The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: aaron sica on May 31, 2025, 02:12:53 PM
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And by "Bad fits", I don't mean an on-air meltdown. :)
I almost replied to BC1's comment on the "disappointments" thread until I thought maybe it would be better served spun off into its own thread.
It seems to be agreed upon (myself included) that Bill Cullen was not a good fit on TJW, as he ground the show to a halt (it bears repeating, but there was an episode where one question was asked for the entire 30-minute episode).
What's another show where either an established host or announcer, just was not a good fit?
Mine: Gene Wood when he filled in on "The Price is Right" after Johnny O passed away. I love Gene in just about everything else he did......But he did not fit in at all on Price.
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Bill was a good fit in that he had a known name. Bert on Super Password, John Davidson on any game show really. Bob Eubanks on Card Sharks.
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Bill was a good fit in that he had a known name. Bert on Super Password, John Davidson on any game show really. Bob Eubanks on Card Sharks.
Respectfully disagree on Bert. I loved him on Super Password and his goofiness brought something that I feel that version needed. On the other hand, Ludden grates on my nerves on Password Plus, and I actually prefer Kennedy's part of the run. Ludden, of course, was perfect on the original Password.
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Monty Hall on Split Second. His style isn’t suited for a quizzer.
Dick Clark on Scattergories.
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It seems to be agreed upon (myself included) that Bill Cullen was not a good fit on TJW, as he ground the show to a halt (it bears repeating, but there was an episode where one question was asked for the entire 30-minute episode).
We noticed that Bill was moving things along rather slowly when he subbed on P+. My spies at KCOP tell me he was starting to lose it and had a rough time subbing for Jack Barry on TJW, which is not that demanding a show to emcee.
Tom Kennedy's interview with Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters is worth watching. In it he says he was overwhelmed on TPIR with the wide variety of pricing games to learn. He says he felt awkward and was never really comfortable with the format.
TPIR never had a good announcer after Johnny Olson passed, and that includes Rod Roddy and Rich Fields. Rod was not a disciplined performer and made mistakes, resulting in pickups. Gene Wood didn't have the pipes for TPIR.
There exists somewhere a test show of TPIR with Bob Hilton announcing. He should have been made the permanent announcer.
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Monty Hall on Split Second. His style isn’t suited for a quizzer.
Agreed. I can't watch Monty's version of SS, as smooth as he was on ANBTC.
Quoting Frank Wayne: "Monty wouldn't say 'shit' if he had a mouthful of it."
Bert was fantastic on Tattletales but was trying too hard to turn SP into a comedy show.
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I’m not sure Tom himself could’ve saved Split Second 86, and I say that as someone who enjoys the show for what it is. It was the first version I remember watching, but when you see the OG version you realize just how badly they watered down the material, esp. the bonus round.
Robin Ward has become a bit of a punching bag as host of Guess What, mainly because he’s so awkward and goofy. Doesn’t help that the show doesn’t really offer much in terms of meat and potatoes, but a Jim Perry or Alex Trebek-style host could prolly make it better.
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Chuck Woolery's folksy, laid-back style wasn't really a great fit for a big-money quizzer like Greed, although he wasn't completely terrible either.
I like Joel McHale, but he was completely out of his element hosting Card Sharks--came off as way too snarky and cynical. I'll be interested to see if he can do any better with The 1% Club when its 2nd season premieres.
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The current version of SS is much more watchable as it doesn't race against the viewer. They needed to put the brakes on.
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Not exactly on topic, but Dick Martin was passable in office run-thrus of Mindreaders but was awkward in the studio.
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There exists somewhere a test show of TPIR with Bob Hilton announcing. He should have been made the permanent announcer.
He did about 10-12 aired shows in early 1986. Solely on his voice, yes, I thought Bob Hilton was the best of the crop that included Gene, Rod, and Rich Jeffries. But as an on-air character, they ended up doing quite well with Rod.
-Jason
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I still believe Divorce Court was the biggest waste of Jim Peck's talent!
Cordially,
Tammy
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I still believe Divorce Court was the biggest waste of Jim Peck's talent!
Story is that Jack was ready to retire from Joker on-air and permanently hand the reigns to Jim at the start of the 84-85 season, but his sudden death put the brakes on that.
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I still believe Divorce Court was the biggest waste of Jim Peck's talent!
Cordially,
Tammy
I think his blink and you'll miss it appearance in the Battlestar Galactica pilot would top even that!
(https://i.ibb.co/j9D5GNNp/Jim-Peck-Galactica.jpg)
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Seconded on Gene Wood/TPIR.
I'm not sure if we're really going to count fill-ins/guests around here, but I had recently listened to some intros from when Rod Roddy filled in on Dawson "Feud", and while his voice sounded like it could work, his pacing just wasn't right. I seem to recall Johnny Gilbert not faring much better in his fill-in stint, either.
