First and foremost, Burt Reynolds looks like he’s just flat out miffed about something. Since I didn’t watch whole episode from front to back I don’t know the whole reason why Reynolds was so irritated, but to be honest I didn’t care for Marc Summers when I was a kid, he was just a little too peppy and not all that real, but he seemed to be a nice guy at least. Of course that was when he was on Double Dare and his other shows so seeing him act as kind of a jerk to Reynolds was a bit of a surprise but not at the same time.
But anyway, it really looked like Reynold’s took offense to Summers giving him his back when he came out and started talking to Jay. And why not? If you’re a guest on someone’s show along with someone else you do your best to make certain that you act as though you’re speaking to everyone. It might involve sitting back and looking back and forth between the host and the other guest but it’s polite and helps to engage the other person or people. That could be why talk show sets are arranged so that people actually face each other now or at least have interact in some way. Burt just didn’t look like he was impressed at all when Summers came out and was almost content to look away as Summers got going.
But when Summers, who didn’t seem to regard Reynolds at all at first aside from a handshake, finally did turn his attention back to Burt he was called out on his behavior quickly. When it turned to just who called him a neat freak as he’d already stated happened occasionally he said that his wife did.
And then he dropped the bomb. He told Burt that he was “still married by the way”.
This was a bad, bad move on Summers’ part, and not a very tactful one either. Burt had just divorced from his wife Lonnie back in July of this year, and obviously the split was still smarting since he didn’t hesitate to throw water on Summers almost immediately after. When Summers went to take a drink from his own cup Burt upended that on him too. It might have been immature and petulant, it was, but there are things you just don’t say to someone on live TV, especially when their breakup didn’t really go that well.
For the rest of the show you could tell things were pretty tense. When it came down to actually throwing pies at each other Burt turned around and just slammed the pie into Summers’ face. He did try to make amends throughout the final few minutes but after wiping himself off he left and didn’t come back. You can then see Summers and Leno talking, and it doesn’t look like it’s just shop talk that might go on as the credits roll. Burt seemed genuinely angry.
Not cool Summers.
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