5/29/2007

Back at work after the holiday, and have to mention the passing of Charles Nelson Reilly. I guess most people recall him from his years and years on game shows, especially the “Match Game”- or, on “Hollywood Squares.” The first thing I ever saw him on was the 60s sitcom (based on a movie) “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” in which he was a comedy relief character, Claymore Gregg, who was confounded by the antics of the suave ghost. Too many people associate him with one of those annoying Sid and Marty Croft Saturday morning kids’ shows –“Lidsville” where he played the villain, Hoodoo. He was a favorite guest on the old Johnny Carson “Tonight Show” because he was just a very funny guy, and often would crack up Carson. And, not long ago, he did a character voice on “Spongebob Squarepants!”

Surprisingly, he was a noted director of both stage and television- he even directed some episodes of Burt Reynolds’ “Evening Shade”- he was a Tony –award winner for some of his Broadway work, both as an actor, and as a director. He was certainly one of the most openly gay performers on television at that time, as was comedian Rip Taylor, and his flamboyance was a part of the characters he portrayed.

You might recall when we did our “Goolumbo” spoof , with Sven as a Columbo rip-off, the character he was questioning was me portraying none other than Charles (whom it always seemed weird to hear TV hosts refer to as “Chuck.”) The other character that I played for a while on Fox while doing the “Koz Zone” kids’ show that was pretty much a full-on impression of Charles was the artist, Delbert Van Scrawler, who would make a “work of art” out of a scribble sent in by a viewer! Doing that character started a whole wave of people working at the station at the time doing THEIR impressions of me doing the Charles Nelson Reilly impression. It was always fun to do those segments, because they were unscripted, and ad-libbing while acting like Charles always ended up being pretty entertaining.

Charles had been ill for over a year, and died due to complications of pneumonia at the age of 76. While researching to make sure I had some facts straight for this blog, I noticed a quote from Charles himself that really seemed prophetic. Here’s the quote: “ When I die, it’s going to read ‘Game Show Fixture Passes Away’- nothing about the theater, Tony awards, or Emmys- but it doesn’t bother me.” Good thing it wouldn’t. Let’s lift our over-sized glasses (the kind like he wore) to Charles Nelson Reilly. He was a truly funny guy.