"People Puzzler" Rules!

If you know me at all, you know that I love game shows, and I have loved them since I was a little kid. I remember rushing home from school so that I could watch "Match Game '73" (or '74, or '75, or '76, etc.) just so I could see the awesome Brett Somers yell at the hilarious Charles Nelson Reilly while the pompous Richard Dawson tried to steal focus, and the creepy Gene Rayburn tried to grope the female contestants. It was magic.

Of course, not every game show was as magnificent as "Match Game," but they all had merit in my eyes. I also just love the idea that a regular person can spend half an hour in a TV studio and walk out with enough money to pay off all of their bills.

Daytime TV was loaded with game shows of all shapes and sizes, with fabulous prizes, cool challenges, and, best of all, incredible hosts!

Besides the aforementioned Rayburn, some of the best included Tom Kennedy, Jack Barry, Allen Ludden, Bob Barker, Monty Hall, Jim Lange, Bob Eubanks, Chuck Woolery, Wink Martindale, Alex Trebek, and perhaps the greatest game show host of all time, Bill Cullen.

There have been a ton of game shows over the past 70 years or so, and they spike in popularity every decade. Remember around 1999 when Regis Philbin became the biggest star in the world because of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Because of that show's massive success there were at least ten primetime game shows filling the airwaves, and it was awesome.

Even though two 24-hour networks show nothing but game shows (BUZZR and The Game Show Network), and they do have a few newly produced shows that are fun to watch, it's the reruns of the classic shows that I still love the most, and spend the most time watching.

Listen, gimme a Bert Convy-hosted "Tattletales" episode circa 1976 in which the celebrity couples consist of people like Elaine Joyce & Bobby Van, Mitzi McCall & Charlie Brill, Betty White & Allen Ludden, or William Shatner & one of his twenty ex-wives, and I'm a happy man.

I could (and I will) write about classic game shows at another time—trust me, I could go on for hours. But I want to write about a relatively new game show that's been on for about three years: "People Puzzler. " It's based on the People Magazine crossword puzzle that has had a strong cult following for many years.

Leah Remini is a terrific game show host!

The host of "People Puzzler" is actress Leah Remini, best known as Kevin James' wife on "The King of Queens." I never really watched "The King of Queens," and outside of seeing her on the covers of magazines like Stuff and Maxim, and remembering her as Carla's daughter on "Cheers," I really had no opinion of Remini except that she was very attractive. In real life, Kevin James would have absolutely no chance with her.

After her Scientology story broke a few years ago (Google it) and I began to learn more about her, I became a fan and liked her very much. But, after I saw just one episode of "People Puzzler," I fell in love with her, and I am now the biggest Leah Remini fan on earth.

In addition to being attractive and adorable, Remini is whipsmart, funny, charming, and wonderful with the contestants. She moves things along, explains the rules well, and creates a relaxed, fun atmosphere that translates beautifully on screen. In other words, she's a GREAT game show host.

The game itself is also great, especially for those of us who enjoy crossword puzzles but are too stupid to make it past Tuesday with the New York Times. 

Again, this is based on the People Magazine puzzle, which means that it is not only easy but also contains entertainment and pop culture clues. So I can feel smart while I watch from my couch—BONUS!

On this episode, they actually had a puzzle about "The King of Queens."

Three contestants compete in three puzzle rounds before the winner goes on to solve the Bonus Puzzles for a chance to win $10,000.

The puzzles are organized by subject, and Remini reads the clues. The writers come up with very clever clues, and the subjects/topics of the puzzles are varying and engaging.

Another fun puzzle on the fun game show "People Puzzler."

It's really fun to play along at home. Because Remini is so great with the contestants, you get to know them and root for them to do well, and that's the key to a good game show.

Every episode I have watched has been entertaining, fun, and sometimes exciting because that ticking clock during the bonus round is pretty suspenseful.

The show is even pretty because, besides the lovely host, the set is colorful, bright, and well-designed.

The cool, colorful and fun set of "People Puzzler."

As if just watching and enjoying the show weren't enough, I have another reason to celebrate "People Puzzler," I actually know someone who was a contestant on the show. 

