[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'160393\' date=\'Aug 12 2007, 10:57 PM\']
[quote name=\'cweaver\' post=\'160392\' date=\'Aug 12 2007, 08:45 PM\']
(Hollywood) Squares was a format dying to break any man not up to the challenge and Marshall did it for 15 years.
[/quote]
Elaborate? It sounds awfully fannish to say this, so I invite you to sell me.
[/quote]
If we rarely heard a peep from the squares it'd be different, perhaps more like 1 Vs. 100, but Marshall always had the game, the usual TV production stuff (time running out, ad libbing needs, etc.) and the egos and mouths of nine celebrities, to deal with, and still had to make the contestants feel like they mattered. (Not to mention the audience.) He stands out doing this especially well in the audio-only hour long show that's floating around, in his handling of the guy with the funny laugh. My feeling is that personality had a lot to do with what the host needed for that show. Considering this was Peter Marshall's first attempt at hosting a game show, and that he stayed around for 15 years, I would have to believe talent would have a lot to do with it too.
My feeling is that Bert Parks and Jon Bauman showed that trying to make the wrong personality keep all of that together would, at worst, ruin the show and at best, put a serious drag on it. Some people have also made that argument about John Davidson but I never thought he was that bad. And I always felt Davidson and Tom Bergeron were hired, at least partly, because the producers were looking for Peter Marshall "types" or at least, in Bergeron's case, an edgier variation.
What would have happened if Peter Marshall and Bob Barker had swapped places? Perhaps Barker would've excelled on Squares and/or Marshall would've sucked on Price (or perhaps not either way), but I feel history has shown us not just anyone can host either of those shows.
I wouldn't call myself a "fan boy" or anything. Frankly I never really knew what made Peter Marshall special until I saw Parks and Bauman do the job, then watched him again. That was the whole point, he made it look easier than it probably was. I'm not even the first person in this thread to make that claim.