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Seconded on Gene Wood/TPIR.
When Johnny O died, G-T needed an announcer to get the shows in the can, so that was a temp job and I suspect Gene knew that. As for my takes on bad fits on hosts:
Louie Anderson for Family Feud
John Davidson for Pyramid and Hollywood Squares - he was okay on Time Machine
Patrick Wayne on Tic Tac Dough
Mike Darow on The $128,000 Question
Rolf B on Wheel of Fortune
Billy Bush on Let's Make a Deal
JD Roberto on Shop Till You Drop
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Seconded on Gene Wood/TPIR.
When Johnny O died, G-T needed an announcer to get the shows in the can, so that was a temp job and[i][/i] I suspect Gene knew that. As for my takes on bad fits on hosts:
Louie Anderson for Family Feud
John Davidson for Pyramid and Hollywood Squares - he was okay on Time Machine
Patrick Wayne on Tic Tac Dough
Mike Darow on The $128,000 Question
Rolf B on Wheel of Fortune
Billy Bush on Let's Make a Deal
JD Roberto on Shop Till You Drop
Also, Mike Reilly on Monopoly. I wish Merv Griffin would have given Tim Brando who also auditioned to host Wheel a chance on Monopoly. Also, I think MG Kelly should have had a shot to host Daytime Wheel when Pat left to do his talk show. After all that announcing gig was only temporary before Charlie O could come back.
My take on established hosts/announcers a bad fit.
Marc summers as announcer on anything. I love Marc and everything but he is a better host than an announcer.
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I'd say of all the Feud hosts, Richard Karn was the one who seemed to be the most "fish out of water" host.
One week during Woolery's tenure on Wheel, Alex filled in as host, I remember seeing one or two of those episodes and it was a rather odd combination to me.
I was about to say Jon Bauman on MG/HS Hour but he was not an established host...come to think if it neither was Richard Karn so please strike that from the record!
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Agreed that Gene Wood wasn't right for TPIR, but if nothing else, for the Home Viewer Showcase (http://youtube.com/watch?v=OlWCITA4YI4) the show did shortly after Johnny Olson passed, Gene knocked it out of the park as Santa -- even better than Johnny would have done.
Conversely, when Johnny filled in for Gene on Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour, it was always an awkward fit. Maybe it was simply because Johnny never learned when he was supposed to wait for the giant wall of lights to display certain parts of his script, but his intros lacked the oomph that Gene gave his.
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I’m not sure Tom himself could’ve saved Split Second 86, and I say that as someone who enjoys the show for what it is. It was the first version I remember watching, but when you see the OG version you realize just how badly they watered down the material, esp. the bonus round.
Unfortunately, Hollywood Squares sniped the original SS bonus round. When we play SS online, we tend to use the original format on the '86 set.
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There exists somewhere a test show of TPIR with Bob Hilton announcing. He should have been made the permanent announcer.
He did about 10-12 aired shows in early 1986. Solely on his voice, yes, I thought Bob Hilton was the best of the crop that included Gene, Rod, and Rich Jeffries. But as an on-air character, they ended up doing quite well with Rod.
-Jason
Did we ever see Bob Hilton or any other sub as a character?
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As Scott said upthread, only Gene Wood got the opportunity when he played Santa Claus in a Home Viewer Showcase.
-Jason
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TPIR never had a good announcer after Johnny Olson passed, and that includes Rod Roddy and Rich Fields. Rod was not a disciplined performer and made mistakes, resulting in pickups. Gene Wood didn't have the pipes for TPIR.
There exists somewhere a test show of TPIR with Bob Hilton announcing. He should have been made the permanent announcer.
Bob Hilton should've got the job in 85 and Burton Richardson or Art Sanders in 2004, Rich just sounded rough when he yells.
I am not a fan of George Gray he just sounds like a parody of an announcer and the same goes with Jonathan Magnum.
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Bob Hilton should've got the job in 85 and Burton Richardson or Art Sanders in 2004, Rich just sounded rough when he yells.
I am not a fan of George Gray he just sounds like a parody of an announcer and the same goes with Jonathan Magnum.
Something about Rich Fields just rubbed me the wrong way. He looked good on camera but his voice at times sounded too nasally and also bombastic at times, too over the top. Also his voice reminded me a little bit at times of what the voice actor who did Barney the Dinosaur would have sounded like when not in character.
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You sure you meant Rich Fields and not Rich Jeffries ;)
Somewhere on VHS I have a copy of Rich Jeffries doing warmup. He's quite enjoyable in that context. I'll share when I find it.