My old friend Lisa Rothschiller Ragsdale, a terrific actress from Chicago with whom I enjoyed sharing a stage, appeared on the show in 2021. 

My friend Lisa Rothschiller doing very well on "People Puzzler!"

One of the puzzles Lisa had to try and solve was all about "The Wizard of Oz." She killed it.

My friend Lisa laughing it up with Leah Remini on "People Puzzler."

She did great by winning the first two rounds and making it to the Bonus Puzzles, where she missed just one clue and didn't win the ten grand.

Lisa also said everyone who worked on the show was lovely, and the whole experience was a delight. She particularly sang the praises of Remini, whom she was completely enamored of and thought was one of the coolest celebrities she'd ever met.

You can see my friend Lisa's appearance on "People Puzzler" Episode number 17 from Season 1, entitled: "A Hot Minute."

So, there you go, it turns out that it's not just a terrific game show to watch on TV, but it's a wonderful experience to be a part of....that's all I need.

You can watch "People Puzzler" on The Game Show Network daily at 1 a.m., 9 a.m., and 9:30 a.m. and on FOX Syndication Monday through Friday at 1 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. (all times Central). I highly recommend that you do so.

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When Directors Get Weird

Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola, you know, the guy who directed "The Godfather," "The Conversation," "Apocalypse Now," etc., released a movie called "Megalopolis" this past weekend, and it has divided critics and audiences alike.

Most people absolutely hate it, some people (like myself) absolutely love it, but everyone can agree that it is weird—very weird.

Coppola is not the only filmmaker to get weird, so in honor of Coppola's weird movie and how much fun it is to get weird sometimes, I'm writing a little post about the times that other mainstream/successful directors got weird.

The directors I have chosen for this list are very successful, critically adored filmmakers. Many of these directors have won Oscars, some are absolute legends, and all have made beloved and cherished movies. But they also have made at least one weird movie or are responsible for some really weird projects.

Maybe they had to get it out of their system; perhaps it was just a big paycheck, or maybe it was deeply personal work (like Coppola's) that they just HAD to make. Whatever the reasons, the list you are about to peruse is filled with some bizarre shit.

TOP 10 TIMES THAT MOVIE DIRECTORS GOT WEIRD (in no particular order):

1) BAD TASTE

I'm easing into this list by starting with a director who actually spent a lot of time being weird in the early part of his career.

Before Peter Jackson went mainstream with The Lord of the Rings films, King Kong, The Hobbit movies, and his Beatles documentaries, he was a certified weirdo. Stuff like the insane and disgusting puppet comedy Meet the Feebles, the gore-filled madness of Dead Alive, and the deeply disturbing but beautiful Heavenly Creatures existed before he took his almost 20-year trip to Middle Earth and practically never returned.

The movie that I have chosen to focus on is his brilliant and batshit crazy low-budget gore-fest called, appropriately enough, "Bad Taste." It is also his first feature film, and, I think, one of his very best (it is certainly better than all of his "Hobbit" movies combined).

Made on a shoestring budget in his homeland of New Zealand, this extremely grimy, gross, and hilarious horror/comedy is about aliens coming to Earth to eat humans. That's it. It's an exercise in excess, loaded with crazy make-up effects, tons of spurting blood and goo, and more disgusting laughs than you will find in any horror comedy for the last decade.

People who are only familiar with Jackson's adventures with gallivanting hobbits, dwarves, and elves are in for a rude awakening when they watch this late '80s testament to bad taste, but it's all in the title.

2) TOYS

Robin Williams is weird in Barry Levinson's "Toys."

Barry Levinson started as a mainstream screenwriter (who often wrote with his very talented ex-wife Valerie Curtain) and graduated to directing in the early 80's. He directed stuff like "Diner," "The Natural," "Young Sherlock Holmes," "Good Morning Vietnam," and others. He won an Academy Award for directing "Rain Man," which is as dull and mainstream a movie as you get.

