Goodbye Richard Dawson

Richard Dawson, 1932-2012

Richard Dawson died today.  When I was a kid, while others kids watched Sesame Street or Romper Room, I watched Hogan's Heroes.  I ate it up, and that led to my Dad concluding that I wanted all things WWII.  It didn't hurt that my family had several who had served in that war.  From there, my Dad bought me, in third grade, a World War II coffee table book. After that, I fell in love with history and never looked back.

Child of the 70s and 80s that I was, Mr. Dawson's second incarnation as TV game show host helped me rediscover that bizarre charm that worked so well in that decade that taste forgot.  At the same time that The Dukes of Hazzard and Donnie and Marie held prime time slots, and Mork and Mindy and Dallas would make their debuts, Family Feud was a routine stop.  I remember sitting in the little family room made from an old bedroom, TV tray before me, watching Dawson laugh at the absurd answers given under pressure of the clock, such as naming a watermelon as a fruit found in a fruit bowel.

My favorite moment?  I can still remember the category: commands you give to a dog.  One of the contestants stumbled, then said, "Out!"  Dawson laughed, along with the audience.  As he turned around in his usual slick way to point to the board, he chuckled and repeated the line from Macbeth: "Out! Out! damned spot!"  Laughing as he did it.  A game show host with a British accent dropping an impromptu Shakespearean reference off the cuff in response to a middle class American's stumble - that was class.  Thanks for the laughs Mr. Dawson, and may the perpetual light shine upon you.