Greatest Hosts of All Time - Results Thread

[cweaver]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'134636\' date=\'Oct 16 2006, 08:00 AM\']
I did have Tom Bergeron and Art Fleming in the lower part of my Top 20.
[/quote]

Me too and I'm shocked Fleming didn't rate higher overall.  I attribute this to 1) not enough younger people having seen him in action on Jeopardy! and 2) our voters wanted to reward versatility.  His days as a balcony/floor announcer on Dr. I. Q. never showed him doing very much and are largely lost to the ages anyway, and even I never got to hear him host College Bowl on CBS Radio in the late 1970s because no affiliates carried it where I lived.  And honestly I can't picture someone like him hosting Beat the Clock or The Price is Right.  But he was really, really, really good at what he actually did, a true class act.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'134636\' date=\'Oct 16 2006, 09:00 AM\']

Bert Convy higher than Jack Barry? Very interesting, indeed.

Neither made my list.  [/quote]
Barry wasn't on my list and Convy was #20, so technically, yeah, I had one above the other.  I liked the earlier comment that Convy was very good in a relaxed, low-stakes environment (like Tattletales).  I don't think Jack Barry was very good in much of anything.  I'm also surprised Art Fleming ranked as high as he did.  Sure, we have fondness for the old original show, and he was certainly enthusiastic about his role, but I always found him to be very awkward.

[uncamark]

Convy may've not had much range, but for the most part, what he was called upon to do he did well.  Barry, on the other hand, owed most of his work to the fact that he was his own employer.

Collyer is like Bert Parks to me--they were OK for their time, but they don't hold up that well today.  For me, "TTTT"'s height was in its syndicated days with Garry Moore--and I even like Moore's work there more than I did "IGAS," because he was more informal and casual on "TTTT"--and like "IGAS," you knew that his rapport with the regular panelists was the same on and off camera.

[Blanquepage]

Yeah, I was gonna say, if he was citing that from Quiz Show and Quiz Show alone, we've already had that discussion some time ago, and repeatedly.
 

I'm citing a PBS Documentary entitled The American Experience: The Quiz Show Scandal.
It explains how James Snodgrass mailed himself the questions and the answers to himself and touches on the aforementioned question on American Poetry.

Edit: I knew I had this lying around somewhere. Excerpt from Primetime and Misdemeanors, a letter Snodgrass sent to himself:

To Whom It May Concern
The following are the questions for the first game on the television quiz program to take place at 9'o clock Monday evening May 20, 1957.....

 According to the plan I am to miss the first question, specifically the lines by Emily Dickinson. I've been told to answer Ralph Waldo Emerson. I have decided not to "take the fall" but to answer the question correctly.

--Jamie

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Fiono Coyne\' post=\'134651\' date=\'Oct 16 2006, 09:51 AM\']
It explains how James Snodgrass mailed himself the questions and the answers to himself and touches on the aforementioned question on American Poetry.
[/quote]
Aha. Probably a somewhat better source.

[Blanquepage]

I'd highly recommend watching that documentary and reading Primetime and Misdemeanors. Very informative indeed.

--Jamie

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'134652\' date=\'Oct 16 2006, 12:56 PM\']
[quote name=\'Jimmy Fiono Coyne\' post=\'134651\' date=\'Oct 16 2006, 09:51 AM\']
It explains how James Snodgrass mailed himself the questions and the answers to himself and touches on the aforementioned question on American Poetry.
[/quote]
Aha. Probably a somewhat better source. [/quote]
Two issues at work, though.  It's well documented that Snodgrass went to those lengths to be able to prove fraud.  It's also likely -- and probably provable --  that he decided not to take the fall and answered that question correctly.

Separate from that is the issue of whether Jack Barry screwed up because he was expecting a wrong answer.  That's the part that was probably Quiz Show invention.  As others have mentioned. conventional wisdom is that Barry wasn't directly involved in the rigging, so he wouldn't have been ready for a particular answer one way or the other.

Unless that episode is available, the specific accusation that Barry screwed up on the live show is NOT provable and is only based on the dramatic movie.

