Tom Bosley, 1927–2010

Yep, Mr. C went to that hardware store in the sky (heart failure, not the Big C, which would have been sadly appropriate). Happy Days was a huge part of my formative years—it's not so much that I loved the show, but rather that it seemed to be a baseline element of the culture I found myself growing up in. It was comforting—oh, for a world in which the coolest guy in town is a sanitized greaser who was polite to grown-ups and stuck up for the school geeks. That show, indeed, was yours and mine.

Tom Bosley was basically the TV dad of my early televisual experiences—I just look at his face and I feel an instant wave of familiarity, oddly similar to seeing my actual dad's face (without the complicated psycho-paternal undertones). His voice, too—in my mind, I can hear his "Ya know, Fonzie…" as clear as if it were still 1958-by-way-of-1982. When's the last time you saw one of these?

Whoever was the mid-'80s Don Draper who convinced the Glad Corporation to shell out for the Boz as their pitchman, I hope that guy got a big fat bonus, because you could not have found a better pitchman for that product than that guy. You've got no hope of making trash bags sexy—reliability is the key, with the chance to throw in some humor. The Big Bosman was not pretty, no, but he effortlessly came across as the nicest guy in the world, and as the über–sitcom dad, he maintained an air of comforting authority. He was perfect for a product whose looks don't matter, but that needs to be strong in the clutch. And Tommy B. was a good enough actor (Tony winner!), you don't doubt for a second that if he trusts Glad, you could trust it too. Bosley's Law, my friends…

After HD folded (I recall about ten years ago, an interview in which he was asked when he believes Happy Days jumped the shark; he said it was when Ron Howard left, a reasonable answer), the Bosmaster settled into happy character-actor-hood. The Father Dowling Mysteries was a midsize hit (irony: T.B. was Jewish), and he popped up in all manner of family-friendly fare. Good for him—he seemed like a genuinely decent guy. He was married twice; his first wife died in 1978, he remarried two years later and stayed with her till the end. Evidence that you don't have to be a raging douchebag to be a success in Hollywood.

I'm not going to bother posting a video from Happy Days here; too many to choose from, and you know how to use YouTube. But here's an amazing fact: More than 26 years after it left the air, I believe this is the first significant Happy Days casualty. Yes, Marion Ross is still alive, Ron Howard runs part of Hollywood, Henry Winkler and Scott Baio still turn up on a typical scan through the cable channels. I just checked, and Erin Moran, Donny Most and Anson Williams are all still in the land of living, as are both Chuck Cunninghams. Even Al Molinaro, who's up there with Bozzy Bosbourne as one of my all-time favorite character actors, is alive, 91 years young. I guess you have to go down to Pat Morita to find another dead member of the Milwaukee gang, but his Miyagi-san legacy has basically obscured his days of Arnoldhood. Sit on it, death.

Death of a quizmaster

I was a little blindsided by the news, just the other day, that Ken Ober has died. Not that I particularly cared about the well-being of Ken Ober—I'm often perturbed about how much people mourn for celebrities with whom they have no personal connection. Rather, what blasted me with a tsunami of nostalgia was the simple memory of Ober's greatest claim to fame, the late-'80s MTV game show Remote Control. Watch below:



Wow. I hadn't seen any of that show in probably 20 years, but nearly every element of it is intensely familiar—that opening sequence occupied a lot of space in my junior-high mind, somewhere in between wondering what breasts felt like and fantasizing I was Batman. Truly, when it premiered in 1987, Remote Control was the clearest reflection of my personal sensibility that I had ever seen on television. It still might be (although for a period in the '90s David Letterman seemed to be running a pipeline from out of my cerebral cortex). I loved games, I loved TV, I loved hanging out in the basement with my idiot friends: I longed to blend all of pop culture into a colorful goulash, and then serve that goulash to a large and appreciative audience.

This seemed to be what Ken Ober was doing, and it looked like so much damn fun. And here I am today, trying to do just that each and every fortnight with The Big Quiz Thing. And, of course, as we advance the concept of an actual BQT TV show, Remote Control becomes a useful reference point: We find ourselves comparing our concept to Win Ben Stein's Money, Jeopardy!, even The Price Is Right. But watching this clip, I am kind of amazed how eerily close it looks to what I imagine the Big Quiz Thing will be on the air. Yes, our format is significantly different, and there will be no Ray-Bans and legwarmers, but the vibe is remarkably close, the offhand atmosphere really familiar. We're looking to create the new geek-friendly game-show party, and Remote Control was unquestionably a pioneer in that field.

So maybe it's very appropriate for me to have an emotional reaction to Ken Ober's death, if he was indeed the 1980s analogue to myself. (And yes, that would make EDP a nouveau Colin Quinn.) Quizmasters are mortal too.

