Merv Griffin was a funny fellow. My main memories of him are from The Merv Griffin Show, where he often wore the loudest suits he could find and someone from the audience would yell out-Show Em The Lining, Merv! and he would open the suit jacket to reveal some blinding pattern of silk or satin. He joked that after all these years all anyone would remember him for was the lining of his sports coat. No chance of that.
He also made a couple of game shows, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy being the ones that stood the test of time and are still on today. I remember he was on one of the entertainment shows a few years ago and they asked him if he had any more game shows up his sleeve. “Sure” he said. “Tons of them, but no one makes game shows any more.” This was right before Who Wants to Be a Millionaire hit the US airwaves. Hey, even the greats can’t be right all the time.
Game shows and talk shows and horse racing and casinos were all things that Merv Griffin had a passion for. The world was a lot more fun for having him in it. Wheel of Fortune told us that luck could make us rich, while Jeopardy shows us that brains could as well.
Merv Griffin died of prostate cancer, a cancer that is very treatable if caught in time. So Merv’s luck ran out. I wonderor what the lining of his coffin will look like?
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