[TimK2003]

I had Convy in my Top 20 as well -- perhaps near #10 (I do not have my list handy, but that's about right).

Sure, Bert had his share of moments on Super Password (i.e. blurting out the answers, etc...), but he played up his faults on the show, which made it more entertaining.  

And out of the bevy of people who hosted the Win, Lose or Draw incarnations, I would have to say that Bert was my favorite -- Miss Vicki a close second.

And Bert was to Tattletales as Gene Rayburn was to Match Game.

Not to mention I like his songs from the days when he sang with The Cheers (I have 2 or 3 of them on CD).

[beatlefreak84]

Unless that episode is available, the specific accusation that Barry screwed up on the live show is NOT provable and is only based on the dramatic movie.

Well, now I have even more reason to go to the revamped Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago...take a look at this episode available in their archives:

"Contestants of this popular quiz show were placed in isolation and earned cash for correctly answering questions asked by host Jack Berry. In this episode, Jack Snodgrass and Hank Bloomgarden return after two weeks due to an error in scoring. Snodgrass would later provide the evidence that proved the game show was fixed by mailing himself copies of the questions and answers provided to him prior to the show."

I have no idea whether this is the episode in question, but if it's not, this may give us some hope that it could exist out there.

Anthony

[Blanquepage]

I have no idea whether this is the episode in question, but if it's not, this may give us some hope that it could exist out there.

This episode is actually in private collections. While I don't have it myself, I don't believe there's any trace of such an incident in this particular episode.

--Jamie

[Eric Paddon]

The full transcript of that broadcast can be found in Kent Anderson's 1978 book on the scandal and indeed, Barry did not have that kind of dramatic reaction to Snodgrass answering "Emily Dickinson".    That was just one of many frauds concocted by Robert Redford for the movie that ultimately was as guilty of the same thing that the original quiz rigging was guilty of, i.e. giving undeserved fame and credit to someone to elevate his stature (in this case, with Richard Goodwin, a man who was a trivial bit player in the original investigation getting credit for the work that was done by Joseph Stone and the New York D.A.'s office, and I suspect the reason for this had much to do with partisan politics since Goodwin has long had a reputation as an icon to 60s radicals).

[Blanquepage]

According to Primetime and Misdemeanors, Snodgrass was ruled incorrect by answering "sacrum" instead of "sacral."
Bloomgarten, however, was ruled correct by answering "coccyx" instead of "coccygeal," thereby winning the game.
Doctors and nurses protested and they were given a rematch. Only this time, Snodgrass wasn't given the answers and he lost.
 
It's a safe bet that Redford decided to get creative on the Emerson / Dickinson response.

--Jamie

[davemackey]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'134636\' date=\'Oct 16 2006, 09:00 AM\']

Bert Convy higher than Jack Barry? Very interesting, indeed.

Neither made my list.  Not that I didn't like them, it's just that I found 20 others I thought were better.  While I liked Jack's shows, he didn't seem to be that good at ad-libbing.  One incident that comes to mind is when he was promoting the new CBS shows in March 1973 - Hollywood's Talking and $10,000 Pyramid - his explanations of the new shows just looked awkward.[/quote]

Which is a little weird because Jack Barry produced "Hollywood's Talking". And he didn't even know what the hell it was about!

[JasonA1]

If you've ever seen Jack Barry ad-lib, you'd be shocked if he could ad-lib his own name. He obviously explained "Break the Bank" without cue cards, because that was akin to what I remember of his plug for "Hollywood's Talking." He and Monty Hall are two people who really needed the net of a game going on at all times.

-Jason

[wheelloon]

I personally didn't think Barry was a particularly bad host, but he didn't make my Top 20 probably partly because of the scandals, and I just felt there were 20 other hosts that had more of an impact on me than Barry did...

Convy was number 17 on mine, I wish he would've been able to host MG90. WLoD, SP, and TT were great shows, and rarely have I seen an episode of any of the three where I wasn't laughing at him at one point. He's fun to watch, and it probably was a riot to be a contestant on one of his shows, with the crazy things that sometimes happened on them (calling Rip Taylor!).