I'd Like To Buy A Vowel

This entertainer got his start as a vocalist for KFRC radio in San Francisco in the 1940's.
"Who is Merv Griffin?"
The news of Merv Griffin's passing came as little shock to me, since I was aware that he had been ailing for some time. I wasn't exactly on the mailing list, but I knew that a man of eighty-two years would have a hard time beating prostate cancer. He had a full life, full of show-biz intrigue and excitement, but he will be missed.
To tell the truth, I used to have a hard time keeping Merv Griffin separate in my head from Mike Douglas. They were both very earnest talk show hosts who leaned in when their guests were on a roll. When I was home sick from school as a kid I knew that there would be two hours of chat generated from sets made primarily from man made materials. Long before I had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly, I kept up with the happenings in Hollywood via Mike and Merv.
It wasn't until high school, when I started watching SCTV, that Rick Moranis gave me an insight into what made Merv so unique. The impression was like a cross between Floyd the Barber and Perry Como, and it had the effect of relaxing a viewer so completely that it was hard to look away. Merv was the king, and Mike was just a pretender.
Then there's the game show legacy. Whether he actually concocted both "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy" straight out of his own head is a topic for future generations to discuss, but the fact that he made them both available as an hour long block of viewing is a landmark achievement in broadcasting. In a sixty minute span, you can move from feeling like the best Hangman player in the world to being the dumb kid on the College Bowl stage. All of his real estate dealings and friendship with the Reagans pales by comparison. Merv was the guy who tested the limits of the public, high and low.