year old Southern woman named Mary you Banks,
Speaker 1: who was given the final Jeopardy answer quote, good night,
Speaker 1: sweet Prince was said to him, to which she responded,
Speaker 1: who is Hamlet? And she won three hundred and forty
Speaker 1: five dollars. That's only about three thousand dollars today, but
Speaker 1: Mary said it was enough for her to go and
Speaker 1: see every show on Broadway while she was in New York.
Speaker 1: Lucky Mary, you could not even get a ticket to
Speaker 1: Hamilton's for three dollars. She did say that in her
Speaker 1: interview she was like Broadway was cheaper back, but it
Speaker 1: was a different time. It was like fifty cents to
Speaker 1: Jeopardy with Art Fleming ran until nineteen seventy five, So
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six, the only thing in Jeopardy was
Speaker 1: Merv and Julian's marriage. Yeah, it feels like fame and
Speaker 1: fortune is what led to their eventual divorce that year.
Speaker 1: Julian said in her interview with Silvana review quote, we
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun. He was a lot of
Speaker 1: fun when we met. As time went on, he got
Speaker 1: busier and more well known, it just wasn't as much fun.
Speaker 1: Merv had grown accustomed to a life of luxury, which
Speaker 1: Julianne says sheep enjoyed, of course, but it all got
Speaker 1: to be a bit much. They were once in invited
Speaker 1: to have lunch with Princess Grace Kelly and Monaco, and
Speaker 1: Julianne said that it was lovely and quote wonderful being
Speaker 1: waited on by all these footmen. But then she thought
Speaker 1: about being Grace Kelly and having to be in charge
Speaker 1: of all that and make sure everything was perfect all
Speaker 1: the time, and it just sounded overwhelming. She said, quote
Speaker 1: luxury should be luxury, not every day. I mean I
Speaker 1: kind of feel that, seriously. That's why I like, I
Speaker 1: kind of never want to own a swimming pool. I mean,
Speaker 1: unless you know I can afford people to take care
Speaker 1: of it for me. Well, that's the question is how
Speaker 1: rich are you? Rich enough for the pool but not
Speaker 1: rich enough for the preside take care of But then
Speaker 1: even then, if I'm paid somebody take care of the pool,
Speaker 1: I gotta keep up with them and make sure that
Speaker 1: they're doing it and schedule them. And at some point
Speaker 1: I have to be paying attention to someone who's paying
Speaker 1: attention to all the people working for me. Right, I
Speaker 1: have thought that before. You know, say we won the
Speaker 1: billion dollar lottery jack pot or something, don't tell your
Speaker 1: body you would want. Well, we haven't won, so that's better.
Speaker 1: Yet we haven't won. Everybody, you haven't won anything. But
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I always think like you would
Speaker 1: want to get somebody in charge of that money, someone
Speaker 1: who knows how to handle that amount of money. But
Speaker 1: then I'm like, oh, but that's when that person starts
Speaker 1: stealing from you, And how do you know that they're
Speaker 1: not skimming off the top, and how do you even?
Speaker 1: It's just crazy. It's a more money, more problems, like
Speaker 1: doing something legal with that money that you then get
Speaker 1: in trouble for exactly not pay your taxes or something
Speaker 1: like that. Happens all the time or all the time,
Speaker 1: but it happens. Here's what's important, just for our listeners
Speaker 1: out there, if any of you win, like you know,
Speaker 1: a million dollars and more in the lottery, don't go
Speaker 1: around sharing that with everybody. You want to kind of
Speaker 1: stay anonymous, contact me. I'll go over the steps with you.
Speaker 1: We'll work it out. I'll hang onto the ticket and um,
Speaker 1: and we'll make sure that everything is square. Okay, you
Speaker 1: being real shady right now. I don't think you should
Speaker 1: just say trying to get a million dollars, just trying
Speaker 1: to turn us into fugitives. Look, at a certain point,
Speaker 1: you can buy your freedom. That's clearly true. After their divorce,
Speaker 1: speaking of luxury, Merv decided to get a yacht because
Speaker 1: he always wanted one when they were married, but he
Speaker 1: decided to wait till after the divorce. Julianne was invited
Speaker 1: to come on it with their son and everything, and
Speaker 1: she said, quote, it was kind of nice to go
Speaker 1: on a yacht, but I'd rather have someone else take
Speaker 1: the barnacles off of it. Exactly what we're talking exactly.
