J! Guest Host news...

[BrandonFG]

Joe Buck but not Dan Patrick?  Makes ZERO sense.

Jim Nantz would be a far better pick for J! than Joe Buck.

A game unlike any other...

[tpirfan28]

This is a disgusting act by the Jeopardy crew. /s...?

Somewhere I saw the season is running to 8/13, so several more guests to the end of the season.

Joe Buck but not Dan Patrick?  Makes ZERO sense.

Jim Nantz would be a far better pick for J! than Joe Buck.

Could Tony Romo predict the correct responses before they are given?

[colonial]

Given his comments in the SI article on Sports J!, I'm guessing Patrick would prefer doing Sports J again on his terms instead of "classic" J! He also didn't seem too thrilled about traveling to California to host, and would prefer something closer to his CT home.

(Patrick may also simply not want to be a full-time "generalist" game show host. IIRC, he declined a TPIR audition and was offered, but turned down, the GSN "Chase" host job.)

[weaklink75]

The last set of guest hosts have been officially announced...

-Robin Roberts
-George Stephanopoulos
-David Faber
-Joe Buck
-LeVar Burton

[snowpeck]

And dates for all of the rest of the hosts. Some (including LeVar Burton) are only getting one week instead of two. The season ends on August 13th.

Full list: https://www.jeopardy.com/jbuzz/news-events/jeopardy-guest-host-schedule

[Jimmy Owen]

Fan service.

[calliaume]

Dick Gautier did a year hosting It's Your Bet after Hal March died. That show had a very confusing host history, due to March being diagnosed with lung cancer a few months into the run. I believe it went from March to Tom Kennedy, to Gautier, then back to Kennedy, and finally to Hal Waggoner. I have no idea whether that was because Gautier did a lousy job or because Ralph Andrews preferred Tom.

You meant to say Lyle Waggoner. 

I think because of his move to IYB, Gautier was dropped as the regular joke teller on Can You Top This? and succeeded by Richard Dawson.  Judging by air dates in the EOTVGS, it seems to coincide!

Weird that I found this years later, but I just saw an interview Gautier did with Kliph Nesteroff that gave the actual reason he left Can You Top This--and it's not what anyone would expect.

Kliph Nesteroff: You hosted a game show remake of Can You Top This.

Dick Gautier: No, Wink Martindale was the host. I was the joke-teller. That's my forte. I tell stories very well and can embellish with shtick and dialects. That is my strength, so that's why I was on the show. They had seen me do that on The Merv Griffin Show. It was very lucrative and was going very well when my niece gave me the mumps. I couldn't go on with the show. Richard Dawson took over and replaced me. I took Polaroids of myself because I looked like George Hamilton had f***** a chipmunk.

[Matt Ottinger]

That is fabulous.  And it's not unreasonable to connect the dots between his niece's mumps and the ascendancy of Richard Dawson as a game show personality.

[chris319]

To this day I regret not having suggested Dick Gautier for Mindreaders. The game itself still would have sucked but the overall show would have sucked a little less sans Dick Martin. Dick did a fair job in office run-thrus but once in the studio he became a deer in the headlights.

I do remember Jim Perry emceeing some office run-thrus, I think for the Puzzlers pilot. He was not being considered as the series MC; he was brought in just for a few office run-thrus, then Sajak was brought in as the real MC. Once in a while Bobby Sherman would MC an office run-thru. We also did office run-thrus of TTTT with Goodson himself as MC. I remember Bill Cullen, Gene Rayburn and Kathy Cronkite on the panel; can't remember who the fourth panelist was (it wasn't Kitty).

[BrandonFG]

Dick Gautier: No, Wink Martindale was the host. I was the joke-teller. That's my forte. I tell stories very well and can embellish with shtick and dialects. That is my strength, so that's why I was on the show. They had seen me do that on The Merv Griffin Show. It was very lucrative and was going very well when my niece gave me the mumps. I couldn't go on with the show. Richard Dawson took over and replaced me. I took Polaroids of myself because I looked like George Hamilton had f***** a chipmunk.

[/quote]
I’m intrigued in the alternate universe where Dick Gautier doesn’t get the mumps and hosts “Feud”…

[calliaume]

To this day I regret not having suggested Dick Gautier for Mindreaders. The game itself still would have sucked but the overall show would have sucked a little less sans Dick Martin. Dick did a fair job in office run-thrus but once in the studio he became a deer in the headlights.

I'm really surprised more episodes of It's Your Bet (which Gautier hosted from 1970-71) haven't popped up somewhere. Those tapes were bicycled all over the country and continued airing after the show went out of production, so it's not like they all ended up in the East River. But since nobody's come forward to say they have a few in the basement, there's no evidence (and thus no real way of judging) if he could host a game show.

When people think of Gautier, the reaction is often, "Yeah, he was Hymie the Robot in Get Smart." But he only appeared in six of the 138 episodes -- I'm not even sure you could call that recurring. He did have opening title credits in three sitcoms between 1967 and 1975, but none made it through one full season. I guess after that the phone stopped ringing as much.