[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'126175\' date=\'Aug 3 2006, 02:12 PM\']
[quote name=\'Don Howard\' post=\'126143\' date=\'Aug 3 2006, 10:17 AM\']
[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'126135\' date=\'Aug 3 2006, 11:01 AM\']
Original Entertainment Tonight co-host Ron Hendren was born today in 1945.[/quote]
Ron was a last minute switch in the third host's seat. Mario Machado was originally to be co-host with the quickly-into-the-run-dismissed Tom Hallick and Marjorie Wallace. In spite of that, TV-8 in Cleveland {where I used to work} continued running promos for ET mentioning the host team of Tom, Marjorie and Mario well after Dixie Whatley replaced Marjorie and only she and Ron were co-hosting.
[/quote]
Let me ask: Why did they replace Dixie with Mary Hart? What had Mary been doing? (Or whom, if that works better.) And did they go from Ron Hendren to Robb Weller, or was someone in between?
[/quote]
By the summer of 1982, Entertainment Tonight and the weekend program Entertainment This Week had different co-hosts. Ron and Dixie hosted ET while Steve Edwards and Mary Hart hosted ETW. By late summer, Mary got the weekday gig and Dixie was moved to weekends to co-host with Steve, later replaced by Alan Arthur.
Alan and Dixie left in 1984 and were replaced by the team of Robb Weller and Leeza Gibbons. Shortly after this new ETW duo hit the air, ET's fourth season was beginning and Ron Hendren demanded a raise, which he was not given. If he was offered an increase, the size of it was not pleasing to Ron. So he walked and Robb began two years of double duty, which ended in 1986 when John Tesh took over the ET co-hosting chores with Mary Hart.
Here's your game show connection: In 1985, Peter Tomarken was supposed to become ETW co-host with Leeza, but a conflict arose when Press Your Luck was trying to grab a syndicated berth, which it did not get.
So Robb stayed put on the weekend show.
This has been my 3030th post. As Blake Emmons has said, "How quickly it happens. Thirty and thirty".
Let's see Dylan Lane come up with quips like that. Dylan probably wouldn't even make a good jingle writer.