Speaker 1: Maintenance is real a boat. I would own a pool
Speaker 1: before a boat. That's very true. Everyone I know who
Speaker 1: ever owned a boat, nothing a trouble. I know. Everyone's
Speaker 1: like the best thing to have as a friend with
Speaker 1: a boat. Yes, and then you get to enjoy the
Speaker 1: boat without any of the stress of the boat. So
Speaker 1: if you own a boat, we'd like to come on
Speaker 1: your boat. After divorcing Merv in nineteen seventy six, Julianne
Speaker 1: was met with some hard truths even as a successful,
Speaker 1: wealthy white men in Hollywood. She said, she got pushed
Speaker 1: around because of her gender, and that sound means it's
Speaker 1: time for the daily double. The category is some bullshita.
Speaker 1: What is your wager? Oh me, um, I will say, uh,
Speaker 1: thirty two dollars. I'll be going to make it a
Speaker 1: true daily double. You're putting it all out there, everything
Speaker 1: I have as if yeh okay, and your answer is
Speaker 1: The day after Julian's divorce, she went to put her
Speaker 1: credit cards in her own name, but the bank would
Speaker 1: not allow her to because she was this um, because
Speaker 1: she was real crazy. No, I'm sorry, of course, it's
Speaker 1: because she was a woman. I'm sorry. That takes your
Speaker 1: score down to zero. The money you never had is
Speaker 1: now never going to be yours. Yeah, Julian could not because,
Speaker 1: as you know, women were not allowed to open credit
Speaker 1: cards or even have their own bank accounts for a
Speaker 1: significant period of time. So Julianne said, the very next
Speaker 1: day she got a call from some friends who were
Speaker 1: starting a bank, and they asked if she was interested
Speaker 1: in getting involved. So, obviously julian is not the only
Speaker 1: one who was like this. Sucks. I don't like this system.
Speaker 1: Julian sat up, she said, I'll be right down, and
Speaker 1: together they started the first Women's Bank of California, and
Speaker 1: Julianne was instrumental in convincing celebrities to buy stock in
Speaker 1: the bank and open accounts, with their first member being
Speaker 1: Mrs Brady herself Florence Henderson. Oh my god, you gotta
Speaker 1: imagine if Florence Henderson got into anything. Every late seventies,
Speaker 1: everyone is like, well that's what I Yeah, I could
Speaker 1: trust Mrs Brady. Here's here I go to also do that.
Speaker 1: Then soon Jane Fonda, Phyllis Diller, Fara Fawcett, and and
Speaker 1: Bancroft for all opening accounts there, and by late nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, sixty three percent of the bank's shareholders were women,
Speaker 1: holding more than one point five million dollars in stock.
Speaker 1: I mean, this really says there's a need, you know,
Speaker 1: for what women were like, I'd like to control my finances,
Speaker 1: please and thank you. The bank's own board of directors
Speaker 1: didn't think women had enough experience with personal finance, so
Speaker 1: the women in charge put extra effort into making sure
Speaker 1: to help women manage their money, especially after a divorce.
Speaker 1: I find this a little ironic because women historically were
Speaker 1: in charge of household finances and household budgeting and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So it's very funny to me to be like, well,
Speaker 1: you can handle it for a house, but like, not
Speaker 1: for your house, not for yourself, not for yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll do something crazy with it, right, I don't understand that,
Speaker 1: But at any rate, it was just some bullshit as
Speaker 1: we that's the category we're in. So yeah, I'm sure
Speaker 1: these guys were like, well, sure women can calculate groceries
Speaker 1: and pay the phone bill, but managing how stock portfolio
Speaker 1: is clearly beyond the capacity of their tiny, tiny brains.
Speaker 1: How could they gamble arbitrarily like we do? Know? When
Speaker 1: and from all over the world came to visit them
Speaker 1: to kind of learn how to open banks themselves, and
Speaker 1: soon similar banks were opening in Japan and countries in Africa.
Speaker 1: This is a cool legacy, amazing Yeah, oh, but wait
Speaker 1: a minute, we skipped over one of the most important
Speaker 1: games of all. I mean, we just said that Jeopardy
Speaker 1: got taken off the air in nineteen seventy five, So
Speaker 1: what the heck have we've been watching this whole time,
Speaker 1: great question with no answer right. Well, of course, the
Speaker 1: show was rebooted in nineteen eighty four and MERV Griffin
Speaker 1: was right back at the helm, but this time Art
Speaker 1: Fleming turned down the job. Art was very popular and
Speaker 1: MERV needed a new host, who of course ended up
Speaker 1: being Alex Trebek. But Trippec didn't get the job on
Speaker 1: his own. MERV was pushed to hire him by an
Speaker 1: executive at NBC. That brings us to Final Jeopardy And
Speaker 1: the category is famous redheads. All right, everybody place your
Speaker 1: wagers and we'll come back with the answer right after
Speaker 1: these messages. Okay, welcome back to the show. Before the break,
Speaker 1: we gave you the category famous redheads, and here is
Speaker 1: the answer. This quirky comedian turned Powerhouse TV executive had
Speaker 1: some explaining to do when MERV Griffin called her up
Speaker 1: for advice on finding a new host for Jeopardy contestants. Uh,
Speaker 1: my single contestant, I'm gonna give you two seconds to
Speaker 1: write your question down because we're not paying for the
Speaker 1: Jeopardy music. So here's your song and done. Diana, you
Speaker 1: were in the lead with forty two trillion dollars. Uh,
Speaker 1: so you did very well on your daily doubl uh.