After he won that Oscar, Levinson had a lot of power, and he was finally able to make a movie out of a long-gested script that Levinson and Curtain had written years earlier. The result is the 1992 Robin Williams starring vehicle "Toys," which is one of the most irritating, self-indulgent messes to ever come out of Hollywood (by the way, I am fully aware that those are also the exact words that people have used to describe "Megalopolis.").

It's about a toy company whose employees and supporters rebel against the powers that be because the owners force them to make toys of war. Yes, it's that simplistic and obvious in its metaphors, and yes, it's as heavy-handed as it sounds. It is also as loud and obnoxious a film as you will ever experience, anchored by one of Williams' most incredibly annoying performances of all time (and that's saying A LOT).

Levinson assembled a remarkable cast for this thing (look it up; you will be stunned) and spent millions of dollars to bring his crazy vision to life. The sets, costumes, and production design are over-the-top and eye-popping, and the massive swings in style and tone are jarring and confusing.

Including video (and video parody) seems completely dated and out of place, and the overall visual style is a mess. The whole movie is a complete mess. It is also weird, but not "good weird." Bad weird.

I remember sitting next to beloved radio/TV personality and entertainment critic (and my hero/mentor) Roy Leonard during the press screening of this thing. When the film was over, Roy turned to me and said, "Well, that was a complete waste of two hours. What the hell was that?!?!" I've been trying to figure that out for the last 32 years.

3) BEOWULF

Robert Zemeckis is one of cinema's most significant, innovative, and influential filmmakers. He is much more than just some hugely successful Oscar-winning creator of simple, crowd-pleasing box office hits, leaving that unremarkable stuff to Spielberg.

Zemeckis is a true cinematic artist. His films are often complex, subversive, and wildly misunderstood ("Forrest Gump," among others, is a prime example). Always on the cutting edge of technology for over 40 years, he has pushed the art and creation of film forward by leaps and bounds more than any other American director.

He is also ridiculously underappreciated as a true auteur and should be regularly mentioned in the same breath as Welles, Hitchcock, Truffaut, Kurosawa, Scorsese, etc.  He is an absolute giant.

My favorite Zemeckis quote is from an interview with director Robert Rodriguez. When asked what was the true challenge of being a film director, he said: "You gotta be able to put your dick on the window sill." Indeed.

Well, Zemeckis has never put his dick on the window sill more crazily than when he adapted (along with Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary) an epic Old English poem that no one understood or could even get through when it was taught in school. Not only did he successfully make sense of the unwieldy thing, he turned it into a blazing, outrageously entertaining 2-hour-motion-capture-animated-action-film that blew the doors off of every IMAX 3-D auditorium it played in.

In addition to being a remarkable technical achievement that pushed animation to new heights, the movie is also certifiably, blissfully, and gorgeously insane. Easily the best work that Zemeckis did during his seven-year experimental phase in the world of motion capture, it is also one of the ballsiest films he has ever made and yet another incredible piece of work from a true master of cinema.... and it's really f**king weird.

4) BUDDY BUDDY

Even the graphics in the trailer for "Buddy Buddy" were weird.

What can be said about the amazing Billy Wilder that has yet to be said? He is one of the greatest screenwriters to ever sit down at a typewriter, one of the best filmmakers in the medium's history, and an artist of singular talent responsible for some of the most important, enduring films ever made.

From time to time, Wilder got weird: "Fedora," "Avanti!," "One, Two, Three," and my favorite Wilder movie of all time, "Ace in the Hole," are all pretty damn weird. But no Billy Wilder movie approaches his film "Buddy Buddy" on the weirdness scale.

The third film in which Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau co-starred under Wilder's direction is a simple farce (based on the French play by Francis Veber) about a mafia hitman (Matthau) attempting to murder a target from a hotel room. However, he is constantly interrupted by the suicidal dope (Lemmon) in the room next door. Soon, the dope and the hitman team up, and the results are, well, weird. And not very funny.

When I first saw this film in 1981, I hated it, absolutely hated it; I could not believe that this was a Billy Wilder movie. I thought it was terrible on every level: it was ugly, the tech credits were all subpar, and the actors were either phoning it in (Paula Prentiss), or relying on bad accents (Matthau), or resorting to twitchy gimmicks (Lemmon), or just going completely nuts (Klaus Kinski, whose performance as a sex therapist has got to be seen to be believed). It was a nightmare.