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I thought Davidson was perfectly fine on Hollywood Squares -- not an A-level host but someone who played the straight man to a cast of crazies acceptably. Davison hosting Pyramid is another matter altogether -- a combination of oil and water.
Even mediocre Bill Cullen is better than what's defined as good nowadays, but the clips I saw of him hosting $25K Pyramid seemed like he was a slightly ill fit for the format. Clark was good at the format he made it his own. Cullen, while more than serviceable, was a tad jokey and not the fair, but occasionally stern taskmaster in Clark. And as we saw with TJW, Cullen's weak spot was primarily speed-centric formats.
Never really liked Monty outside of LMAD. Split Second was a speed-centric game and Hall never seemed comfortable with the format from the get-go.
JD
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I still believe Divorce Court was the biggest waste of Jim Peck's talent!
He deserved better but it kept him employed for several years. I don’t think he’s gonna call it a waste of his career just because it wasn’t a game show.
I dunno if this counts as established given that it was his only game show, but MG Kelly wasn’t a good fit as a Wheel announcer. He was a little too lowkey IMO.
Second everyone who said Rich Fields on TPiR. Anytime an episode from the 2000s plays, I hear “HERE IT CAH-MS!” and have to decide if I wanna keep watching.
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Has anyone heard if Bob Barker had any ill will toward Bob Hilton over The New T or C?
Bob Eubanks wasn’t good—or worse than his usual not good if you feel that way—on Dream House. I find it a lame show anyway, but with contestants who knew what a condiment is, he had nothin.’ He also seemed a little too chummy to the wives, what with their husbands standing there.
I think Meredith Viera is wrong on 25 Words or Less. Millionaire was different because it was essentially an interview, but she doesn’t really bring the fun. I’m also bummed she doesn’t do news anymore.
Also, that one week he filled in, Allen Ludden didn’t seem quite right on The Dating Game.
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I thought Davidson was perfectly fine on Hollywood Squares -- not an A-level host but someone who played the straight man to a cast of crazies acceptably. Davison hosting Pyramid is another matter altogether -- a combination of oil and water.
Davidson on Squares was the equivilent of Burt Convy on Super Password: Both replaced their far-better original hosts, both were not the greatest traffic cops when it came to keeping the games going at a good clip, and both tended to goof up more on camera than their predecessors. Despite all of that, they made the shows their own, and they were far from being the worst game shows on the air at the time.
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I still believe Divorce Court was the biggest waste of Jim Peck's talent!
He deserved better but it kept him employed for several years. I don’t think he’s gonna call it a waste of his career just because it wasn’t a game show.
I dunno if this counts as established given that it was his only game show, but MG Kelly wasn’t a good fit as a Wheel announcer. He was a little too lowkey IMO.
Second everyone who said Rich Fields on TPiR. Anytime an episode from the 2000s plays, I hear “HERE IT CAH-MS!” and have to decide if I wanna keep watching.
And tying in with Wheel and Rich, Rich did do some temp announcing work on Wheel after Charlie O'Donnel's passing and he was definitely not a good fit for Wheel. Jim Thornton has proven a very worthy successor to Charlie, as well as Jack Clark.
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I still believe Divorce Court was the biggest waste of Jim Peck's talent!
He deserved better but it kept him employed for several years. I don’t think he’s gonna call it a waste of his career just because it wasn’t a game show.
It also was three months out of the year (he mentioned in a phone interview with the Game Show Convention crew that tapings would run well into the night due to rewrites advised by the show's legal consultants to keep things plausible in a courtroom setting) so he'd have the rest of the year available to work on other projects.
Also, I can't believe we're three pages in and nobody has mentioned Gene Rayburn's stint on Break The Bank '85. (Maybe because that was doomed to be a trainwreck no matter who was at the helm of it).
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I still believe Divorce Court was the biggest waste of Jim Peck's talent!
He deserved better but it kept him employed for several years. I don’t think he’s gonna call it a waste of his career just because it wasn’t a game show.
It also was three months out of the year (he mentioned in a phone interview with the Game Show Convention crew that tapings would run well into the night due to rewrites advised by the show's legal consultants to keep things plausible in a courtroom setting) so he'd have the rest of the year available to work on other projects.
Also, I can't believe we're three pages in and nobody has mentioned Gene Rayburn's stint on Break The Bank '85. (Maybe because that was doomed to be a trainwreck no matter who was at the helm of it).
I remember watching an episode of Divorce court when I was young where someone pulled a gun. If I hadn’t realized realized before that the show was not entirely real, that did it.
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Rich Jeffries was an employee of the NABET film local and happened to hold an AFTRA card. He was the stand-in emcee during rehearsals of P+. He buddied up to Gene Wood and helped out on warm-ups for P+. He wanted to be a full-fledged announcer and I suggested that he get some formal voice training, which he did. The rest is history.