Speaker 1: So what is your response? Who is Carrot Top? I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry Carrot Top was actually not an NBC executive
Speaker 1: in ur. I'm so sorry you might not be coming
Speaker 1: back next week, but let's go ahead and find out
Speaker 1: what your wager was. Forty one trillion dollars. I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry you'll be leaving with a measly trillion dollars today,
Speaker 1: hanging my head in shame. Let me tell you, well,
Speaker 1: let's find out the real answer. So MERV was super
Speaker 1: nervous about replacing Art Fleming, who, of course had been
Speaker 1: very popular. But the show was moving to Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and among other reasons, Fleming was not willing to move.
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated said in nine that Fleming hated the glitz
Speaker 1: and polish of the New l A show, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: people are more intelligent in New York. New Yorkers are
Speaker 1: alive with it. In California, there's no mental stimulation. A
Speaker 1: typical conversation consists of, I've got a new diet, how's
Speaker 1: your tennis game? Are those clothes from Gucci? And then
Speaker 1: you'll look at each other. I love that. I love that.
Speaker 1: Art Fleming's idea of a conversation in l A all
Speaker 1: ends with people just staring in silence at each other.
Speaker 1: What an indictment of l A. We got nothing else
Speaker 1: to say. I've exhausted my conversations. I only have nothing
Speaker 1: to offer man the l A New York feud. I
Speaker 1: guess that's been going on since Hollywood began to I know, right,
Speaker 1: I always associate East Coast West Coast with Tupac and Biggie,
Speaker 1: But no, it was Art Fleming first. It was Art Fleming.
Speaker 1: Art versus Trabec was the original Fleming v. Trebek was
Speaker 1: the West and East Coast battle originally. Wow, it changed
Speaker 1: a lot in the nineties. Maybe this is very Atlanta
Speaker 1: of me, but I like both of you guys. I
Speaker 1: think you each have a lot to offer. Art Fleming
Speaker 1: also thought that the show was getting dumber and the
Speaker 1: answers were designed to lead the contestants into getting the
Speaker 1: Chris's questions right. So anyway, Art was just like, I'm
Speaker 1: done with Jeopardy. I got nothing to do with Jeopardy,
Speaker 1: So I needed somebody new and who has all the
Speaker 1: right answers to TV's toughest questions. The one and only
Speaker 1: Lucile Ball right our bestie, Lucy. Merv was friends with her,
Speaker 1: so he calls her up. He's like, listen, I gotta
Speaker 1: replace Art. What am I gonna do? And she said, oh,
Speaker 1: I know, you gotta take this guy. Alex Trebek Canadian, calm, eloquent.
Speaker 1: Everyone loves him. He had been hosting a ton of
Speaker 1: game shows before that point, right, A classy gentleman, trustworthy,
Speaker 1: he had it all. The rest is history. Obviously, Trebek
Speaker 1: hosted the show until his own death in That's a
Speaker 1: long time. I mean, he was like the guy um
Speaker 1: sad coincidence, though, Art Fleming died in from pancreatic cancer
Speaker 1: and Trebek died from the disease twenty five years later
Speaker 1: at eighty years old. Well. Merv Griffin continued to have
Speaker 1: a very successful career, and when he retired in nighties six,
Speaker 1: Forbes magazine said that he was the richest Hollywood performer
Speaker 1: in history. Merv himself said that he never knew his
Speaker 1: own net worth because quote, it would keep me from
Speaker 1: sleeping at night. Don't tell me. He's like, I'm remembering
Speaker 1: selling newspapers as a kid, and I feel like I
Speaker 1: would not like myself. From the Jeopardy theme song, Think alone,
Speaker 1: which he wrote. He said that he made close to
Speaker 1: seventy to eighty million dollars. Who again, they will not
Speaker 1: be seeing a penny from us to that song. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'll can't hear it today. We are not going to
Speaker 1: play it. Uh merv was best friends with Ava Gabor
Speaker 1: from the mid eighties until her death in but she
Speaker 1: said that they had never been lovers at Julane moved
Speaker 1: to a farm in Fluvonic County, Virginia, where she installed
Speaker 1: a tennis court, and she would invite her friends to
Speaker 1: come visit and play. Those friends, Oh, no, one important,
Speaker 1: just some riff raff, like an old actor buddy from
Speaker 1: her teenage theater days when she did Summerstock named Jerry Silberman.
