I Could Have Been A Game Show Host

I could have been a TV Game Show host. Presented my own post: “Welcome, to Eugene Bridges hosts his own mysterious post”. Lets face it: I’ve got the face to front it (insincere). But above all, I’ve got the material. And it’s visual.

Fingers on the buzzer: “If we look through the rectangular window today we can see a pair of knees. The question is: Which famous actor owns the knees like these? And in what famous movie do his thighs appear, upside-down in a tent?”

Back in the 1990’s, for a period of about five years, I was the unwitting recipient of some mysterious post. The format never differed: visible, through a windowed envelope - a detail of a film-still - a bit of a scene from a famous Hollywood film. The whole-picture was only revealed on opening. Apart from my address: no other writing. Never did find out who sent the film-clips or why. My doctor at the time, Dr Rusteburg, suggested I appropriate these strange missives in the form of a game; and that’s when I should have hosted my own TV Game show. But I missed my moment – let it go.

Still can’t put a face to the knees? Here’s a clue: The same knees were exposed in, ‘From Here To Eternity’ (who cold forget ‘that kiss’ on the beach?), and ‘The Swimmer’; where the actor appeared naked. But I don’t think you saw the knees, up any trees in, ‘The Bird Man Of Alcatraz’.

High-flying acrobatics + Gina Lollobrigida = Eugene Bridges.

Yes, you guessed it; it’s Burt Lancaster having his hand tended to by Gina Lollobrigida in, ‘Trapeze’ (1956). Lancaster and Lollobrigida (along with Tony Curtis) were circus acrobats – high-flying trapeze artists – with Lancaster performing some of his own stunts (audience applause).

‘The Flying Paulos'   

I wonder if Lorne Hyman Green and Hughie Green ever met? Hughie Green presented a TV talent show called, ‘Opportunity Knocks’ (In 1970’s it launched many a strange-named star: Bobby Crush, Pete The Plate Spinning Dog, Bonnie Langford, and Lena Zavaroni, who looked like a child and sang like a diva; and who died, like Karen Carpenter, of starvation). It could be argued, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ is the bastard child of ‘Opportunity Knocks’. Well, Paula Yates was the bastard child of Hughie Green (and not the daughter of Jess Yates, host of ‘Stars On Sunday’, as she was led to believe).

The Clapometer

On ‘Opportunity Knocks’ we the general public voted the winning act, and a machine called ‘The Clapometer’ recorded the audience’s level of applause after each performance. If Lorne Greene and his wife, Nancy Hands, had been in the audience - would it have all been too much - would it have broken the clapometer? Might have even perforated Lawn Hyman Green’s eardrum?

Green + Greene + Hands = green fingers. They could have presented a gardening show?

Painful memories: I got the clap, years ago now. Funny. I always remember it as “Catch the clap”, or “Pass The Clap”, when, as we can see, it says: “Send The Clap Around”. Shespy found and appropriated this key text for children. Then, on my birthday, she gave me the clap.