Make Me Laugh (1979-80) - Frank Zappa appears in another unlikely scenario on this game show hosted by Bobby Van. Van was a regular face on 1970s television, showing up on programs like The Match Game, The Merv Griffin Show, CHiPs, Wonder Woman and that other show with a ridiculous Frank Zappa appearance, Dance Fever. Make Me Laugh regularly featured 1970s comedy icon Avery Schreiber, and 1980s comedy icon Gallagher, trying to make the contestant crack a smile (surely they could've found somebody more qualified for that job than Gallagher). It was a short-lived attempt to revamp a 1958 game show of the same name, previously hosted by Arthur Q. Bryan, the voice of Elmer Fudd.
Password Plus (1979-1982) - George Peppard is famous to one generation for Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and to another generation for The A-Team. He was also known for being testy. Case and point, appearing as a celebrity contestant, he chastises the network executives of Password Plus for what he feels to be their ridiculous and overbearing methods - while host Allen Ludden does his best to keep the show from going out of control in this 1979 episode. Ludden was the ultimate television square, awkward and obtuse, but also professional. His star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame lies next to his wife of twenty years, Betty White (It's also next to Gary Owens' star).
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President Bush invoked executive privilege Monday to deny requests by Congress for testimony from two former aides about the firings of federal prosecutors.
The White House, however, did offer again to make former counsel Harriet Miers and one-time political director Sara Taylor available for private, off-the-record interviews.
Such efforts may help raise money and win elections, but the chance that they will actually change the court, in the near or medium term, is remote. Even if the Democrats win the White House and hold the Senate, the court’s demographics are likely to trump politics. The average age of the four more liberal justices is 74; the five conservatives average a youthful (for federal judges) 61, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. the youngest at 52.
Confronting that reality, some liberal legal scholars suggest that beyond political tactics, what the left urgently needs is a long-term strategy built around an affirmative message of what the Constitution means and what the enterprise of constitutional interpretation should be about.