Speaker 1: Whoever heard of that guy? Sounds like a real nobody,
Speaker 1: except later he would change his name to Gene Wilder. Geen,
Speaker 1: you got me again. Gene Wilder and his wife Gilda Radner,
Speaker 1: along with their friends Mel Brooks and his wife Anne Bancroft,
Speaker 1: would come and play tennis with Julianne every Sunday for
Speaker 1: fifteen years. Oh my god, she said, all the time
Speaker 1: they spent together, they never stopped laughing. Tennis just to play.
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, I don't like to run and stuff,
Speaker 1: but like, I'll do it for y'all. I'm not in
Speaker 1: the sports, but I am very into Young Frankenstein. So
Speaker 1: oh my god. So Julianne and Merv remained close friends
Speaker 1: their whole life, despite the divorce. She said, quote he
Speaker 1: loved my family and I loved his, so we'd have
Speaker 1: lots of family get togethers. He'd take us all on trips.
Speaker 1: He loved to play games, which I didn't. I still don't.
Speaker 1: She laughed at herself for this, because games are kind
Speaker 1: of her whole thing. I get that I don't love
Speaker 1: games either. So you made millions of dollars creating games.
Speaker 1: Very true, so I'm allowed to dislike them. They have done.
Speaker 1: What have you done for me? Games? She said, It
Speaker 1: was like being a chef. She's like, you love giving
Speaker 1: food to other people, but you don't want to go
Speaker 1: home and cook. I see that, or I don't like
Speaker 1: I don't like eating it that much. Like I could
Speaker 1: see really enjoying making up the rules and like the
Speaker 1: structure of a game, but being like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to play it. I don't like to compete watching people
Speaker 1: have fun playing the game you made and whatever you
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you guys are having fun, but it
Speaker 1: looks awful outdidious who came up with this garden? Did this?
Speaker 1: You get the answers and give the questions. Who's dumb idea?
Speaker 1: Was that? Herself? Seeah? Julianne helped create Jeopardy. She also
Speaker 1: helped MERV on some of his other shows, and she
Speaker 1: and her sister later started a game company called Jam
Speaker 1: and Candy. When TV game shows were kind of drying up,
Speaker 1: Julianne read in the paper that people are starting to
Speaker 1: make games on PCs. She said, quote, so I called
Speaker 1: up my sister and said, Maureen, do you want to
Speaker 1: start making games for PCs? Maureen said, what's a PC?
Speaker 1: And I said, I'll call you back when I find
Speaker 1: out that what's a PC? H I'll look it up.
Speaker 1: That's so Hollywood, though, you know, like, I've never heard
Speaker 1: of this thing before, but let's go make some money
Speaker 1: at it. True. She's like, it's the next big thing.
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out now. MERV Griffin passed away in
Speaker 1: two thousand seven at two years old from prostate cancer.
Speaker 1: His tombstone reads, I will not be right back after
Speaker 1: these messages. It's just so great. I love a good
Speaker 1: a good joke on a tombstone, me too. Did we
Speaker 1: already talk about Jack Lemons? I don't. I don't think
Speaker 1: on the air though his tombstone says Jack lemon In
Speaker 1: It's so good, so good. Was like, what a perfect joke.
Speaker 1: I love it. But after MERV Griffin's death, Hollywood Reporter
Speaker 1: published an article saying that MERV Griffin had been a
Speaker 1: closeted gay man. Reporter Ray Richmond said that MERV lived
Speaker 1: his life in the closet, but that it was always
Speaker 1: a well known secret in Hollywood. MERV himself always dodged
Speaker 1: questions about his sexuality. He even joked to New York
Speaker 1: Times once quote, I always tell everybody I'm a quarter sexual.
Speaker 1: I'll do anything with anybody for a quarter, just like Boomer.