Both Gene and Rich J. were cigarette smokers and I think this took away some of the resonance their voices may otherwise have had.
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Has anyone heard if Bob Barker had any ill will toward Bob Hilton over The New T or C?
I doubt he did. Barker said in Priceless Memories that he chose not to return to T or C because his agent advised him that doing that along with daytime and nighttime TPIR would lead to "overexposure" and because much of the old guard at T or C had left. I'm not saying it isn't possible, but I don't see why he would be upset that Hilton took "his" job under those circumstances--especially after Hilton's version flopped. One could, after all, make the case that Barker took Ralph Edwards' or Jack Bailey's job when he became the host of T or C.
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Cullen on Tjw. Clearly, he talked too much to the contestants. Especially in his first season, there was hardly any game play. They were knocking on the door of the audience game with the bat of an eye
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I didn't think Bill Cullen was an ideal fit for Blockbusters. While it didn't need to be a straight up quizzer, there were definitely times when he brought the pace to a halt when all the contestants wanted to do was get more questions in.
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TPIR never had a good announcer after Johnny Olson passed, and that includes Rod Roddy and Rich Fields. Rod was not a disciplined performer and made mistakes, resulting in pickups. Gene Wood didn't have the pipes for TPIR.
There exists somewhere a test show of TPIR with Bob Hilton announcing. He should have been made the permanent announcer.
Bob Hilton should've got the job in 85 and Burton Richardson or Art Sanders in 2004, Rich just sounded rough when he yells.
I am not a fan of George Gray he just sounds like a parody of an announcer and the same goes with Jonathan Magnum.
I agree George should have stuck to hosting. Hell, I could see him host a revival of Remote Control he would have been great for it during TV Land’s heyday in the late 90s/early 2000s.
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I still believe Divorce Court was the biggest waste of Jim Peck's talent!
He deserved better but it kept him employed for several years. I don’t think he’s gonna call it a waste of his career just because it wasn’t a game show.
I dunno if this counts as established given that it was his only game show, but MG Kelly wasn’t a good fit as a Wheel announcer. He was a little too lowkey IMO.
Second everyone who said Rich Fields on TPiR. Anytime an episode from the 2000s plays, I hear “HERE IT CAH-MS!” and have to decide if I wanna keep watching.
MG was only temporary until Charlie O fulfilled his commitments with Barris and was able to return to the announcer seat on Wheel. MG IMO, should have gotten the job to host Daytime Wheel after Pat left to do his talk show.
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I didn't think Bill Cullen was an ideal fit for Blockbusters. While it didn't need to be a straight up quizzer, there were definitely times when he brought the pace to a halt when all the contestants wanted to do was get more questions in.
Watch him do a Gold Run. His slow clue reading be excruciating if a player was having a rough time getting across.
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Has anyone heard if Bob Barker had any ill will toward Bob Hilton over The New T or C?
I doubt he did. Barker said in Priceless Memories that he chose not to return to T or C because his agent advised him that doing that along with daytime and nighttime TPIR would lead to "overexposure" and because much of the old guard at T or C had left.
Here's your teaser. We just an oral history interview with Bob Hilton for the Strong Museum and it's scheduled to be released over the summer. Bob Hilton tells a completely different story of why Bob Barker didn't/couldn't host T or C anymore.
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Going back to Rich Fields vs. Jim Thornton: I found it interesting that Rich seemed to outshine Jim on TPIR (in my opinion; I thought he was decent enough), yet when the two were auditioning for Wheel it was polar opposites; Jim was the star while Rich just couldn’t get it together.
Whatever happened to Paul Boland, anyway? I remember his tryout being rather loud.
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Here's a vote FOR Bill on Blockbusters. IMO, he hit the perfect pace. Bill's folksy banter and deliberate pacing in question reading gave you dashes of suspense broken up with a quip. If it were a speed game, it could be a bit overwhelming. I'd call it Bill's last hurrah, because I'm with those who felt he was a poor choice for JOKER, and even Pyramid, where the host should get out of the way and let let the teams generate the excitement.
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Here's a vote FOR Bill on Blockbusters. IMO, he hit the perfect pace. Bill's folksy banter and deliberate pacing in question reading gave you dashes of suspense broken up with a quip. If it were a speed game, it could be a bit overwhelming. I'd call it Bill's last hurrah, because I'm with those who felt he was a poor choice for JOKER, and even Pyramid, where the host should get out of the way and let let the teams generate the excitement.
Agreed re: Blockbusters. Bill's humor was what made my dad watch the series in its entirety -- multiple times -- when GSN was running it. I stumbled across it on Buzzr the other day, and my wife had a similar reaction.
