Merv

Merv Griffin is dead, another bloated Hollywood corpse has washed up on the beach. Merv’s body will be rendered into fat and reformulated into a special lubricant used to grease palms in the TV business.

I don’t have much reason to blog about my contempt for old farts like Merv, except that it is the only excuse I’ll ever have to tell my Merv anecdote. I once met Merv face to face, and I laugh every time I think about it. Unfortunately, it is a moment in time and nobody ever understands the context anymore. But I figure somebody will get it and laugh.

A long time ago, maybe around the early 1970s, my family went on vacation to Miami to see the Orange Bowl. One morning, my sister I went out of our hotel and found the Orange Bowl Parade was about to start. We were trying to cross the road, we stood right at the corner but it was too late, the parade had started. The parade’s lead car, a big Lincoln convertible, stopped right in front of us, close enough I could stand there and open the door. It had a big sign on the door, “Merv Griffin, Grand Marshall.” I looked up and Merv was right there, close enough to me I could reach out and touch him. So I nudged my sister, and spoke loudly so that Merv would hear me, I know he heard me because he looked right at me, and ooh you should have seen the look on his face. I pointed right at Merv and I said, “hey look it’s Irv Kupcinet!

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