Closing One Eye Really Fast

 "Wink" is one of those words that you rarely describe. It's so much easier to just demonstrate. Kind of like when someone asks you what a goatee is, the first thing you do is reach for your chin. But, if you have access to any one of the nearly two dozen game shows hosted by Winston Conrad Martindale, you could just show them a clip from that. For the Wink, not for the goatee. 

Young Winston Conrad chose early on in his career as a broadcaster to jam his first and middle name together, hence "Wink." This is how he was known professionally, first as a disc jockey and eventually as a game show host. 

I know what you're thinking: Doesn't he have a more than just mild disdain for game show hosts? 

Well, it's true that certain members of this fraternity have gone on to land squarely on my list of less than favorite people, but there are plenty of exceptions. Alex Trebek would be one of them. Another would be Wink. 

Not everyone knows that Wink began his career as one of the earliest supporters of the music of one Elvis Presley, becoming pals with The King Of Rock And Roll after coercing him into his first radio interview way back in 1956. It was as a DJ that Wink found his calling, sticking with radio off and on for another forty years. 

Somewhere in there, he found his way to the TV studio where he became a fixture hosting game shows of all kinds. Starting in 1964, the briefly billed "Win" Martindale asked contestants "What's This Song?" In living color. In quiet hopes that no one noticed the similarities to that other show where folks were asked to Name That Tune. 

For parts of four decades, Wink could be found somewhere on your TV dial, giving away fabulous prizes, cash, and a home version of whatever game he happened to be running. It was somewhere in his stint with Tic Tac Dough during the early 1980's that I had my degree of separation with Wink reduced to two. My good friend and trivia pal Waldo managed to land a spot as a contestant on Wink's show. He figured himself a sure-fire winner with his arcane knowledge of most everything. He had not accounted for what would happen when the lights came up and the cameras went on. Out stepped Wink. All that acquired wisdom evaporated. 

Waldo lost. But he left with a lovely parting gift: a mini-vacuum which he brought back with the tiniest bit of bravado to the back room of Arby's, where it stayed until someone noticed that we never used a vacuum at Arby's. But for a while, it stayed there as a monument to what might have been. I took the trouble to scribble Wink's "autograph" on the side of it. 

Then it was gone.

Now, so is Wink. He went to the big studio in the sky last week, passing away at the ripe old age of ninety-one. From Elvis to Waldo, Wink stomped across the airwaves. He will be missed.

Aloha, Mister Martindale!