The ethics of quiz writing, as it relates to postapocalyptic serial drama

Through the magic of Netflix, I recently added a title to my list of TV series of which I've seen every episode: Jericho. Another program that I never saw when it was airing new episodes—wasn't even aware of its existence—but I became intrigued by the concept later, and caught up on thanks to modern technology. (I didn't even get the DVDs of this one; the 'Flix lets you stream every episode on your computer.)

The elevator pitch of Jericho: Nuclear war comes to the U.S. of A., and the residents of a small, all-American Kansas town spared the worst of it must deal with the new reality. Skeet Ulrich (the villain from Scream, the poor man's Johnny Depp) is the wayward son who becomes a reluctant leader. The supporting cast included very few actors I had seen before: Major Dad plays Skeet's father and the town's mayor, Arnold's partner from Kindergarten Cop is Skeet's mom, the sexy divorcée on Mad Men is his sister-in-law, the deaf girl from Weeds plays a different deaf girl here.

I liked the show a lot, though it's not TV for the ages. It's fairly hokey, and pretty unrealistic (seriously? you can see an explosion in Denver all the way from Kansas? aren't there a whole bunch of mountains there?), but it keeps you on your toes, and you genuinely care about the supporting cast (I was overjoyed when Stanley and Mimi got together). Plus, it generated a lot of popular support; the show was canceled at the end of its first season, but a fan campaign brought it back for an abbreviated (and much weaker) second cycle.

Like pretty much anything I become briefly infatuated with, I aimed to reference it in a question at the Big Quiz Thing. So I wrote this question, and included it in the preliminary lineup of last week's show:

Q: What TV drama, debuting in 2006, was described as "The Day After: The Series"?Seems about right, yes? A few days later, in my routine fact-checking of the episode's questions, I discovered that I had no source whatsoever for this little factoid. Scouring my brain, I realized that I had independently coined this phrase; I used it in describing the series to a friend. The question would have to die.

Or would it? I mean, it was accurate; someone had described Jericho as "The Day After: The Series," even if that someone was me, in a private conversation. It was certainly figureoutable. Why not? Who gets hurt?

But no: This was a violation of quizmastering ethics, or at least supremely lame. I mean, yes, technically it was accurate, but that doesn't mean it isn't a rotten question. While I'm at it, why don't I ask, "What TV drama, debuting in 2006, featured set design by Harry E. Otto?" I have a higher standard, my friends.

The question was killed, replaced with "The late-‘80s sitcom Just the Ten of Us was a spin-off of what other sitcom?" Oh, I did come up with an alternate Jericho question, which will show up in a future quiz; be warned. But I was again reminded that this silly little job of mine is really, in its own bizarre way, an art.

The Super Mega Ultra Hard Question: 5/22/09

YES! After too long a hiatus, it's back! E-mail info@bigquizthing.com with your answer by Sunday, May 30. A randomly selected correct response will win free admission to the Big Quiz Thing. Joy!

A little preview

I'm ridiculously excited about this Monday's BQT. We have a new game, "Three Degrees of Television Separation." For you old-timers, it's just like "Three Degrees of Musical Separation," but with clips from programs from the friendly old cathode-ray tube. A preview: Name all three shows whose names are phonetically linked:



Tricky, tricky. This Monday, the 27th.

Also, looks like I'll have some more theater tickets for you all this Monday, specifically seats to the Broadway drama Irena's Vow. Details to come.

And while I have you, an advisory: We're not doing the quiz on May 25, Memorial Day. We'll be back two weeks later, June 8. Use the time to study.

BQT = fine living

Get this: Monday night's show will be filmed by a crew from the Fine Living Network (me neither), for its forthcoming show Wingman. The website describes it as follows…

Having a hard time finding Mr. or Ms. Right? Maybe it's a lack of confidence, maybe it's your wardrobe, or maybe you're looking for love in all the wrong places. Whatever your particular "maybe" is, our Wingman is here to help. In each episode of the FLN series Wingman, our dating expert, the inimitable Michael Somerville, will take a date-challenged man or woman under his "protective wing" and instruct them on the finer points of finding a prospective date. With Michael's guidance, the lovelorn will learn exactly what they need to do to increase their dating potential, put that advice into practice and have a blast in the process.

I've been told that this Man has taken under his Wing a fellow who complains he can't find "hot smart girls" anywhere in New York City. And Wingy has suggested visiting the Big Quiz Thing, which is a pretty nice vote of confidence. I've prided myself on attracting the sexiest she-nerds in NYC. Be warned, ladies…

Plus, I've been toying with throwing a wrench into this whole Fine Living business (don't worry, I'm too much of a fame whore to act on any of this). DJ Mike has suggested wearing a shirt with obscenities on it; I'm considering crashing in a whole round about the least romantic things imaginable, like your grandmother or the Bhopal gas leak. Discuss.