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OBITUARY: Art Linkletter, 97

oldiesfan6479 said:
Here is the El Lay Times link, which is an AP story:
Click to expand...

Now that you mention it . . . the same AP obit turned up in Yahoo! News. I clicked on the links, though, and they compute.

But another legend bites the dust . . .
 
Sorry to see him go. I was hoping he'd make it to 100. He was a great broadcaster. An inspiration to all broadcasters.
 
Saw him in person at a Youth For Christ banquet nearly 10 years ago. He was close to 90 then, but still looked and sounded good, and gave a wonderful talk. Do you realize that he and Tony Gwynn are the most famous San Diego State basketball players of all time?
 
I was sorry to learn of his passing today. I always thought it was interesting that Linkletter had two well-known shows on different networks during some of the same years. "House Party" was on both CBS TV & Radio from the 1940's into the 1970's and "People Are Funny" was on NBC TV & Radio from the late 1940's to the early 1960's.
 
Cincinnati Kid said:
I was sorry to learn of his passing today. I always thought it was interesting that Linkletter had two well-known shows on different networks during some of the same years. "House Party" was on both CBS TV & Radio from the 1940's into the 1970's and "People Are Funny" was on NBC TV & Radio from the late 1940's to the early 1960's.
Click to expand...

Actually, by 1968 House Party had become The Linkletter Show (effective Nov. 18), and lasted until 1969. That fall, Linkletter and son Jack started a daytime talk show on NBC, Life With Linkletter, but that only ran to 1970.
 
He was also an occasional guest with classic clips on Bill Cosby's version of Kids Say the Darndest Things about 10 years ago.

A few years back I was flipping through the dial and noticed he was on TBN (Not something I normally watch, but I stopped at it when I saw who it was.) He was in his 90's by that time and appeared to still be in good health and his mind was still good. I would have liked to see him make it to 100 as well.
 
A wonderful, wonderful man he was. He's in a better place now. :)

cd
 
Lest we forget that Art was the guy who helped popularise Milton Bradley's "The Game of Life" back in 1960 -- he was on the box cover of that game through the early-1970s, and his face was on the $100,000 bill through the early-1990s, at least (and on the current bookshelf "nostalgia" series).
 
azumanga said:
Lest we forget that Art was the guy who helped popularise Milton Bradley's "The Game of Life" back in 1960 -- he was on the box cover of that game through the early-1970s, and his face was on the $100,000 bill through the early-1990s, at least (and on the current bookshelf "nostalgia" series).
Click to expand...

he's responsible for the 'HOOLA HOOP', and the start of those "Mini-Storage" places that both were started in the late 50's.
i saw him on the larry king show a couple of years ago. at 95 he looked younger than larry!.. he had some great stories to tell, very entertaining, Great Broadcaster.
 
His "Kids" segments from House Party in the early 1950's were edited into 15 minute syndicated programs by the late 1950's. Some of these are on budget game show DVD compilations available in recent years..
 
His "Kids" segments were funny because he had not just a great rapport with the kids, but knew how to draw out the funniest responses. He once said that he would tell teachers, "I don't want your scholars and best-behaved students -- send me the kids that you'll be glad to be rid of for a day," because he knew that they would be less inhibited and more likely to blurt out whatever's on their minds. Then he would often ask them leading questions -- one of his favorites was "Is there anything your Mom and Dad told you not to talk about today?" ;)

Part of the charm of those segments was based on the relative innocence of kids in that era. Sometimes they would say things that were outrageous and even a little risque, but the humor lay in the fact that they didn't know what they were saying. He was on Tom Snyder's show some years back and related one of his favorites. He asked one little boy what kind of animal he'd like to be, and without hesitation the kid responded, "an octopus." Linkletter asked him why, and he said, "because the other kids always pick on me, and if I was an octopus, I could beat them up with all eight of my testicles." :D

The attempt at reviving the concept with Bill Cosby fell flat, in spite of Cosby's rapport with children, because, one, Cosby for all his talents was not Linkletter, and lacked that playfully manipulative spirit. And, two, by the time of the revival, kids had lost that innocence, and were much more savvy and aware and consciously "performing" for their TV appearance. (And some of them may well have been coached and even fed potential quips by "stage mothers.")
 
Stanislav said:
The attempt at reviving the concept with Bill Cosby fell flat, in spite of Cosby's rapport with children, because, one, Cosby for all his talents was not Linkletter, and lacked that playfully manipulative spirit. And, two, by the time of the revival, kids had lost that innocence, and were much more savvy and aware and consciously "performing" for their TV appearance. (And some of them may well have been coached and even fed potential quips by "stage mothers.")
Click to expand...

In addition, the Cosby version included a classic segment introduced by Art -- with that element, the difference between the two versions is like apples and oranges.
 
He also gave us RC Cola and Diet Rite Cola.

Is the latter still around? I know RC is.

There was an attempt at a revival of People Are Funny that starred Flip Wilson, but that bombed.
 
Art also made the Jolly Green Giant famous, and I'll always
associate him with Pillsbury.

BTW, we've overlooked a couple of short-lived shows he
hosted: "Life With Linkletter" (not the show he and Jack co-
hosted in the 1969-70 season, but rather a primetime version
of "House Party" which aired on ABC in the early '50s) and "The
Art Linkletter Show," a midseason replacement on NBC Monday
nights in 1963. Sort of a cross between "People Are Funny" and
"Candid Camera," it had a celebrity panel consisting of Jayne Meadows,
Carl Reiner, and a guest predicting the outcome of prefilmed situations.
It also featured the "Linkletter Players": Ken Berry, Buck Henry, Carol
Merrill (before her long stint on "Let's Make A Deal"), Arte Johnson, and
Richard Dawson.
 
My former dentist (from when I lived in PA 25+ years ago) looked a little like Art Linkletter.

Whenever my paternal grandparents babysat me (in the late '60s), they had Art on everyday.* Seeing the Kids Say pics on another site and that cartoon-spangled backdrop brought back memories. I also played The Game of Life as a kid and remember Art's smiling overbite on the box and the $100,000 bill.

IIRC a WB 'toon lampooned Linkletter as "Art Lamplighter". :)

*My grandparents were from Ukraine and never really mastered English. That didn't stop them from being avid watchers of Linkletter, soaps, The Newlywed Game and The Dating Game although I doubt that they understood a word. :) (My maternal grandparents were both dead by the time I was born. :( )

ixnay
 
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