[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'May 20 2004, 11:34 AM\'] Only one kid's game show host comes to mind as a successful career host, and that is Gene Rayburn. Would you host a kid's show, or wait for an adult show. [/quote]
I think if you're aiming to get into the business and you think you're anywhere near any good or you think you could be, then you have to take what job you're offered.
I mean, let's face it, there aren't that many adult game shows on the air now and those that are on are hosted by many of the same people. Why is that? Because they have the chops, they don't really need to train on-the-job.
So, the best thing to do is to take a job, any job, which will prove to game show producers that you know what you're doing.
Take JD Roth (please). He cut his teeth on "Fun House" and then went on the the enjoyable (if short lived) "Sex Wars". Along the way he's racked up a few more kids game shows like Masters of the Maze, Endurance and Moolah Beach, which he also produced. Now, he's exec producer on "For Love Or Money", a halfway successful network reality show. I'd say he's had a successful career.
Or Marc Summers...he starts on Double Dare on Nickelodeon and also hosts their "What Would You Do?" show, then takes on Couch Potatoes (which, as a kid, was a show I always wanted to be on). Today, nobody would shy away from offering him an adult show because he hosted Double Dare. He's shown over his long career that he knows how everything works and he's a likeable personality.
Of course, history is full of people who have hosted kids game shows who shouldn't have had any business hosting any show kid or otherwise. (Randall Cunningham? Wesley Eure?) That might be where you're drawing a faulty cause and effect relationship.
