TOD:
I always enjoyed Merv Griffin when he would take a recently popular song and MERVify it. I can't find it, but I remember Merv warbling "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" to Jack Sheldon's horn and the Mort Lindsay Orchestra.
I also remember Merv "Mervifying" the Bobby Goldsboro hit "The Straight Life" (Sonny Curtis) as a duet with Jack Sheldon, who I later learned was a good friend of Jack Webb, which explains his numerous appearances on MARK VII (Webb Prods.) programs. Even later, I would often think back with the allegations or alle"gay"tions about Merv's proclivities, and thought that Merv singing this song was a kind of in-joke or perhaps a "try-and-catch me" moment of lounge-singing defiance.
My grandfather was an avid Merv watcher, so I would watch with him. My favorite guest was Orson Welles who would magically make broken timepieces work again just by us placing the item on the TV set. I couldn't figure out how he did that (now I think I know).
I also remember that Merv was the first show I saw John Williams on right before "Star Wars" began its initial release. If I remember correctly, there was an orchestra on that may have just been Mort Lindsay's augmented, or the actual L.A. Phil, but whoever it was, they did play something from the score. Merv, in his gushing sort of way, was throwing accolades all over the place, how you John Williams brought the movies back to the scores of Korngold and Steiner. This I found quite unusual for a talk show as it seemed to me to be rather "in the weeds" for a mainstream audience. I wrote down the details and thus started me on my love of soundtracks (original scores only please).
That, and the contemporaneous PBS series, "Previn and the Pittsburgh" which has its detractors for Previn's unhidden prickliness and disdain for some composers, I was later to find this out. But where else on standard TV could you see Rozsa and some of the old guard of movie composers actually conduct their music?
I can think of many other fond memories of Merv's show. It was cheap in comparison to Johnny's, but no less entertaining, if only sometimes for Merv's overly enthusiastic build-ups and his silk jacket linings with very mod-1970s patterns. I think he did leave the straight life behind.
And, of course, the devastatingly funny Rick Moranis parodies of Merv (and Cavett also) on SCTV!