Speaker 1: Answer right, and I'd be like, you should value yourself
Speaker 1: more highly. Right. A lot of this first came up
Speaker 1: when in nineteen one, a man named Brent Plot, who
Speaker 1: was an employee of Mervs who worked as a bodyguard,
Speaker 1: a horse trainer, and a driver, filed a two hundred
Speaker 1: million dollar palimony lawsuit against MERV Griffin. He said that
Speaker 1: he was merv's lover and his business consultant for years,
Speaker 1: and was entitled to a piece of Merv's empire. According
Speaker 1: to New York Times, Plot told NBC News quote, we
Speaker 1: lived together, shared the same bed, same house. He told
Speaker 1: me he loved me. Now, palimony is a not not
Speaker 1: technically a legal term, but it's a portmanteau of pal
Speaker 1: and alimony. It refers to situations where the involved parties
Speaker 1: aren't married, but it is, you know, referenced in the
Speaker 1: courtroom pretty often, and there are cases where, you know,
Speaker 1: people have won these lawsuits. That same year, ninety one,
Speaker 1: Danny Arrio, who was the host of mervs nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: disco show Dance Fever, filed an eleven point three million
Speaker 1: dollars sexual astment suit against MERV for his behavior back
Speaker 1: on Dance Fever. Both cases were dismissed. MERV said of
Speaker 1: plots claims, quote, this is a shameless attempt to extort
Speaker 1: money from me. This former bodyguard and horse trainer was
Speaker 1: paid two and fifty dollars a week, lived in one
Speaker 1: of two apartments underneath my former house as part of
Speaker 1: his security function, and left my payroll six or seven
Speaker 1: years ago. His charges are ridiculous and untrue. But Ray
Speaker 1: Richmond says in Hollywood Reporter that these scandals only pushed
Speaker 1: MERV further into the closet. He writes that MERV quote
Speaker 1: certainly didn't owe us an explanation, but maybe he owed
Speaker 1: it to himself to remove the suffocating veil he'd been
Speaker 1: forced to hide behind. Then again, MERV carved his niche
Speaker 1: in the entertainment world at a time when being gay
Speaker 1: wasn't okay, when disclosure was unthinkable, and the allegation alone
Speaker 1: could deep six ones career. Uh so, yeah, I mean this,
Speaker 1: this is a tough one because you know, I'm so
Speaker 1: of uh like, well, believe victims, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, and of course someone with a lot of
Speaker 1: money is gonna, yeah, say whatever they got to say.
Speaker 1: And the richest man in Hollywood, you know, it's believable
Speaker 1: that he could get a case dismissed easily, you know,
Speaker 1: fairly easily. On the other hand, this is sort of
Speaker 1: the what's wrong with That's the problem is saying, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a certain sexuality, it's not okay to be so
Speaker 1: I can blackmail you, I can do anything I want
Speaker 1: to you, and all I have to do is to
Speaker 1: this one accusation, and everyone will believe me instead of
Speaker 1: you because of the associations that they had. Right, if
Speaker 1: I suggest that you're sexual deviant or abusive, or or
Speaker 1: or a pervert or anything like that, the public and
Speaker 1: the courts will believe it merely because I'm saying you're gay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they already believe they think of that as a deviant,
Speaker 1: as a perversion, so it's easy to believe that you
Speaker 1: could be capable of anything. On the third hand, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got to look at plot Ontario both coming out
Speaker 1: and making these claims, probably bringing a lot of that
Speaker 1: same negative attention to themselves for having had you know,
Speaker 1: especially plot who said, you know, we slept in the
Speaker 1: same bed together. Um, that's I don't know if he'd
Speaker 1: want to put himself through that for two hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars um, but uh, but it seems like a lot
Speaker 1: to go through. It's very true, there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of reason to do it, even if he wins the money.
Speaker 1: There's so much stigma, even in the nineties, it's like,
Speaker 1: why would you do it if if you you know,
Speaker 1: if it wasn't really true. But then on the fourth hand,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of money, and people want a
Speaker 1: piece of it, so they find a way to get
Speaker 1: a piece of it. It's just frustrating. Yeah, and unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you know, that's really all the information there is about
Speaker 1: there about it because the cases were dismissed. I'm sure
Speaker 1: MERV did what he could to get it out of
Speaker 1: the news as much as he could, and being one
Speaker 1: of the most wealthy and powerful people in Hollywood, he
Speaker 1: probably had those connections to keep it out of the news. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: up in the air. I could not speculate on this one. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's part of Ray Richmond's story in Hollywood Reporter.
Speaker 1: You know, he doesn't bring it up till after his death,
Speaker 1: and it's immediately after his death, and he points that out.
Speaker 1: He's like, it's weird that in two thousand seven, we
Speaker 1: can't even talk about it, you know. So yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: On the plus side, that article from two seven laments
Speaker 1: the challenges of being gay in Hollywood, and Richmond writes, quote,
Speaker 1: while it seems everything has changed today, little actually has.
