Good hosts that didn't fit their shows

[alfonzos]

I think Wink helped develop The Great Getaway Game so he may have felt compelled to host it.

[TimK2003]

[quote name=\'Winkfan\' post=\'249181\' date=\'Oct 14 2010, 12:52 PM\']The biggest waste of talent was, is, and always will be, Jim Peck on Divorce Court.[/quote]

And the prequel:  "3's A Crowd".

[Jimmy Owen]

[quote name=\'alfonzos\' post=\'249184\' date=\'Oct 14 2010, 03:30 PM\']I think Wink helped develop The Great Getaway Game so he may have felt compelled to host it.[/quote]
I saw it.  It was awful.

[Twentington]

[quote name=\'MrBuddwing\' post=\'249172\' date=\'Oct 14 2010, 11:37 AM\']Dick Clark was The Man as host of "Pyramid," but it was painful to see him struggle on "The Challengers." Obviously, he never really got the hang of that game, and ended up with onscreen help from that fellow known as "The Judge."[/quote]

Didn't he do the same thing on Pyramid, though?

*ding*

[BillCullen1]

Adding to the list:

Bill Cullen hosting The Love Experts
Peter Tomarken hosting Bargain Hunters
Peter Marshall hosting Yahtzee
Monty Hall hosting Split Second

All of these seemed like odd fits to me.

[Neumms]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'249179\' date=\'Oct 14 2010, 12:25 PM\'][quote name=\'MrBuddwing\' post=\'249172\' date=\'Oct 14 2010, 08:37 AM\']Dick Clark was The Man as host of "Pyramid," but it was painful to see him struggle on "The Challengers." Obviously, he never really got the hang of that game, and ended up with onscreen help from that fellow known as "The Judge."[/quote]
Really?
[/quote]

I think he had the hang of it, it just wasn't his cup of tea. Dick is wasted standing there reading stuff, and he's not one to coax personality out of contestants, especially bookishly boring ones. On Pyramid, even as uncelebrated as they could be, the celebrities helped. But maybe it's the show. I'd have liked it a lot more if it stayed closer to the original Who What or Where Game and farther from Jeopardy.

Geoff Edwards on Starcade, perhaps? It was painful to watch him rap with the young people, not that anybody else could have made it better.

[whewfan]

The judge (Gary Johnson, now works on Jeopardy!) I feel, added some humor to the show, and also, when I first saw The Challengers, the first thing that came to my mind was "this is a little too much like Jeopardy!" I think having an onstage judge that was sort of a sidekick gave The Challengers its own identity.

[BillCullen1]

[quote name=\'whewfan\' post=\'249231\' date=\'Oct 15 2010, 05:27 AM\']The judge (Gary Johnson, now works on Jeopardy!) I feel, added some humor to the show, and also, when I first saw The Challengers, the first thing that came to my mind was "this is a little too much like Jeopardy!" I think having an onstage judge that was sort of a sidekick gave The Challengers its own identity.[/quote]

Wasn't he also the judge on TJW with Bill Cullen? His voice sounded familiar.

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'249234\' date=\'Oct 15 2010, 07:44 AM\'][quote name=\'whewfan\' post=\'249231\' date=\'Oct 15 2010, 05:27 AM\']The judge (Gary Johnson, now works on Jeopardy!) I feel, added some humor to the show, and also, when I first saw The Challengers, the first thing that came to my mind was "this is a little too much like Jeopardy!" I think having an onstage judge that was sort of a sidekick gave The Challengers its own identity.[/quote]

Wasn't he also the judge on TJW with Bill Cullen? His voice sounded familiar.
[/quote]
Not sure, but I doubt it.  Gary Johnson was producing and co-writing SCRABBLE by the time Cullen took over on TJW (and Johnson had worked on $otC before that).  I wouldn't think he'd work for both Grundy and Barry/Enright at the same time.

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'Twentington\' post=\'249121\' date=\'Oct 13 2010, 08:11 PM\']The example I've heard tossed around here most is Bill Cullen on TJW. Granted, most of his shows were meant to fit his more methodical mannerisms (lovely alliteration there), but TJW just didn't seem TJW with him as host.[/quote] I'm sorry, you must have misunderstood your question.


