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May 29, 2007  An unknown writer once offered: "Time travels quietly until it runs directly into the pathway of life at its end. Then, for a few moments, even days, the volume is deafening."We are losing our legends at much too quickening a pace and the volume is indeed deafening. Kitty Carlisle. Tom Poston. Now, Charles Nelson Reilly. Too many, too fast. I had been told just prior to last summer's Game Show Congress of Charles' illness but, at the time, the prognosis was uncertain. Our disappointment was immense. We wanted to give a shot at having him and Brett Somers for one of our panel discussions to digest why Match Game struck such a chord as it did in 1973 and became appointment television until the end of the decade. To those of you who didn't grow up during the era of the variety show, you can't appreciate the full gamut of Charles' talents. At one point in the 1970-71 season, we had 16 musical variety shows in prime time on the networks, not to mention a passel of summer replacement hours which never made the grade to the regular season. You didn't have to look far to find Charles. While he had appeared in the mid-'60s on The Ed Sullivan Show, he didn't really come into the forefront until he started making periodic Thursday night visits to The Dean Martin Show. Charles had the ability to deliver that slow burn and the memorable "hmmmHMMMM" laugh of his that could make an audience laugh during comedy sketches. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, sadly, is not repeated these days because only 52 episodes were made. Yet, when Charles made his recurring appearances as Claymore Gregg, he made the entire show better. Claymore was not a character which could have been a weekly regular, much as in the fashion of Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show, without overpowering the chemistry of the show. Yet, in sensible doses, you were left wanting to see him again. Chalk one up for Charles' underrated brilliance. Based on his work with Hope Lange and Edward Mulhare, both CBS and ABC served up pilot possibilities for Reilly. In all candor, if we had seen The Charles Nelson Reilly Show, it would likely have failed. Charles was in the category of Don Knotts, Tim Conway, Nancy Walker, Paul Lynde or Jerry Van Dyke. Every one of the latter five headlined his or her own series as star of the show and laid collective eggs. The magic of their talents as second bananas just did not materialize as the topliners. NBC was genuinely hoping Reilly would strike gold as primary host of Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers, a 1970 summer replacement. However, the show was done on a low-budget in London Teamed with bug-eyed British comic Marty Feldman, Reilly was up against a scenestealer in Feldman and the chemistry did not mesh. The comedy was drawn on a broad brush that had stronger appeal to the Are You Being Served? and Benny Hill crowd but did not click with Thursday night American audiences. In fact, one critic wrote, "It's hard not to confuse Charles Nelson Reilly with Stanley Myron Handelman (another comedian who had extensive exposure on a previous Martin summer show)." Charles was reduced to returning to the guest star route in television. He continued seasoning himself with scattershot appearances on game shows, though he later said that killed his prime time career. One of his funniest pre-Match Game sequences was on Steve Allen's I've Got a Secret in 1972. Charles' secret to a blindfolded panel, which included the incomparable Pat Carroll, was that he was painting. The kicker: Charles was painting floral designs on the stomach of bikini-clad Janice Pennington of The Price Is Right. When CBS revived the formerly-quiet Match Game in 1973, only Richard Dawson was signed as a regular. Charles was added before the month was out. Brett did not join the fold until about eight weeks into the show but was still not considered a full regular until the second 13 weeks began. Within nine weeks of the premiere, Match Game '73 was daytime television's number one show and eventually peaked at a 13.0 rating---highest for any morning or afternoon show in the post-1960 era. As a panelist, Richard Dawson was clearly becoming the star of the show. Yet, on the upper tier for most of her first year, Brett was falling victim to a fatal error: deliberately playing the game for laughs rather than just playing the game and letting the humor evolve spontaneously. The audience was clearly out as a jury on Brett. Not until a signature question in the summer of '74 did Brett's fortunes with the audience change. Gene Rayburn read: "Norman said, 'When I watch Match Game, I always look at my wife and say the celebrity who gives the worst answers is __________." With the exception of Somers herself, the entire panel answered Brett. From that point forward, Brett played the game straight and the humor shifted to a delicious chemistry between her and Charles which eclipsed the eventually-sullen Dawson's tenure on the show. To place Charles Nelson Reilly's game show legacy into a category is a near-impossibility. Was he constantly a yuk-a-minute funnyman on Match Game? No. Was he the greatest game player ever? Better-than-average, perhaps, but not one you would put on To Tell the Truth. Did he become a trademark symbol to be emulated by celebrity players of the future? Not really. What set Charles apart is he was one of the best reaction personalities in the history of game shows. Even when Brett shifted gears and played the game for keeps, she was the loud and boisterous one on the panel. Charles' reactions to Brett's answers, actions, or rejoinders were classics. Some of it was honed in the