Maybe its just because I was a kid when I saw him on game shows and reruns, and I didn't know any better, but I was shocked Charles Nelson Reilly was only 76. I thought he was much older.

RIP.

Pre-baseball, pre-rock and roll, I used to listen incessantly to Broadway musical albums. Like, when I was 6 or 7. Charles Nelson Reilly's appearances on two of them, "How to Succeed in Business" and "Hello Dolly" struck me as really funny. I only knew what he looked like from the little photos on the cast albums, where he was usually only in ensemble shots, and I had to count the names l-r to figure out which one he was. Reilly was in my childhood pantheon of great comic performers, along with Bob Denver, Tim Conway, Frank Fontaine, the Three Stooges and Topo Gigio.

But on "Celebrity Match Game," he annoyed me no end. I used to watch the old Match Game, before it went Hollywood, and I like the game part, not the insider banter.

RIP