And I also slightly agree with Pyramid. He wasn't a BAD fit, but I can't un-hear all the off-mic, during-round comments. ("Good!" "One more!")
I found it interesting that Rich seemed to outshine Jim on TPIR (in my opinion; I thought he was decent enough), yet when the two were auditioning for Wheel it was polar opposites; Jim was the star while Rich just couldn’t get it together.
I never heard any of Rich's in-studio episodes of Wheel, just the ones where he was overdubbing Charlie. I'd be curious if he was better or otherwise different when in person. I could also see any sort of note on toning down his TPIR enthusiasm having a chilling effect.
-Jason
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Here's a vote FOR Bill on Blockbusters. IMO, he hit the perfect pace. Bill's folksy banter and deliberate pacing in question reading gave you dashes of suspense broken up with a quip. If it were a speed game, it could be a bit overwhelming. I'd call it Bill's last hurrah, because I'm with those who felt he was a poor choice for JOKER, and even Pyramid, where the host should get out of the way and let let the teams generate the excitement.
Agreed re: Blockbusters. Bill's humor was what made my dad watch the series in its entirety -- multiple times -- when GSN was running it. I stumbled across it on Buzzr the other day, and my wife had a similar reaction.
I had a friend with an inverse reaction to your dad's. His comment was to the effect of: "Why doesn't the old [dude] just shut up?"
I thought Jim Perry did it better on $ale where he had one quip going into the break.
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I love Uncle Bill on Blockbusters. Without much Eye Guess or Three on a Match extant, it’s my favorite show with him. With one game playing out pretty much the same as the next, Bill brought life to it. The set was perfectly designed for him, too.
If contestants didn’t like his reading speed, they certainly won a lot.
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We just an oral history interview with Bob Hilton for the Strong Museum and it's scheduled to be released over the summer. Bob Hilton tells a completely different story of why Bob Barker didn't/couldn't host T or C anymore.
Cool! I’ve always felt bad for Bob that his two best—only?—shots at hosting were both replacing legends on really difficult shows. He was also really good announcing the nighttime pilots.
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Here's a vote FOR Bill on Blockbusters. IMO, he hit the perfect pace. Bill's folksy banter and deliberate pacing in question reading gave you dashes of suspense broken up with a quip. If it were a speed game, it could be a bit overwhelming. I'd call it Bill's last hurrah, because I'm with those who felt he was a poor choice for JOKER, and even Pyramid, where the host should get out of the way and let let the teams generate the excitement.
Agreed re: Blockbusters. Bill's humor was what made my dad watch the series in its entirety -- multiple times -- when GSN was running it. I stumbled across it on Buzzr the other day, and my wife had a similar reaction.
I had a friend with an inverse reaction to your dad's. His comment was to the effect of: "Why doesn't the old [dude] just shut up?"
It might have been producer direction. Given that the show is giving away six grand on the regular the only way to give away less money is to slow it down. Part of the charm is the known host who is friendly and tells silly jokes so it isn't really a surprise that you're going to get puns and nonsense.
Jim's lead-out jokes were obviously written ahead of time with the question setting up the punch line, but it is something I still look forward too even thirty years later.
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One of the things that's interesting about threads like this is the way some of the examples expose people's preferences for game vs. show in the cover-all "game show" title.
Someone like Bill Cullen (and Bill Rafferty, honestly) on Blockbusters or Bert Convy on Super Password wasn't going to move the game along at an even remotely quick clip, but damned if they weren't entertaining. Getting into a tangent about a contestant's stamp collection. Celebrities wanting to play a prank on Bert. Bill Rafferty's soapboxing after the seventh "Mary Ellen's advice" question in a row. Not everyone wants every Q&A to be some rapid-fire Jeopardy-like spectacle, nor every word game to be an endless barrage of clues and words.
For me, without Bill investing a significant amount of charm - precisely by slowing things down and actually getting into conversations with the contestants or making quips or telling a story - the show starts to feel VERY same-y very fast.
Bill's very next show after it, Child's Play, is honestly an exemplar of why sometimes style (in this case 'laid back') matters over substance: The first 80% of the show is essentially Legally Distinct Kids Say the Darndest Things reworked as a guessing game. It's slow, a paper-thin format ("guess what the kids said, get points"), it's prone to wild tangents or just 20 seconds of laughter, it's just a light but fine time that's made utterly delightful 50% by Bill and 50% by the kids. Then you get to the bonus game. The first bonus game was requiring Bill to do an almost Whew-like speedreading of transcripts of kids' definitions - well past even what Blockbusters asked in the Gold Run - so the contestants could match 6 in 45. Not only is Bill squarely not in his element, but the show itself actually feels weird here because of the abrupt tone shift in the game. Fundamentally, it's very much 'game' over 'show' and is a disaster. The change to the Turnabout bonus was a godsend. Adults having to give definitions to a (somewhat curated) selection of the kids is a FANTASTIC gameplay hook, you still keep the bonus game timer but you keep the game out of it, and having the adults and kids means you still keep a little of the fun.
