Question: Could you please tell me and my lunch buddies who played the guy in the yellow raincoat on Laugh-In who rode a tricycle that usually tipped over? My friends say it was Arte Johnson. I say it was just about anyone, since you couldn't see his/her face. Am I wrong — was this one of the ensemble players? Please let me know soon; my trivia kingdom may be crumbling.
Answer: Your trivia kingdom stands strong, B.D. For the definitive answer on this, I went straight to the source, former Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In executive producer George Schlatter, who said the wacky Johnson was but one of the people who donned the slicker for the oft-repeated tricycle pratfall. According to Schlatter, it was often Johnson, cast mate Alan Sues or one of a variety of assorted cameramen or crew members.
Schlatter said t
read more
Question: Oh, great Televisionary, I vaguely recall a game show where the contestants got a chance to play on a giant pinball machine. Who was the host and how was the game played? Thank you.
Answer: Well, I... uh...
Sorry, Jeffrey — I was stunned into pfumpfery by your shameless worship (not that there's anything wrong with that). The show you're thinking of was called The Magnificent Marble Machine and it aired on NBC's daytime schedule from July 1975 to June 1976. Hosted by Art James, it featured celebrities who teamed up with average-joe contestants to play a 50-foot-high pinball machine. Without getting into too much detail, players were supposed to light up bumpers and earn points using a regular ball and a special bonus ball in an attempt to win cars and other big prizes. Before they could do that, though, they had to defeat another contestant in an initial round, which called for them to identify mys
read more
Question: Who was the woman on The Gong Show panel? I think she was a singer at one time. Thank you.
Answer: I'll take a wild guess here, assume you don't have Phyllis Diller or Dr. Joyce Brothers in mind and answer with jazz singer Jaye P. Morgan, often introduced by cocreator and host Chuck Barris as "juicy." And I'm sure the lady would object to your "singer at one time" classification, since she told the Los Angeles Times in 1997 that despite her various entertainment credits (movies, TV, stage, comedy), "[W]hen I get up in the morning, I get up as a singer."
Morgan, born Mary Margaret but dubbed J.P. when she took the job of class treasurer in high school, started her entertainment education at the age of 3 or 4 in a family act and eventually worked her way up to hit records ("The Longest Walk" and "That's All I Want from You" in the mid-'50s), work in stage musicals, numer
read more