Speaker 1: You can count on the fingers of one hand the
Speaker 1: number of high powered stars and public figures who have
Speaker 1: come out. Yeah, hopefully that seems better now than it
Speaker 1: wasn't two dozen and seven. I think there's more than
Speaker 1: one one hands worth of out gay celebs, it doesn't,
Speaker 1: you know, sexual or whatever. But I'm not a gay celebrity.
Speaker 1: I'm not an aspiring gay actor, so I can't say
Speaker 1: what the challenges are like now. But from an outside perspective,
Speaker 1: it does seem like it's you can come out as
Speaker 1: gay now and not be as worried about your career,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like, I think there you
Speaker 1: still run the risk of, like, well, if audiences see
Speaker 1: you as gay, they're not going to believe you in
Speaker 1: this romantic part or whatever. So it's still may very
Speaker 1: well cut off some of your audience or uh, you know,
Speaker 1: limit the number of roles that you're available for. I
Speaker 1: think that probably is still true, but certainly not like
Speaker 1: you know, even yeah, what feels very recent two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: where yeah, I mean it was it was people were
Speaker 1: still murmuring about someone like I hate to say it,
Speaker 1: but Kevin Spacey. You know, um at the time where
Speaker 1: the biggest scandal about him was that, like, I think
Speaker 1: he's gay, is he ever going to say so? You know,
Speaker 1: obviously with news scandals about now, but it's more much worse.
Speaker 1: So he's a bad example given the conversation we were
Speaker 1: just having. But now I'm like, I'm kind of thinking
Speaker 1: because I also was going to mention being typecast if
Speaker 1: you're gay, you can't how if you're an out gay actor,
Speaker 1: you know, they won't put you in a heterosexual love
Speaker 1: story or something. And I immediately was like, well, Neil
Speaker 1: Patrick Harris, you know, played a straight man and everyone
Speaker 1: knows he's gay and married and everything. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, his those roles are you know how I
Speaker 1: Met your mother? And Harold and Kumar their comedy roles,
Speaker 1: it's like part of the fun of the roles that
Speaker 1: you know, he's not interested in these ladies, so you
Speaker 1: can play this really dirty, disgusting, womanizing character in a
Speaker 1: way that like maybe a straight guy couldn't do as
Speaker 1: easily or um or it just wouldn't be as funny,
Speaker 1: especially Harold and Kumar. The joke is like, surprise, I'm
Speaker 1: not actually gay. Yeah, I'm the worst straight person in
Speaker 1: the world. So as of this recording, Julianne is still
Speaker 1: alive at nine three years old. She's living on her
Speaker 1: farm in Virginia. Jam And candy games still seems to
Speaker 1: be kind of going. It's like got a small active presence.
Speaker 1: They've got a couple of little mobile and Facebook games
Speaker 1: out there, like Kiss and Cousins with two k's and
Speaker 1: other one called Move your Vowels. Okay, Move your Vowels
Speaker 1: is number one punt. That's pretty good. But what is
Speaker 1: kissing Cousins about? What is the game? I did not
Speaker 1: try it, Cousin, as far as I know. I know
Speaker 1: some royals would disagree. That's for a later episode. Julan
Speaker 1: told the flu on a review into that the game
Speaker 1: company hadn't made any money, but they would like to
Speaker 1: start hiring people, so it would be nice if they did.
Speaker 1: But she said she'd learned enough from show business that
Speaker 1: you can't set your expectations too high for anything really.
Speaker 1: But then when she was asked about the best part
Speaker 1: of her life, she said, quote that's too hard to answer.
Speaker 1: I liked my waitress job because what it did for me.
Speaker 1: People say that when you serve others, you're serving yourself.
Speaker 1: That's true. I loved my marriage, my son, my family.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I got the farm. The tennis court changed
Speaker 1: my whole life. It's almost like when I was born,
Speaker 1: I was put in a magical chariot and went through
Speaker 1: life like an idiot, being blessed with all these opportunities.
Speaker 1: My life has been unbelievable. I agree with Julianne. She
Speaker 1: her life has been Yeah, Tennis Court would changed my
Speaker 1: life too. If mel Brooks started hanging out there and
Speaker 1: thank Gene Wilder and Gilding over every week. Come on,
Speaker 1: what friends, that's a party and we crash on our
Speaker 1: time travel. Oh my god, party. They'd be way more
Speaker 1: noticeable round What are you doing here? Um? But if
Speaker 1: I could, I would, If I could blend in, I
Speaker 1: would definitely go and laugh, be a fly on the wall.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it sounds amazing. I love it this
Speaker 1: story like in some ways it reminds me, of course,
Speaker 1: of Lucy and Desi. Um, And in some ways it
Speaker 1: reminds me of George Lucas and Marcia right because they
Speaker 1: both um other stories where the you know, the couple
Speaker 1: was both involved in this massive project. Lucy and Desi
Speaker 1: a little different because of course, both of them got
Speaker 1: their own due credit in their own way. As I think,
Speaker 1: if anything, Lucy got more and I think Desi was
Speaker 1: lacking a little in what people understand him to have
Speaker 1: done for the industry. But this kind of in the
Speaker 1: Georgia Marcia way where it's like you hear Jeopardy and
Speaker 1: obviously the first name you think of his Alex Trebeck.