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Also again, subjective tastes and not wanting to steamroll opinions - but it is fascinating to read a thread speaking complimentary of Rich Fields on TPiR and with others knocking George Gray. George's arrival to the show at the end of 2010 is almost the EXACT point where the show seems to settle in and shift from whatever the post-Roger-firing era was into something enjoyable, and at this point I firmly think he's the show's 2nd best announcer after Johnny. He can announce, he can co-host, he can model, he can sometimes do more than one of these things at once, and he's supposedly great to work with. Yes, a better announcer than Rod, who was more of a character but had a lot of difficulties as an announcer especially the last few years of his life. And orders of magnitude better than Rich, who started off okay in 2004 but quickly turned into a genuine mess. No willingness to react to anything going around him - and while that might have been what someone like Roger or an 80-something Barker were after, he makes for bad TV, often grating copy reads, and he is left sticking out like a sore thumb as the show changes around him in 2008-10.
(Edited to clarify some wording re: Child's Play)
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One of the things that's interesting about threads like this is the way some of the examples expose people's preferences for game vs. show in the cover-all "game show" title.
Someone like Bill Cullen (and Bill Rafferty, honestly) on Blockbusters or Bert Convy on Super Password wasn't going to move the game along at an even remotely quick clip, but damned if they weren't entertaining. Getting into a tangent about a contestant's stamp collection. Celebrities wanting to play a prank on Bert. Bill Rafferty's soapboxing after the seventh "Mary Ellen's advice" question in a row. Not everyone wants every Q&A to be some rapid-fire Jeopardy-like spectacle, nor every word game to be an endless barrage of clues and words.
For me, without Bill investing a significant amount of charm - precisely by slowing things down and actually getting into conversations with the contestants or making quips or telling a story - the show starts to feel VERY same-y very fast.
Bill's very next show after it, Child's Play, is honestly an exemplar of this: The first 80% of the show is essentiallyLegally Distinct Kids Say the Darndest Things reworked as a guessing game. It's slow, it's prone to wild tangents or just 20 seconds of laughter, it's just a light but fine time...until you get to the bonus game. The first bonus game was requiring Bill to do an almost Whew-like speedreading of transcripts of kids' definitions - well past even what Blockbusters asked in the Gold Run - so the contestants could match 6 in 45. Not only is Bill squarely not in his element, but the show itself actually feels weird here because of the abrupt tone shift in the game (the change to the Turnabout bonus was a godsend). Adults having to give definitions to a (somewhat curated) selection of the kids is a FANTASTIC gameplay hook, you still keep the bonus game timer but you keep the game out of it, and having the adults and kids means you still keep a little of the fun.
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Also again, subjective tastes and not wanting to steamroll opinions - but it is fascinating to read a thread speaking complimentary of Rich Fields on TPiR and with others knocking George Gray. George's arrival to the show at the end of 2010 is almost the EXACT point where the show seems to settle in and shift from whatever the post-Roger-firing era was into something enjoyable, and at this point I firmly think he's the show's 2nd best announcer after Johnny. He can announce, he can co-host, he can model, he can sometimes do more than one of these things at once, and he's supposedly great to work with. Yes, a better announcer than Rod, who was more of a character but had a lot of difficulties as an announcer especially the last few years of his life. And orders of magnitude better than Rich, who started off okay in 2004 but quickly turned into a genuine mess. No willingness to react to anything going around him - and while that might have been what someone like Roger or an 80-something Barker were after, he makes for bad TV, often grating copy reads, and he is left sticking out like a sore thumb as the show changes around him in 2008-10.
You summed up my sentiments exactly. Thank you!
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Seconded on what Chelsea said regarding Uncle Bill.
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I think *any* established host would've been a bad fit for 3's a Crowd. Watching Jim try to play the part of the instigator makes me somewhat cringe, nowadays.
Lohman or Barkley would've been much more suitable. Heck, maybe it was a missed opportunity to give The Unknown Comic his own show, I'd have watched ;D
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Mine: Gene Wood when he filled in on "The Price is Right" after Johnny O passed away. I love Gene in just about everything else he did......But he did not fit in at all on Price.
Agreed, 100%! He didn't seem as energetic on TPIR as just about every other show he announced on. When watching the ending of TPIR episode where Bob Barker mentioned Johnny O's death, I looked at my sister and said to her how I wondered TPIR (nighttime w/Tom Kennedy) was going to be with no Bob Barker AND no Johnny Olsen!!
