TVSquad

My knowledge of law and patents never got past reruns of L.A. Law, so I have no idea if this guy from New Jersey has a case or not.

The gentleman claims that he approached reps from Merv Griffin's company back in 2001 and pitched them the idea for a game show based on crossword puzzles. He says he even came up with the idea of the game's "twist" where you can take the other person's spot. He also patented the game. Now he has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court that says Merv's company took his idea and made the syndicated game show Merv Griffin's Crosswords (a show that I've tried and tried to get into but haven't been able to - though "Ty Treadway" is one of the great game show names of all-time though).

I remember reading an interview with Griffin where he said that he had been working on the idea for a crossword puzzle game show for years. Griffin, as you know, created Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!

Here's what on the other blogs via the internets.

• Is this a sign that the writers strike is about to end?
• Jaime Weinman has episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati at his site, including this one.
• Chris Matthews tries to explain his comments about Hillary Clinton.
• Here's video of Howard Stern's appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman the other night (here's part 2).
• OMG, there are two Hannah Montanas!
• Another celebrity feud in the making: Roseanne Barr goes after Oprah.
• Some gravestones of the stars. I like Merv Griffin's. [via PopWatch]

Each year in our "Top TV Stories" posts we look back at the number of celebrities and behind the scenes people that have passed away during the year. This is always a hard list to put together, so if I've missed anyone, please let me know in the comments and I'll add them to the list.

This year we also lost someone very close to us.

Merv Griffin
Tom Snyder
Joel Siegel
Anna Nicole Smith
Robert Goulet
Joey Bishop

Gallery: People we lost in 2007

• The secret that everyone already knew.
• Hurricane Dean is coming, and that means the news networks are going crazy.
• Get ready for a ton of "How are Katie Couric and Meredith Vieira doing one year later?" stories (Sept. 5 for Katie, the following week for Meredith).
• Paris Hilton has a new line of children's clothing.
• Here's video of Alex Trebek screwing up on the Jeopardy! set and swearing.
• The art of the TV Mashup.
• Jaime Weinman shows up some of TV's most depressing intros.

The Game Show Network will have a special tribute to Merv Griffin, who died earlier this week of cancer at age 82.

On Saturday and Sunday, August 18 and 19, GSN will run two different Griffin marathons, from 10am to 3pm. The shows included in the marathons will include a Chuck Woolery-hosted episode of Wheel Of Fortune and the first episode that featured Vanna White. We'll also see the first NYC-based episode of Wheel (not sure why this is so special, but I guess I'll wait and see) and a Jeopardy Masters Tournament of Champions. On Sunday night we'll see a 1960 episode of Play Your Hunch, a game show Griffin hosted, and then at 3:30am we'll see a To Tell The Truth episode that Griffin guest hosted.

That's a lot better than their tribute to Kitty Carlisle earlier this year, when they ran her game show appearances in the wee hours of the morning and that was it.

Businessman and talk show host Merv Griffin died last night of prostate cancer. He was 82. Rich had told you the other day, there were rumors floating around that Griffin was very ill and that it didn't look good. Those reports turned out to be true.

Griffin started as a singer in San Francisco and had roles on TV shows and movies, though he went on to greater fame as host of The Merv Griffin Show, the daytime talk show that lasted several years.