Post #325555 by The Gnomon on Tue, Aug 14, 2007 9:09 AM

Merv was a great guy. I met him on a couple of occasions. He was an acquaintance of my mom. My mom was friends with Merv's ex, Juleann, who actually (according to Mom) invented the answer-question game that became Jeopardy. Juleann and Merv would often play word games and such on long flights. One time they were flying back to the East Coast from Cali and, to change things up, Juleann decided to come up with answers while Merv had to figure out what the questions to them were. They enjoyed that game and Merv turned it into a TV game show.

The first time I met Merv was on the set of his daytime game show in the early 60's called Play Your Hunch (broadcast from studios in NYC). That was the show where a panel of celebrities had to guess which of three people was the real "interesting person" being spotlighted. The panel asked questions of the real person and the two impostors, then had to guess who they thought was the real one. That was the show where the phrase, "Will the real Whoever The Guest Was please stand up!" For drama, the impostors were supposed to act like they were about to stand up, but then the real person would stand then everyone would applaud and cheer. If the three stumped the panel then the contestants/impostors won prizes. When I was 11 my mom volunteered me to be an imposter on his show. We three kids didn't stump the panel, but it was fun being on the show and meeting Merv.

The other time I met him was at his house/horse farm in NJ. Juleann had invited my mom and me to spend the weekend with her at the farm. Juleann made THE best grape preserves I ever had with Concord grapes from their little vineyard about 50' away from the kitchen. I spent most of that semi-drizzling weekend out in the pastures wandering around with Merv's quarter horses from one meadow to the next. Merv was apparently not around much at all, so I guess that marriage was possibly on the rocks at that time. Juleann isn't even mentioned in any of Merv's readily available biographies. It's hard for me to think of Merv with any kind of animosity. Oh, well. Anyway, he did show up that Sunday and spent most of his time with his son (Nick, if I recall his name correctly). It was good seeing him again and fun hanging out in his home and with his horses.

Among all the luminaries of entertainment enterprises, I believe Merv was known to be one of the most personable.