[quote name=\'TheLastResort\' post=\'249147\' date=\'Oct 14 2010, 03:55 AM\']I beg to differ.  Card Sharks had an extremely weak format and needed all the help it could get.  I think Eubanks did a great job given what he had to work with.[/quote]If you coax someone to play the Money Cards, but for no money, they're gonna roll their eyes. Tell somebody that they're playing for Real Cash Money, and that can amount to $32,000; you'll get a different reaction.

Is the game any great shakes? Not really. It isn't that hard to calculate whether the next card should be higher or lower than the last, but the vagaries of the odds, and the questions, and the unpredictability makes it a great show. If you take any of the gold standard game shows, and you just say "Who would want to watch people playing Hangman?" or "Who wants to watch people recalling factoids?" then you're not getting it. The reason that the show makes it is because your viewer gets pulled into the proceedings, and takes an interest. Everybody has handled playing cards and knows the ranks of 'em, and unless you live under a rock, you've interacted with the American public. Relatability for the win.

[quote name=\'whewfan\' post=\'249152\' date=\'Oct 14 2010, 04:54 AM\']Obviously it's debatable if John could be classified as a GOOD host... I felt he handled HS well, at least for the first two seasons.[/quote]"Circle gets the...wait, no, we can't give you that."

(After every single flipping Secret Square win.) "Pack your bags."

Your witness.

[whewfan]

I think "pack your bags" was just a host/show catchphrase and nothing more.

I've read that John sometimes got confused and they had to stop tape. Although it's understandable, they stopped tape for about 10 minutes after the April Fools gag. John was very concerned about the guy that was pushed off the stage and didn't get it right away that he was a stuntman.

On a related note, I recall John Davidson's son, John Davidson Jr. guest hosted HS on at least 2 occasions. I recall he did a good job, but does anyone else have those shows on tape?

I also saw a Bergeron HS and once at the start of the show he got into a brief chat with one of the celebs and forgot where he was. Someone off camera told him he had to introduce the contestants. However, that only happened ONCE, so I guess Tom forgot if the contestants were introduced or not.

[whewfan]

[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'249220\' date=\'Oct 14 2010, 11:07 PM\']Adding to the list:

Bill Cullen hosting The Love Experts
Peter Tomarken hosting Bargain Hunters
Peter Marshall hosting Yahtzee
Monty Hall hosting Split Second

I don't think Bill did a BAD job with Love Experts, just that it was hard to tell whether Love Experts was a talk show or a game show... not much of a game and the talk portion was hit or miss.

I think Peter Tomarken at least TRIED to make something out of Bargain Hunters. The home shopping element was a joke. The game itself was more or less "wash, rinse, repeat", it didn't have the potential for each show to be different like TPIR, the show Bargain Hunters was trying to imitate to some extent.

Peter Marshall PRODUCED Yahtzee, so his handling of the game could've been MUCH better. The show had at least two major weaknesses... the questions they asked were sometimes had too many possible answers to get a lot of matches, and also with the "wild" sides on each of the Yahtzee dice, rolling a Yahtzee was a lot easier, so there were a fair number of Yahtzee wins... which may be why the show went bankrupt. I think if they wanted to save money, don't use the wild dice in the bonus game, only in the main game.

I think Monty did fine with Split Second, but to paraphrase Mondale, "he's no Kennedy." One thing the game lacked was the occasional break from the 3 answer format with the memory quiz (I think that's what they called it) where Tom read a long list of answers and only 3 of them applied to the question asked.




All of these seemed like odd fits to me.[/quote]

[TheLastResort]

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'249287\' date=\'Oct 16 2010, 02:14 AM\']It isn't that hard to calculate whether the next card should be higher or lower than the last, but the vagaries of the odds, and the questions, and the unpredictability makes it a great show.[/quote]

Well I think we agree that the "game" part of Card Sharks is weak, but the "show" part is more palatable (though I wouldn't call it great).  Some people are content watching a good show with a weak game (see:  DOND), but I need a little more than that to hold my interest.

[mmb5]

[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'249220\' date=\'Oct 14 2010, 11:07 PM\']Adding to the list:
I think Monty did fine with Split Second, but to paraphrase Mondale Lloyd Bentsen, "he's no Kennedy." One thing the game lacked was the occasional break from the 3 answer format with the memory quiz (I think that's what they called it) where Tom read a long list of answers and only 3 of them applied to the question asked.[/quote]

[whewfan]

Note to self... double check whomever said certain quotes before making myself look like a fool!