Rate Your Music score: 3.03 out of 5!
Time for some fond memories of the 1979-80 season. I was a youngster only 6 years of age, and America still had promise.
At the time, there were many weekday evenings when my mom dropped me off at my grandparents' house. They always had the TV on in the living room, and that was my introduction to The Joker's Wild, the game show hosted by the late Jack Barry. A strange thing, that Joker's Wild. A stranger thing, that Jack Barry. Jack's career was almost ruined in the 1950s by the quiz show scandals of the era. He revived his career by buying a radio station. If the FCC felt he was of good enough character to own a station, then game show producers could trust him to host game shows again.
That wouldn't work these days, because the FCC obviously no longer considers character as a factor in granting broadcasting licenses. But character used to be a big deal.
The Joker's Wild in the early 1980s had a lot of interesting incidents. One day, a contestant named Miya accidentally broke the lever that activated the part of the game where you'd "face the Devil." One other time, Jack accidentally gave away the answer to a question as he was reading it, and he dramatically ripped up the piece of paper.
Jim Peck occasionally filled in for Jack Barry. One of the most infamous series Jim regularly hosted was Three's A Crowd - which was sort of like The Newlywed Game except that it also included the husband's secretary. Nobody liked being on the show, and the show was blamed for ruining many marriages. Jim even hated hosting it. During each commercial break, he just locked himself in his dressing room.
Anyway, as I was watching The Joker's Wild at my grandparents' house, I remember some Zesta crackers with cheese on them being dropped down between the cushions of the couch. They weren't found for years.
There were a couple hit records back then that I remember hearing on the AM radio in my parents' Horizon to and from these outings. One of them was "You're Only Lonely" by J.D. Souther. The other was the lost hit we're profiling today, "Three Times In Love" by Tommy James.
If the "yacht rock 30" countdown was around in 1979-80, Tommy's hit probably would have done very well on it. For that matter, J.D.'s record probably would have too. But I only ever heard that countdown in 1982, though Nicolette Larson was still charting on it then.
Tommy once claimed that his old record label - Roulette Records - owed him $30 to $40 million in royalties. Roulette was actually tied to the Mafia.
But his comeback hit of 1980 brings back tender memories of a happy time in life!
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