For more clips like this, and a most enjoyable guide to pop culture, visit the blog for the NYC cult cable-access show Media Funhouse, located here:
www.mediafunhouse.blogspot.com
From the old Funhouse blog:
Jan Murray, who Jerry Lewis said he idolized because he was "tall and handsome" (keep in mind that Jer himself is over 6 feet tall) was a stand-up for years, did numerous guest stints on television, and was featured in several sterling bits of cinema including the wonderfully lurid "Who Killed Teddy Bear" (1965, as a tough cop), "A Man Called Dagger" (as a wheelchair-inhabiting Nazi!), and "Which Way to the Front?" (playing second fiddle to the guy who found him so "tall and handsome"). Jan also qualified as the second most abrasive telethon host in recent memory, moving the Chabad telethon right along as he got crabbier and crabbier, the hours rolled by, the rabbis kept dancing, and anyone who got in his way got a nice curt little dismissive remark. That wasn't the case on "Dollar a Second," the chintzy-looking but fascinating game show he hosted from 1953-57 (the show ran on THREE networks in a row: Dumont, NBC, and ABC!). It's startling the show lasted so long, as it has an overly complicated structure, some extremely forced bits of comedy with the contestants (this ain't "You Bet Your Life"), and was probably one of the few shows in TV's golden era (outside of religious programs on the weekend) that prominently featured a Jewish star on its set (the sponsor was Mogen-David, and don't you forget it—their logo was all over the set, guaranteeing the thing didn't rerun in syndication). Here are the directions for those who actually want to fathom what the hell is going in this set of short clips: the contestants try to play the game for as long as possible, earning themselves "a dollar a second." Their time on stage can be ended by two things, a series of wrong answers (for which their spouse is made to look like a fool, in Truth or Consequences fashion), or the "outside event" (I'm not makin' this up), a dopey gimmick in which the show has something going on which, if it were to come to an end prematurely, could end the run for the dough -- in this show, it's a Lionel Train set going around and around a specified (but unrevealed) number of times. Got that straight? Of course not, it doesn't much matter. Only know that the opening Q&A is an stupider gambit in which the lady contestant must delay her answers to synch with the next question, and produce a godawful joke. The fact that this sucker ran for four years make me wonder what it was like during its fourth and final annum, when Jan's nerves might've finally begun to wear thin (I'm betting this episode is from early in the run, as the show has the sincerely threadbare look of early '50s TV).
For more information about the Funhouse, visit: www.mediafunhouse.com
Tags: Jan Murray game show Dollar a Second Mogen-David host comedian cult cable access Media Funhouse