Now, as the years have gone by, I have learned to love this ridiculous movie and appreciate its wild style, unruly antics, and sometimes indefensible moments. At times, it feels like "anti-cinema," and somehow, it seems appropriate because it was Wilder's last film.

5) BREEZY

Clint Eastwood is one of the greatest American filmmakers of all time. He has directed over 40 movies, so of course, there are some weird ones in there, like "Jersey Boys," "J. Edgar," "Blood Work," and "The Rookie." But, without question, the weirdest (and most uncomfortable) film Eastwood ever directed was his third movie, "Breezy."

Luckily, "Breezy," from 1973, was released the same year as the excellent "High Plains Drifter," which is why no one remembers it...thank God.

I'll just describe the plot to you, and that's all you'll need to hear. William Holden stars as a divorced, middle-aged real estate agent who picks up a teenage hitchhiker (Kay Lenz, who was 18 when the film was shot but looked 14), and they begin a forbidden love affair. Yeah, it's not only weird, it's creepy.

Quick side note: In Paul Thomas Anderson's 2021 masterpiece Licorice Pizza, which is partially about Hollywood in the early 1970s, there is a scene in which Alana Haim's character auditions for a movie. That movie is supposed to be Breezy, and Sean Penn is basically playing William Holden.

6) MICHAEL JACKSON'S BAD VIDEO

So, inexplicably, Martin Scorsese directed the ridiculous video for weirdo Michael Jackson's idiotic song "Bad."

That's all. Here it is:

7) A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

This is as close to weird as the decidedly unweird Steven Spielberg has ever gotten, and the results are pretty weird and pretty awful.

Steven Spielberg gets weird with "A.I. Artificial Intelligence."

This was originally going to be a Stanley Kubrick film after he bought the rights to the book in the 1970s, but it languished while Kubrick pondered other projects and made more interesting films.

Somehow, it wound up in Spielberg's willing lap. He shot the film in 2000, and it was released in the summer of 2001. Haley Joel Osment plays a robot kid who has been programmed with the ability to love. The supporting cast includes Sam Robards, William Hurt, Brendan Gleeson, Frances O'Connor, and Jude Law as a robot named Gigolo Joe.

It's a tortuous experience that contains so many of Spielberg's terrible tendencies (and he has A LOT of terrible tendencies) and tropes that any trace of Kubrick is nowhere to be found. Ironically, Spielberg's next movie, the outstanding (and also pretty weird) "Minority Report" was MUCH more Kubrickian than this nonsense.

No matter how weird this movie gets, and it gets pretty weird, it's all forced, stiff, and incredibly uneven, and I'm absolutely convinced that Kubrick would have hated it.

8) PHOBIA

The worst (and weirdest) movie that John Huston ever directed: "Phobia."

Without question, this is the legendary John Huston's worst (and weirdest) movie. Get this: it stars Paul Michael Glaser (yeah, Starsky of "Starsky and Hutch") as a psychiatrist whose radical experiments and treatments come under suspicion when his patients start getting murdered in the style of their own phobias.

This is utter trash on every level. It was released during the slasher craze of the early 80s and shot in that style and with that amount of intelligence. Huston was blatantly taking the check with this nonsense and dutifully provided the proper shocks and idiotic twists for whatever audience this thing was made for.

I remember seeing this movie in the theater when it was released and just laughing my ass off at almost every scene. The plot gets weirder and weirder as the running time creeps along, and each phobia-based kill is increasingly ridiculous until it reaches the unintentionally hilarious climax.

Huston would follow this nonsense up with a couple of other weird ones: the hilarious Nazi/soccer/P.O.W./prison escape classic "Victory," with Sly Stallone, Michael Caine, and Pele, and the unfortunate and awful film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Annie."

Thank God he would return to greatness for his final three films, "Under the Volcano," "Prizzi's Honor," and "The Dead."

