Your Surprise Package

[chris319]

Anyone know if there are episodes of Your Surprise Package on the trading circuit?

[The Ol' Guy]

..add me to the list interested if you get a response. I have the faintest memory of the show, noting that as contestants asked questions about the items in the package, the score devices in front of them counted down. The home version I have confirms you paid for the time to ask questions. The one thing I'd like to hear again most - if my memory is still intact on this - the show had a very cool theme - the melody was played on a harp, with a bongo-type rhythm behind it. If anyone else with similar faint memories can confirm that, I won't sign myself up for a "rest". Thanks.

[chris319]

The one thing I'd like to hear again most - if my memory is still intact on this - the show had a very cool theme - the melody was played on a harp, with a bongo-type rhythm behind it. If anyone else with similar faint memories can confirm that, I won't sign myself up for a "rest".

No need to check yourself into the rest home just yet. I was 5 - 6 when it was on and I remember a really cool harp-and-bongo theme as being the best part. If I had to do music for a game show and was told I could only use two instruments, it would never occur to me to combine harp and bongos.

There was also a giant gift-wrapped box sitting center stage a la LMAD replete with the lovely Carol Merrill (it was her first game show) to model it.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Dec 13 2004, 01:00 PM\']

The one thing I'd like to hear again most - if my memory is still intact on this - the show had a very cool theme - the melody was played on a harp, with a bongo-type rhythm behind it. If anyone else with similar faint memories can confirm that, I won't sign myself up for a "rest".

No need to check yourself into the rest home just yet. I was 5 - 6 when it was on and I remember a really cool harp-and-bongo theme as being the best part. If I had to do music for a game show and was told I could only use two instruments, it would never occur to me to combine harp and bongos.

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My farthest memory banks remind me that the music on the show was live and that it was a literal one-man band.  TV Guide had a photo feature of the guy at work.  Since I was still real little, I can't really remember anything else about the article--or the show, other than Mother saying "Oh, there's that stupid game show again!" and either changing the channel or turning the TV off.

I do remember that the set doors looked to my young eyes like a bunch of Kleenex boxes stacked to the ceiling (with "SURPRISE PACKAGE" even looking like the 50s/early 60s Kleenex logo before they introduced the script logo) and that on maybe the one show I saw all the way through someone won a "Booby Prize."  Had I been a decade older I probably would've started laughing like Beavis and Butt-Head at that.

(Back in the 70s, a guy named Carey Gold also had a multitude of instruments in his booth for the CBS soaps "Love of Life" and "The Secret Storm" in their last years on the air--almost everything keyboard or percussion but an organ--the producers wanted to drop that cliche but good.  I would almost guess that the muic guy on "Surprise Package" also didn't include an organ because Allan Sherman didn't want to go that cliche route.)

[Don Howard]

[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Dec 13 2004, 05:31 PM\']I can't really remember anything else about the article--or the show, other than Mother saying "Oh, there's that stupid game show again!" and either changing the channel or turning the TV off.

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My Mother did that once. Just once.

[chris319]

How can one person play the harp and bongos at the same time?

The musical director was one Alvin Stoller, a jazz drummer in Hollywood who worked with the likes of Billy May.

[MSTieScott]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Dec 14 2004, 10:10 AM\']How can one person play the harp and bongos at the same time?

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He was really good with his feet?

--
Scott Robinson

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Dec 14 2004, 10:10 AM\']How can one person play the harp and bongos at the same time?

The musical director was one Alvin Stoller, a jazz drummer in Hollywood who worked with the likes of Billy May.

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Memory from 40 years ago.  I could and will be wrong.

(My grandfather used to collect old TV Guides and then in his senility would forget about them.  On one visit to his home, I found them somewhere in his basement or bedroom, dove into them for much enjoyment and then watched as my mother and grandmother threw them out because they thought I was spending too much time indoors, despite my copious tears [and besides, why would I want to read old TV Guides?].  Killjoys.)

[chris319]

[quote name=\'MSTieScott\' date=\'Dec 14 2004, 12:50 PM\'][quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Dec 14 2004, 10:10 AM\']How can one person play the harp and bongos at the same time?

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He was really good with his feet?

--
Scott Robinson

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Line of the day!

[chris319]

my mother and grandmother threw them out because they thought I was spending too much time indoors

They must have gone to the same school as my mother, whom I will never forgive for throwing out my Allan Sherman records along with a lot of my other personal property (she could at least have waited for my estate sale). I swear, if it weren't for pink slips she'd have sold my old '65 VW bug ("It's time you got a new car, dear").

And heaven forbid a child should spend "too much time" indoors cultivating his mind and learning about culture instead of blowing stuff up like the other kids. And by the way, how much is "too much" time?

[SplitSecond]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Dec 14 2004, 03:06 PM\']I swear, if it weren't for pink slips she'd have sold my old '65 VW bug ("It's time you got a new car, dear").
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(innocently) Why would she base her decision on what you chose to wear?

[ChuckNet]

When my mom noticed at age 6 that I was spending a lot of time recording GS eps (particularly Pitfall reruns, which aired on LI indie station WLIG at that time), she would tape over parts of the eps w/random stuff, basically making them unwatchable...God only knows how many traders I could've made VERY happy w/that stuff, but since it's ancient history, I'll just leave it at that.

Chuck Donegan (The Trying-Not-To-Dwell "Chuckie Baby")

[aaron sica]

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Dec 15 2004, 07:42 PM\']When my mom noticed at age 6 that I was spending a lot of time recording GS eps (particularly Pitfall reruns, which aired on LI indie station WLIG at that time), she would tape over parts of the eps w/random stuff, basically making them unwatchable...God only knows how many traders I could've made VERY happy w/that stuff, but since it's ancient history, I'll just leave it at that.

Chuck Donegan (The Trying-Not-To-Dwell "Chuckie Baby")

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Aha! So now the story of the '70s $25K Pyramid episodes that were erased comes out!! And to think all these years, I'd faulted you for it.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Dec 15 2004, 07:42 PM\']When my mom noticed at age 6 that I was spending a lot of time recording GS eps (particularly Pitfall reruns, which aired on LI indie station WLIG at that time),

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Aren't most of the Cullen Pyramid shows on the trading circuit from that station?

[aaron sica]

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Dec 15 2004, 08:13 PM\'][quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Dec 15 2004, 07:42 PM\']When my mom noticed at age 6 that I was spending a lot of time recording GS eps (particularly Pitfall reruns, which aired on LI indie station WLIG at that time),

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Aren't most of the Cullen Pyramid shows on the trading circuit from that station?

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Some, I believe, are from KCBS-2...