Wednesday widgets

As noted before on this little blog, Katie Cantrell will take her turn as Vanna-for-a-Day tomorrow. Alex Trebek actually played Pat-for-a-day once as an April Fools prank. He did fine, though Watson wasn't competing that day. Anyway, best wishes to Katie on her letter-touching adventures.

And speaking of Pat and Alex...if you hang around long enough in show business, the awards shows figure you must be doing something right. So you get a lifetime achievement award. Messrs. Sajak and Trebek have been around for a while now, but they actually deserve the honor. So the Daytime Emmys will hand them the kudo at the annual and august ceremonies in June. Even the best game show host can't rescue a horrible format, but a bad host can spoil the best format. Nobody can accuse Pat and Alex of spoiling their shows.

In elephant news, Bob Barker is offering the Edmonton Zoo a hundred grand to treat their 34-year-old pachyderm Lucy. The city swears they love Lucy (sorry) and she's getting all the treatment she needs. I haven't talked to Lucy lately, so I don't know what she thinks of the hoohah. But the linked story does have a nice picture of Bob and his large friend. Or is it Lucy and her small friend?

Elizabeth Taylor has died at age 79. As many have noted, she rather cruelly outlived her glamour days. And her marital misadventures spawned countless easy parodies (and imitations, for that matter). But What's My Line featured a younger and possibly happier Liz in 1954. As far as I can tell, this was her one brush with the genre.

While we're sifting through black-and-white video clips, the tireless Richard Carson just posted the complete 6-18-62 tenth anniversary episode of I've Got a Secret. The show peeks inside the control room, and the behind-the-scenes folks get a little air time. Host Garry Moore chips in some creative camera work.