9) THE WIZ

How Sidney Lumet, the director of stuff like "Serpico," "12 Angry Men," "Dog Day Afternoon," "Prince of the City," and "Network," ended up directing this lifeless, ineptly staged film adaptation of the 1974 Broadway musical is anybody's guess.

He probably wanted to stretch his wings and prove that he could do any genre, under any circumstances, with any cast, and he did just that. The result is a disaster of biblical proportions.

A cast of very talented people, including Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, Richard Pryor, Lena Horne, and more, were either completely inexperienced or incredibly miscast in every single role.

Nothing in this movie works, and despite having some memorable/hit songs featured on the soundtrack, it's a reasonably awful movie musical that is a chore to sit through. And, yeah, it's really, really weird.

10) THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL

To be fair, George Lucas did not direct this legendarily awful TV special (Steve Binder did) and was not on set when it was shot, but he did create it, produce it, and co-write it. He has since not only distanced himself from this crap, but he had it removed from archives and all but made sure that it was never seen after its first airing in November of 1978.

Mark Hamill looking appropriately insane.

The plot involves Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Chewbacca's family of Wookiees (Malla, Lumpy, and Itchy) trying to celebrate their holiday Life Day while the Empire attacks and pursues them. Crazy battle scenes, confrontations, and appearances by Luke Skywalker, Princess Leah, Darth Vader, C3PO, and R2-D2 are all on display.

Oh yeah, there are also wacky bits, variety show acts, comedy routines, and musical numbers performed by visibly bored (or possibly drunk) performers like Bea Arthur, Dianne Carroll, Art Carney, and Harvey Korman, all in ridiculous costumes and wigs. Oh, wait. I almost forgot to mention Jefferson Starship's rocking appearance!

Yeah, that's Bea Arthur.

Art Carney, who must have lost a bet.

Harvey Korman, lost without Tim Conway.

This insanity also features rocking performance by Jefferson Starship!!

It is so awful that Lucas ensured it never aired again, was never released on home video, and was legally hidden from the public. However, bootleg copies abound (that's how I saw it), copied and traded worldwide, and the special has since become a classic of trash and weirdness.

It really has to be seen to be believed, and some people like it because it contains the first ever appearance by Boba Fett in the "Star Wars" universe, so I guess that's supposed to be cool. I dunno.

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"Evil" Ends

On September 19th, 2019, a new creepy drama called "Evil" premiered on CBS, and my obsession with the show began.

Created by Robert and Michelle King ("The Good Wife," "The Good Fight"), "Evil" followed the scary stories of three vastly different people (played by Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, and Aasif Mandvi) hired by the Catholic Church to investigate supernatural incidents.

After the show's first season, it switched from the CBS network to Paramount+  streaming (owned by CBS), where the Kings were no longer bound by FCC rules and regulations. The show got raunchier, sexier, funnier, and a lot more gross—and I loved it even more!

"Evil" is also the show that truly got me through the pandemic and helped me deal with my firing from a certain joke of a radio station that will not be named here. So, watching it was not only entertaining but also oddly comforting and very therapeutic.

The show's similarities to things like "The X-Files," "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," and "Twin Peaks" did not go unnoticed (or unacknowledged by the creators) and only added to my interest.

From the first episode, in which we are introduced to forensic psychologist Kristen Bouchard (Herbers) as she is consulting for the D.A.'s office on a case involving the mental state of a convicted murderer, I was hooked.

The smart, scary, and funny pilot was a unique, startling, and powerful mix of genres. It was part horror, part black comedy, and part legal procedural (the genre that the Kings were so very successful at creating), and somehow that weird combination worked flawlessly.

This is George, one of the many demons that haunt the characters of "Evil." This guy also happens to be hilarious.

Each week, the skeptical Kristen and her two partners, Catholic seminarian David Acosta (Colter) and tech expert/fellow skeptic Ben Shakir (Mandvi) encounter possessed humans, hideous demons, unexplainable terrifying events, and bloodcurdling challenges, many of which are aided by the main villain Dr. Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson).

