Is this what I've come to?

I had a scary experience, nearly an epiphany, with the TV Guide crossword. I am something of a devotee of the magazine; I’ve been a subscriber on & off for about 20 years – and by the way, I’m still recovering from the shock of the revamped version. After a lot of years when they always seemed to be looking for excuses not to write about TV, suddenly with the new format comes a renewed focus. Who would have ever guessed that the articles in TV Guide would be about TV shows?

In any case, however, the crossword page has always been my second-least favorite page, behind the hard-hitting journalism and indispensable information of the horoscope page. They’ve regained my attention lately by adding a Sudoku puzzle, which I love, but the TV Guide crossword puzzle over the years has mostly been only good for insults. As in, “You’re too stupid to finish the TV Guide crossword.”

The other night I finished the Sudoku and glanced at the crossword. With clues like “1 – First three letters”, I didn’t figure it would take too long (What, they couldn’t at least base the clue on the TV network of the same name?). And there were definitely some clues of the caliber that have made the puzzle famous… for example, “Leave ___ Beaver (two words)”.

But there were several other clues that were fairly obscure, but that I knew anyway. Kinda made me wonder if there’s such thing as a brain tumor that forces you to remember esoteric TV trivia. That has to be the most logical explanation, right?

Here are some of the clues I got right off, and for which I’m vaguely ashamed (answers below):

1. Ray of Married People
2. Rosalind of AfterMash
3. Shera of Ace Crawford, Private Eye
4. Jethro’s sister on The Beverly Hillbillies
5. Janitor on Night Court
6. Kathy of The Real McCoys
7. John of MacGruder and Loud

I’m pretty sure the most recent of these shows went off the air in 1991. The oldest was cancelled when I was 18 months old. And while I watched all these shows at least once (with the exception, I’m proud to say, of the rollicking Tim Conway vehicle Ace Crawford), I’m certainly not a fanatic for any of them. Nor is anyone else, I don’t believe.

I do have to confess that I’m very fond of a book called “The Complete Directory to Prime-Time and Cable TV Shows, 1946-present”. I own the 8th Edition, after having several others, and I really am capable of reading it like a novel, from ABC Barn Dance (1949) to Zorro and Son (1983). And I have a decent memory for trivia, which at one time made me the scourge of our peers with regard to Trivial Pursuit. But I swear, I haven’t read the book in at least months, maybe a year!

Before I continue, the answers to above, which I do hereby affirm and attest came completely out of my brain without the aid of the book:

1. Aranha
2. Chao
3. Danese
4. Jethrine
5. Art
6. Nolan
7. Getz (OK, I didn’t remember that one till I had a couple letters filled in. But seriously, whoever heard of John Getz?)

So it’s clear to me that there are only two possible courses of action (Note: I have already considered, and discarded, the option of “turning off the television and having a life”): Either I check into the local hospital for an immediate CAT scan in search of that tumor, or I go online and see if I can find the complete DVD collection of MacGruder and Loud.