Originally published at: That time Steve Martin was a contestant on the Dating Game | Boing Boing
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I see and raise:
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There are a lot of these. Apparently it’s a common strategy for aspiring actors to get noticed.
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“Reality” shows now serve that purpose for actors and other attetion seekers (as well as for fitness trainers and young real estate brokers).
Then there’s this predator, known as “The Dating Game Killer” because he once appeared on the show.
In 1978, Alcala was a contestant on the popular game show The Dating Game . Host Jim Lange introduced him as a “successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the darkroom at the age of 13, fully developed. Between takes you might find him skydiving or motorcycling.”
A fellow “bachelor” contestant later described Alcala as a “very strange guy” with “bizarre opinions”.[10] Alcala won the competition, and a date with bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw, who subsequently refused to go out with him because she found him “creepy”.[6][10] Criminal profiler Pat Brown, noting that Alcala killed at least three women after his Dating Game appearance, speculated that this rejection might have been an exacerbating factor. “One wonders what that did in his mind”, Brown said. “That is something he would not take too well. [Serial killers] don’t understand the rejection. They think that something is wrong with that girl: ‘She played me. She played hard to get.’”[10]
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He called them “cool and capable swingers”. Oh how I miss you innocent 1970s.
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Harlan Ellison was a contestant, too. His description of it is wild. (If you haven’t read “The Glass Teat” and “The Other Glass Teat,” hie thee hence to do so.
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Isn’t that Richard Dawson in the other couple at the end of the show? They sometimes used celebrity contestants - was he already known back then?
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Richard Dawson was on The Dating Game several times, and the show started about the same time Hogan’s Heroes did, so he couldn’t have been completely unknown. Don’t ask me why I know that, I honestly have no idea.
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How does one become a Dating Game chaperone?
I’ve always wanted to work at a magic shop in Disneyland. Never wanted to be on The Dating Game even though I watched enough of it. I think my book on Three Card Monte came from a Disney World magic shop.
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