All of this madness is juggled with the main characters' personal stories, such as David's crisis of faith, Ben's faltering relationships and struggles with dubiousness, and Kristen's chaotic family life with her four daughters (the terrific young actresses Maddy Crocco, Brooklyn Shuck, Skylar Gray, Dayla Knapp) estranged husband (Patrick Brammall), and mysterious mother (the GREAT Christine Lahti).

These disparate elements have no business working together, but they do. Brilliantly.

This being is actually a psychiatrist. Yeah...that's the world of "Evil."

The show had an uncanny ability to freak me out on a weekly basis. Freaking out a jaded horror fan like me is not an easy thing to do, but "Evil" did it consistently. Episodes involving horrifying hospital stays, haunted elevators, demons on the road, evil kids, dead bodies coming to life, and a couple of Halloween episodes that are top-notch in terror, provided me with much-needed thrills and satisfied my horror fix every week.

From the legendary Christmas episode of "Evil." I couldn't shake this episode for days after I watched it.

Don't even get me started on the deeply disturbing Christmas episode from Season One in which groups of children are obsessed with a troublesome, creepy earworm of a song (with video) that invaded my mind, head, and dreams for weeks after the episode aired. Scary, funny, and weird as hell, it's one of my favorite episodes of television ever.

The show also took on technology, social media, the internet, and other modern topics with brutally effective satire and brilliant plotting. "Evil" was a timely show that said more about the current zeitgeist than virtually any other show on television, and it did so while both scaring the shit out of the audience and making them laugh their heads off.

The complicated relationships between the characters and the possible love triangles, betrayals of trust, and mysterious shifting allegiances added depth to the proceedings. They made you all the more invested in the people on screen, and the smart, dense writing balanced reality, fantasy, and satire with aplomb.

Over the years, the show featured some wonderfully varied and immensely talented actors including Kurt Fuller, Boris McGiver, Wallace Shawn (!!), the late, great Peter Scolari, Li Jun Li, Darren Pettie, Tim Matheson, Joe Grifasi, Dylan Baker, Paul Guilfoyle, Richard Kind, Denis O'Hare, Kenneth Tigar, Vondie Curtis-Hall, John Glover, Anna Chlumsky, Tony Plana, and in the final few episodes, the hilarious John Carroll Lynch.

A STELLAR line-up, indeed.

The great Andrea Martin played a badass nun on "Evil." She deserves a spinoff.

The best addition to the show happened during Season Two when the great Andrea Martin joined the cast as Sister Andrea, a petite 70-something nun with a simple philosophy and a mysterious connection to the supernatural.

Martin was simply magnificent in the role, and watching her walk the tightrope between comedy and drama was a blast. Watching her kill various slimy demons with shovels, hedge shears, and hammers was a damn delight. Perhaps a Sister Andrea spinoff is in order? What do you think, Robert and Michelle King???

The show had very few clinker episodes, and even though some pretty large loose ends did not get tied up in the end (remember when Kristen killed a guy?), the show ended on a reasonably satisfactory note, with some nice closure for the main characters, even if the final moment involving a new baby and some possible evil “complications” was a bit wacky and weird. Overall, I was quite happy with how it turned out.

The fantastic Katja Herbers, seen here in a dream sequence tempting a seminarian.

What I really want to see is more of the terrific and lovely Katja Herbers, who you might remember from “The Leftovers” and “Westworld.” Herbers, a Dutch-born actress, is a very quirky, uncommonly charming, and immensely talented performer who can do just about anything while always maintaining a core of vast intelligence. She was my favorite part of “Evil,” by far.

By the way, if you enjoyed Herbers in “Evil,” then you MUST see her in the terrific 2019 horror/satire “The Columnist” in which her titular character goes on a killing spree to rid the world of assholes on social media. Yeah, it’s as cool as it sounds, and she is absolutely terrific in it.

"Evil" was a very special show, but it never really took off like it should have. It definitely had a very passionate fan base and will continue to be loved for years to come. If you have yet to watch it, all four seasons are on Paramount+, and the first three seasons are on Netflix.

Get to it before the Vatican sends a cartel to exorcise your demons and send you back hell!!

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