Speaker 1: And then if you know, you know, if you watch
Speaker 1: the show, you see merv Griffin's name at every episode,
Speaker 1: But who the hell has ever mentioned Julianne in talking
Speaker 1: about Jeopardy and the whole thing was kind of her
Speaker 1: idea at least she was, you know, the two of
Speaker 1: them really developed it together, right, I mean, if there
Speaker 1: are stories, right, she's the one who's like, well, give
Speaker 1: them the answer. Then I don't know, put him in Jeopardy,
Speaker 1: Like she's totally coming up with the whole thing exactly,
Speaker 1: and she's you know, she Their divorce was relatively amicable
Speaker 1: from what I could tell. They did stay friends their
Speaker 1: whole life, which I loved, like Lucy and DESI um,
Speaker 1: But it's not like she came out later and was like, actually,
Speaker 1: Jeopardy was my idea, give me the money, you know.
Speaker 1: She was just like, yeah, we were a couple and
Speaker 1: he asked me what I thought. I told him and
Speaker 1: we made this show. Well I'm glad we know about
Speaker 1: Julian now, because I think that's really cool and again,
Speaker 1: what a cool life. Seriously, just to even be on
Speaker 1: a six D show, you know, cutting it up with
Speaker 1: the host, that would be such a fun gig. By
Speaker 1: accident too, right, like exactly on camera. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of The Simpsons where Bart does I
Speaker 1: didn't do it, and he like went out on crusty
Speaker 1: show and he accidentally knocked a set over. He says
Speaker 1: I didn't do it, and everyone laughed and then that
Speaker 1: he was like got famous for that. I love it too,
Speaker 1: because you know she she was nervous and then she
Speaker 1: spills the coffee and she's like, I'm fired. You know,
Speaker 1: she must have had like a thought on her head like, well,
Speaker 1: I did the thing I was scared I would do,
Speaker 1: and now I'm screwed. But then she was just funny
Speaker 1: on the mic and it was like that's all you need.
Speaker 1: So you know, that's just I guess that's the magic
Speaker 1: of the TV movie biz. That's what makes it kind
Speaker 1: of addictive, is that sometimes the most random little thing
Speaker 1: just sends you off into a j any that you
Speaker 1: never expected. And that's what people are like, I want that, right,
Speaker 1: want that? I want that? So everybody tell your friends
Speaker 1: about the show, so we can get a TV show. Still,
Speaker 1: some coffee on screen. Give me a chance. I can
Speaker 1: spill coffee as good as anyone. Don't tell my old
Speaker 1: boss at the breakfast place. Let's get you on, Jimmy Kimmel.
Speaker 1: You can spill coffee all over him and see what happens. Well,
Speaker 1: I do hope that merv Griffin was not a big
Speaker 1: piece of ship. Also, um, but obviously not for us
Speaker 1: to decide, I suppose because I don't have enough information.
Speaker 1: Yeah we can. We can both not say those people
Speaker 1: were lying and not say you know, merv Griffin was
Speaker 1: guilty or innocent. Yeah, just leave that one there. That
Speaker 1: one's that one's for you to decide. You enter your
Speaker 1: own speculation station, decide for yourself, Mervane here. So yeah,
Speaker 1: in fact, hey, right in and tell us what you think.
Speaker 1: There you go, merv f n Right in and tell
Speaker 1: us how much you're going to tell your friends about
Speaker 1: the show. And right in and tell us if you
Speaker 1: won the lottery. Oh my god, jeopardy or jeopardy what
Speaker 1: another thing I want to do? Uh? In an episode
Speaker 1: coming up, there are several couples who fell in love
Speaker 1: on Jeopardy as contestants, and of course I'd love to
Speaker 1: talk about Alex Trebec and his marriage to Jean also,
Speaker 1: so well, we'll get into some more Jeopardy stuff on
Speaker 1: the show. I gotta I have. I have one, two, three,
Speaker 1: four people I know have been on Jeopardy. Wow, which
Speaker 1: I feel like makes me smarter. I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Green, smarter by association? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Mr Green. Uh, my my high school girlfriend was later
Speaker 1: on Jeopardy. Friend of mine from college, and another friend
Speaker 1: from high school was on a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: I don't think I know anyone who's ever been on Jeopardy. Well,
Speaker 1: you know somebody who knows people who been on Jeopardy,
Speaker 1: so close enough, you're a little smarter by association. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm this smart one and everyone's waiting for me to
Speaker 1: be on Jeopardy. Having thought about that, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: No one is waiting for me. We watched that episode
Speaker 1: last night, and you were You knew the answer so
Speaker 1: well you didn't even feel like you needed to respond.
