Tough Hosting Jobs

[calliaume]

Late to the thread, but...

 

To Tell the Truth doesn\'t appear difficult to me.  Unlike the other two panel shows, the host has no need to step in and say, \"Well, generally yes, but in this situation...\"  Whatever the imposters and the central subject say goes.  So what\'s left?  Reading the affadavit, and maybe asking a question or two afterward if there\'s time.  Look at the Collyer episodes, where that didn\'t even happen for the most part.

 

LMaD is likely a very hard show to do, and the original version was made easier since the cast worked together for so long.  (We really haven\'t seen much from the first few years, right?)  Monty would give a lot of credit in interviews to Carol Merrill, who was so good at knowing where to be on the stage that the camera guys naturally followed her around.

 

The Newlywed Game looked easy when Eubanks hosted it.  It was painful to watch Jim Lange host (he just didn\'t have the ability to draw out the contestants).

 

Split Second must have been very difficult to do.

[chris319]

 

I wasn\'t sure if he was briefed before the show on all possibilities, or just briefed after a box was chosen

It would have been a waste of everyone\'s time and unnecessarily taxed Geoff\'s metal faculties to memorize the contents of the unpicked boxes, given that they probably taped five shows per day.

 

Running the mechanics of a game is a separate undertaking from being Richard Dawson or Gene Rayburn. I\'ve seen enough run-throughs of shows with other than the on-air emcee to know this, including a run-through of a game they weren\'t sure if they were going to call \"Blankety Blanks\" or \"Match Game\" which was emceed by Mark Goodson and had a panel of six celebrities filling in blanks in questions. In the run-through all of the celebs were sober.

[toetyper]

*cough*Cashcab*cough*

[clemon79]

*cough*Cashcab*cough*

Speaking of, the other night I watched Ben Bailey: Road Rage on Netflix. Freakin\' funny as hell and there\'s a couple good Cash Cab-related bits in there. Highly recommended.

[TLEberle]

In the meantime toetyper\'s feet could use a Halls drop.

[fthrmulcahy]

I haven\'t posted much but I\'ll throw my two cents in (great topic, by the way)...

 

I\'ll give a shout out to this for Jim Perry\'s job on $ale of the Century...many hosts are great at reading questions, such as Alex Trebek, but I couldn\'t imagine him hosting The Price Is Right.  On the same note, I\'ve watched TPIR for 30 years but can\'t picture Bob Barker, who might be the ultimate \"gamesmaster\", for lack of a better term, reading questions on Jeopardy!.

 

That said, I loved watching $ale, and one of the main reasons was Jim Perry.  I greatly admired his ability to transition from being IMHO nearly every bit as good as Trebek reading questions to almost every bit as entertaining as Barker in the sale segments.

 

I don\'t know if that makes $ale the toughest job, but it certainly requires two very different skill sets when most hosts have mastered one or the other. 

[Jay Temple]

Indeed, there are probably more hosting jobs that are tough because of a combination of skills required than jobs that are tough because you have to be really, really good at one thing.