Watchdog

This might be difficult for anyone under 45 to believe, but in the summer of 1972, chess was flat-out cool.

No, really. It was as big as poker in the early 2000s among young people, especially boys.

The obvious impetus was the championship match in Iceland between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky.

But the real clincher was Shelby Lyman's quirky, creative recreations of the event on public TV.

I'm sure they would look comically archaic today.

Heck, they looked comically archaic THEN!.