half-season he did Hatos-Hall's revival of It Pays to Be Ignorant when he and Joe Flynn engaged in some delicious (if scripted) two-on-one putdowns of Joanne Worley. On Match Game, Charles was never hurtful or sour with his performances. He often did it with his cornucopia of facial expressions. Ira Skutch, who produced the CBS and syndicated 1979-82 version of Match Game, told me: "(Charles) had the gift of knowing when to come in and when to hold back -- an enormous asset to a free-wheeling show with five other panelists and a strong emcee like Gene Rayburn." Timing was everything with Charles. He didn't need 45 seconds to get his humor over when five would do. Would Match Game have been as successful without Charles? Probably. The game, as it evolved, was strong enough to strike that intense chord with the audiences that networks and producers live to see. However, with Charles, the show---which is not to be confused with the game---was better. That all-elusive characteristic of chemistry flowed with Reilly, Somers and---in the earlier years---Dawson, along with the recurring guests who learned how to blend with the regulars. Once Charles established his home upper tier right, we missed him when he was not there. Case in point: Charles was off doing a play for several weeks during the summer of 1974. Gary Burghoff substituted. Burghoff was a fine actor on M*A*S*H but he was no Charles Nelson Reilly on Match Game. The fact is, because Charles and Brett were there first, they became the measuring stick for all future Match Game panels. As I attempted to make the case on the recent GSN documentary on the series, one can make a credible case that the reason every post-1982 attempt to remake the show has failed is because the CBS version and its regulars were so good, we as an audience would be hard-pressed to accept any future assemblage. Charles was also a calming influence in ways we never saw on the air. Occasionally, a celebrity who had rarely seen the show would appear and not understand the audience's reactions. When Hee Haw's Buck Owens gave a bad answer to the first question on his initial day on Match Game, the audience booed. Owens, unfamiliar with the show, was taken aback and said, "Thank you folks, it's sure as h____ nice to be here." I was told during the second commercial break, Charles called Owens aside and explained the booing was part of the fun of the show and not intended as a personal reaction to the celebrities. Owens, known for a short fuse, settled down and enjoyed the rest of the week. Reilly was probably right in a 2001 magazine interview when he said Match Game forever typecast him in television. He never was a regular on another scripted television series and he did predominantly stage work and cartoon voiceovers when Match Game ended. One attempt as an emcee (the short-lived Sweethearts) proved not to be Charles' strong suit. He was wise not to sign on as a permanent regular on The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour on NBC in 1983-84. But for the hardcores who somehow find fondness for it, the show was an utter debacle as a hybrid and was often at the bottom of the Nielsens, a tragic comedown for both formats. When ABC opted to remake Match Game as a midday show in 1990, Charles was the one and only throwback to the halcyon days of the '70s, except for the occasional guest shot by Betty White. The network decided Rayburn was too old for a fourth stint as emcee. Brett was not signed as a regular and only returned for a brief guest shot. Bert Convy, who was no Rayburn but who may have been able to pull off the emcee's role, was stricken with a brain tumor only weeks before the series went to air. One sensed when the ill-equipped Ross Shafer was five minutes into the show, the entire production was on Charles' shoulders. He genuinely tried. The task was insurmountable. Pam Stone, Dana Fleming, Bill Kurchenbauer and even Brad Garrett only served to make us miss Gene, Brett and our other favorites. Charles maintained an upbeat spirit despite the impossible challenge. As former GSN programming chief Bob Boden told me, just before the tape rolled on each broadcast of the 1990 edition, one heard the unmistakable voice of Reilly shouting, "Good luck everybody!" In 1999, only a few weeks after Rayburn's death, Charles was tapped to host a New Year's Eve marathon of Match Game episodes on Game Show Network. The compilation was a set of yearender shows from CBS when the set's logo graphic would change to the number of the new year. Before the final show, Charles offered a tribute to the man with whom he worked for nearly a decade. One immediately sensed the admiration Reilly had for Rayburn as he was almost overcome with emotion. One of the nation's most loyal Match Game fans, Duane Eklof, referred to Reilly as "one of the trinity" of one of television's most beloved shows, in reflecting on Charles' passing. We may not be able to pinpoint precisely what it was that made us want to return day after day to see Gene, Charles and Brett but we wanted to be there. If we were in college back in "the day," we made certain our classes were over so we could camp out for a half-hour at 3:30 in front of the set. If we were in junior high or high school, we ran home if we didn't have an athletic practice, to see our favorite crazies. Charles Nelson Reilly made a half-hour in the afternoon appointment television before the phrase was ever coined. He made our days and everyone around him, including us in the vast, unseen home audience, better for that half-hour just because he was there.   Miss Francis' gowns by Bonwit Teller © Copyright 2006 TVgameshows.net. All Rights Reserved. |
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