Speaker 1: I feab like I was pretty impressive. Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: was definitely paying attention right, you were scrolling on your
Speaker 1: phone like whatever, yep, counsel of anyway, whatever angle, that's
Speaker 1: the one I knew, the wrinkle in Time, that's the
Speaker 1: one I Sam. I think his name was Sam. If
Speaker 1: you're listening, I did the same thing you did. And
Speaker 1: the final jeopardy question I was supposed to be what
Speaker 1: is our American cousin? Could play that? Abraham Lincoln was
Speaker 1: shot at and he said what is our mutual friend?
Speaker 1: Which is what I guessed. But that's the Charles Dickens book.
Speaker 1: He also as soon as he they said no, he
Speaker 1: was like, oh, he knew it. He remembered it, which
Speaker 1: I was like, that would be me. That would definitely
Speaker 1: be me. That's why I don't like games, because I
Speaker 1: like the minute you asked me what's your favorite book?
Speaker 1: Or whoever did that song? It's like everything I ever
Speaker 1: knew is wiped clean from my brain. I'm like a
Speaker 1: newborn of songs. I'm calling bullshit once again. Because Diana
Speaker 1: Brown hates games. She hates playing them. She doesn't want
Speaker 1: to do them. If I ever suggested, she's like, no,
Speaker 1: anything but that. But when you get her to play
Speaker 1: a game, she wins every time every game, from Settlers
Speaker 1: of Catan to Mortal Kombat. This girl dominates, but she
Speaker 1: won't play. I don't know why you don't like the
Speaker 1: feeling of winning. Maybe they're not challenging enough. Wow, I'm
Speaker 1: just kidding. I don't know. I don't like to compete,
Speaker 1: and I do get competitive something I get mean. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you've said something, I've said something cut a little deep sound,
Speaker 1: but I usually laugh. I know you always don't want
Speaker 1: to get a twitch and just drive onto and seriously,
Speaker 1: you scream the wildest things. It's shocking but hilarious. I'm
Speaker 1: also really bad driver, so I crash every time in
Speaker 1: the game, and you're in life. I'm a good driver,
Speaker 1: but in Grand Theft Auto and Mario Kart, honestly, any
Speaker 1: any driving game, it is not working out. Its hilarious.
Speaker 1: I'm doing poor. We do have to start that twitch.
Speaker 1: It'll do better than this show. I'm telling you, it
Speaker 1: will be top of the charts. Well, as long as
Speaker 1: there's no one to be harmed by my my competitive streak,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to do it. As long as you don't
Speaker 1: find out that it's like war games and the whole
Speaker 1: time you've been playing there's been a car out there
Speaker 1: somewhere doing the actual thing you're doing. My god. Well,
Speaker 1: but let us hope that you enjoyed this episode because
Speaker 1: this was really fun. I love learning more about TV
Speaker 1: people in TV history and Jeopardy and this land. And
Speaker 1: she started that bank. Oh god, she upside that bank,
Speaker 1: which is so dope. Seriously, anyway, reach out and let
Speaker 1: us know what you thought. Or again, if you want
Speaker 1: Eli to steal, I mean, manage your lottery winnings. This
Speaker 1: is our email address. What is ridic Romance at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. That's correct. The next category is social media.
Speaker 1: You can find Diana on Twitter and Instagram at this
Speaker 1: handle what is at dianamite boom. And you can find
Speaker 1: Eli on Twitter and Instagram at this handle? What is at?
Speaker 1: Oh great, it's Eli, And you can find the show
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Romance on its own handle. What is who is
Speaker 1: at ridic Romance is at ridic Romance. Don't ask that.
Speaker 1: That's right at danamite Boom at O graded Eli at
Speaker 1: ridic Romance. We can't wait to hear from you, and
Speaker 1: we love you for spending time with us today. Right,
Speaker 1: Thanks again, We'll see you next time. Solo friends, it's
Speaker 1: time to go. Thanks so listening to our show. Tell
Speaker 1: your friends name's uncles in to listen to a show.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Romance