I can't remember who it was I heard refer to Merv Griffin as 'Der Mervyn' (à la Bing Crosby's Sobriquet 'Der Bingle'). I'm pretty sure it must've been T.S., it sounds very much like his humor. Whoever it was it stuck hard in my noodle and would always give me a personal chuckle anytime I got the chance to use it (or more likely 'think it'). W/ Merv's passing, I did a few Google searches for 'Der Mervyn' and came up completely empty handed. So it's either something I hallucinated (which I never rule out anymore) or I'm the only one that found it funny enough to remember? Either way I wanted to do my little part to honor 'Der Mervyn'
Well now both titans T.S. (Tom Snyder) and Merv are only broadcasting in eternity. Somehow Merv's passing fully closes the door on my childhood, who's greatest thrill was being home from school which meant watching seventies daytime television that I was too young to fully understand. I have to admit that Merv and Mike Douglas are pretty much interchangeable in my memory either way I very much enjoyed both of them. Dinah Shore was my very favorite but that may be selective miss-memory? There were of course the game shows, "Match game" being my favorite and of the syndicated sitcoms the ones that stick out in my memory are the weirder ones; "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", "Nanny and the Professor" (really not that weird, more "Huh?") the weird crown has to go to what was my favorite when I was very young (god only knows why?) "Love American Style", what the hell was that?
It's not like I ever post anyway (and I'll always use any excuse not to) but I was trying to avoid the 'dead people' posts unless I really had a fondness for the person or of course (what trumps all of my reasonings) the mood was right (like this post). I had actually started to write something about Antonioni and Bergman's deaths but like many (MANY!) other posts it never went anywhere. I think it was mainly finding out that Tom Snyder had also died a few days earlier and I didn't feel right talking up the two great directors and leaving T.S. (who was almost like a friend, in that weird television way) in the background? As 'Dead People' posts go Rosie O'donell did Merv right in her recent post. I think it really captures his Merv-ness, reading it though gives me that lower gut poopy feeling that I would get being in that situation. So really all of this nonsense is b/c (maybe?) Tom Snyder said something that struck me funny some time back in the 90's and in a small way i wanted to keep it alive . . . if this can be called living!?!