IMO, a couple of other shows Gene Wood announced on, but did not seem to fit into, Love Connection and Bruce Forsythe's Hot Streak.
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Think about what goes in to announcing a lot of Gene's 'better' shows: Introduction, MAYBE one or two plugs for a single prize, maybe a ticket or contestant plug, and then the end of show plugs. That's it (at least within the episode itself). And yes that's over 5-7 tapings, but still, there are stretches of downtime.
The announcer on The Price is Right - especially in the pre-edit/ADR era - does. not. stop. Introduction trying to belt out four names over a screaming audience, host intro, copy for six one-bids, copy for six pricing game feature prizes. Five more player introductions. Some games have 2/3/4 prizes. Some games have up to six grocery or small prizes on top of THAT. Six games per show. Plus ticket/consolation plugs. Plus showcases with multiple-prize copy and sometimes the announcer is IN the thing. (Plus, mentioning George again, with the reduction to the number of models sometimes he even models prizes too - although at least he has post-production help that his predecesors didn't)
And from 1975 until Barker's health issues in 1999, it was standard to do two shows per day. Gene had to do more, in a shorter window, in two episodes of Price is Right than he did in seven Family Feud episodes (or five Card Sharks), and he was never at any point suited to change gears rapidly like the show requires, and by the 80s his health was beginning to worsen a bit so he didn't quite have the stamina for it besides.
I was REALLY hoping the Barker Era streaming channel would drop a new batch of 1986 episodes as I really want to see Bob Hilton's run at announcing in it's entirety. The couple episodes I have from his audition, I'd have hired him on the spot. I know "Bob and Bob" would probably pivot between confusing, frustrating, and funny - but I really liked what I heard.
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IMO, a couple of other shows Gene Wood announced on, but did not seem to fit into, Love Connection and Bruce Forsythe's Hot Streak.
Agree on the non-fit, but the way he said LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUVVVVVVVVVVV CONNECTION still makes me laugh.
https://youtu.be/ejT2mmYsmN4?t=71
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Which is why i admire the old school NBC voices like Don Pardo, Roger Tuttle, Wayne Howell, Bill Wendell, Mel Brandt, Jack Costello etc. in the pre-edit/ADR era- Introduction, MAYBE one or two plugs for a single prize, maybe a ticket or contestant plug, and then the end of show plugs. A lot less work than what George Gray does now on Price. Pardo and Tuttle both did Price in the 60s, and it was much like now, expect copy for 4 bid rounds and sometimes bonus prizes (although Bill Cullen would do the copy rather than Pardo for those). Jay Stewart or Wendell Niles were in the same boat though on LMAD too much like the announcer on The Price is Right - especially in the pre-edit/ADR era - does. not. stop.
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I was REALLY hoping the Barker Era streaming channel would drop a new batch of 1986 episodes as I really want to see Bob Hilton's run at announcing in its entirety. The couple episodes I have from his audition, I'd have hired him on the spot. I know "Bob and Bob" would probably pivot between confusing, frustrating, and funny - but I really liked what I heard.
I have heard several reasons why Bob was not hired for the role, from him hosting a TTTT knockoff pilot and turning it down to Barker having a fear of being upstaged... what's the real story?
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I would like to think that with a funny wig and costume and the right direction, Bob Hilton could have fit into a comedy showcase.
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I was about to say Jon Bauman on MG/HS Hour but he was not an established host...come to think if it neither was Richard Karn so please strike that from the record!
You know it's not a typewriter, right?
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No wonder I keep having trouble removing the paper from the screen!
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Also again, subjective tastes and not wanting to steamroll opinions - but it is fascinating to read a thread speaking complimentary of Rich Fields on TPiR and with others knocking George Gray.
Can't we intensely dislike both? Rich was grating. George wouldn't be if he emphasized the right words in a sentence, but he's been doing it so long, I assume it won't change.
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I was REALLY hoping the Barker Era streaming channel would drop a new batch of 1986 episodes as I really want to see Bob Hilton's run at announcing in its entirety. The couple episodes I have from his audition, I'd have hired him on the spot. I know "Bob and Bob" would probably pivot between confusing, frustrating, and funny - but I really liked what I heard.
I have heard several reasons why Bob was not hired for the role, from him hosting a TTTT knockoff pilot and turning it down to Barker having a fear of being upstaged... what's the real story?
Bob Hilton told us years ago at a GSC that Bob Barker thought Hilton was too good looking. Roger gave another interesting reason, Barker didn't want TWO Bobs. Hilton told us another interesting story... he saved Rod Roddy's life. One time, shortly after Rod became the permanent announcer, Rod was in a car accident en route to the studio, and while he was okay, he didn't think he was going to make the taping on time, so Hilton was called in to substitute. Well, Hilton arrived, and as it turned out, Rod made it before the taping was to start. So, Bob decided to stick around anyway. Well, at the CBS commissary, Rod Roddy and Bob Hilton were at different tables eating, when Rod starts choking... Bob immediately got up and ran to Rod and gave him the Heimlich maneuver... it saved his life.
