Bowzer wowser

A blurb on a local New England website for Jon "Bowzer" Bauman's stage show brought back some game show memories. Not all the memories are fond ones.

Bauman hosted the Hollywood Squares half of the ill-fated Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour of the early 1980s. The show never really worked and only lasted one season. Plastering together two very different formats seemed creaky and odd, and Bauman was not the most engaging game show host to begin with.

Gene Rayburn returned for the Match Game half of the show, and he never looked comfortable in the surroundings, either. Legend has it that Rayburn and Bauman didn't get along very well, but I've never seen any real evidence for that rumor. Sounds like a story that would spread about a failed project, with or without any basis in fact.

Bit and pieces of the show are available on YouTube. The Squares half suffers from a lack of scripting for the celebs. Producer Mark Goodson forbade the scripting because he was so sensitive about any hint of rigging, but the practice is essential to make Squares work. Otherwise, the celebs just natter on aimlessly, as the YouTube clips often reveal.