No object

A column in the New York Times turned up today with memories of a game show I had never heard of.

To be fair to myself, not many will remember The Object Is, an odd word association game hosted by Dick Clark. That's because the show came and went in thirteen weeks in 1963-64. But for some strange reason, the show stuck in the memory of a NYT reporter. He tracked down one of the show's contestants, a now-retired English professor named Gerald Huckaby.

Mr. Huckaby has a few interesting recollections of the show. For instance, there were so many breaks in the taping that he read The Odyssey to keep himself occupied. As the story mentions, his episode has turned up on YouTube, where you can watch it in somewhat blurry black and white. Wikipedia (usual caveats) says that all 65 episodes of the show have somehow survived.

To put it mildly, the game was not a thriller. Contestants tried to get other contestants to guess famous personages, real or fictional, by naming objects associated with them. In the screenshot, they're trying to nail Peter Pan. Dick Clark did his best to look interested in the proceedings, but it was hard work.