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Seconded on Gene Wood/TPIR.
When Johnny O died, G-T needed an announcer to get the shows in the can, so that was a temp job and I suspect Gene knew that. As for my takes on bad fits on hosts:
Louie Anderson for Family Feud
John Davidson for Pyramid and Hollywood Squares - he was okay on Time Machine
Patrick Wayne on Tic Tac Dough
Mike Darow on The $128,000 Question
Rolf B on Wheel of Fortune
Billy Bush on Let's Make a Deal
JD Roberto on Shop Till You Drop
Louie to me was inconsistent... some shows, I thought he was funny... other shows, he looks tired and wants to go home. Billy Bush had the same problems that Bob Hilton had on LMAD... he was trying to follow someone that was to LMAD as Bob Barker was to TPIR, and when Monty came on Bush's show to host a deal, Billy Bush couldn't help but look astonished at how easy and how much better Monty was. Never mind their attempts to make the show edgier... yeah it was distracting, but it took another 7 years or so for Wayne to finally find a way to make the show shine and not make anyone miss Monty.
JD Roberto wasn't really the problem with Shop Till You Drop... the mistake was getting rid of the stunts in favor of much less exciting and not in any way physical games that were just... boring. The bonus game was basically the same, but it lost a lot with its one level layout, and becoming some sort of Costco type store instead of a mall.
I guess I'll comment on Gene and Break the Bank. If you watch the first week of shows, Gene did seem to find moments to goof off and joke around in the prize vault, and another early episode apparently had Kline in an ape outfit making an entrance instead of Gene, but then Kline wanted a more serious tone, something Gene doesn't do. Gene struggled, and at one point didn't even seem to care, so they got Joe Farago, and honestly, I didn't think he was any better, and the show got much worse when they took out the stunts completely. Interestingly enough, Pat Finn mentioned with the TJW tryout that in another pilot, he was joking around more with the players, and Kline advised him not to do that. Finn was better with STYD, and didn't have to wear glasses like Kline insisted he wear on TJW, even though Pat didn't need glasses or wear them otherwise.
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another early episode apparently had Kline in an ape outfit making an entrance instead of Gene, but then Kline wanted a more serious tone
The cognitive dissonance here is off the charts.
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Quick update after a chat with Jeremy Nelson, who I don't think has turned down a prompt from me yet and thus earns a Cool Friend point from me:
Listening to the show my summer stock counselor was on Password Plus in July of 1980, the partners are Betty and Bill. For the life of me I could not get away with upbraiding my wife (may it happen someday) the way Allen did. There's persnickety and wanting to move things along but Allen started to snap at his guests. Let Uncle Bill fire off a pun--he either did or will do the show a solid and he's possibly the best male celebrity partner you'll find.
I still find Bert Convy to be a bit..squirrely isn't the right word, and neither is flake because obviously he got work, but I watched SP on BUZZR this week and it seemed like he was guest hosting to my perception. It's weird to say that Mr. Password wasn't the right fit of his own show in the eighties, but the password was martinet, and unless Allen was dealing with his stomach issue by then I do not know why the production staff didn't grab him by the collar and say "straighten up, be a mensch and let your guest stars have a bit of fun for the love of Greg."
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WOW to reading all of these posts. I never knew the story about Bob Hilton saving Rod Roddy from choking?!?!?! That's truly amazing...Bob Hilton an unsung hero. Bob tried his very best with the 1990 Let's Make A Deal but he did seem like a fish out of water. He definitely was a handsome man but his announcing voice was by far his best quality.
I also do not recall seeing that episode (or group of episodes) where Allen Ludden became so terse. That sadly surprised me, but as the poster indicated, Allen may have been dealing with health issues more by that time. Lord knows I've been going through my own set of physical ailments from my eyes to my feet and some parts in between, and at times it has caused me to be not as gracious at my workplace as I could have been and should have been.
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Bill: I gave the month of airing, right? You can navigate to YouTube because you can navigate here, right? Then it stands to reason that you can watch the show largely in order and see of which I speak, right?
Ok? Ok.
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Bill: I gave the month of airing, right? You can navigate to YouTube because you can navigate here, right? Then it stands to reason that you can watch the show largely in order and see of which I speak, right?
Ok? Ok.
I never said that I couldn't. I simply stated I had never seen the episode in question. Ok? Ok.
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Ok? Ok.
Ok? Ok.
Has the ghost of Dennis James taken over the GSF?