Author Topic: Bob Hilton's Announcing Style (Read 2638 times)

Don Howard · « **on:** October 11, 2009, 09:49:02 AM »

The man has a great set of pipes, but what is he doing sometimes when he's announcing?
It sounds like he's trying to be a little too cute.
Your thoughts, please.

chris319 · « **Reply #1 on:** October 11, 2009, 10:31:56 AM »

He hasn't done a game show in many years, so why is this relevant?

dale_grass · « **Reply #2 on:** October 11, 2009, 12:06:06 PM »

[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'228282\' date=\'Oct 11 2009, 09:31 AM\']He hasn't done a game show in many years, so why is this relevant?[/quote]
Neither has Bill Cullen, yet there he is every time I open the board.

Twentington · « **Reply #3 on:** October 11, 2009, 02:32:29 PM »

Serious answer. Hilton seemed to ad-lib a lot. I can't remember exact examples, but I remember hearing him go "off script" a lot on Blockbusters and Play the Percentages. Example:

Attractive female contestant: Bob, if I win five games, what do I get?
Bob: (off-mic) Anything you want.

I also remember a $100KP episode where neither contestant knew what jai alai was, and after the round was up, Dick said he didn't know either. Cue Bob describing the game to Dick off-mic.

Also, he seemed to put a lot of variation to his emphasis; in just one week of seeing Blockbusters, I heard him say "This is the battlefield for our game of speed and strategy" in a couple different ways. Between the ad-libbing and the variations in tone, his announcing had a "casual" tone.

Gameshowcrackers · « **Reply #4 on:** October 15, 2009, 12:31:09 PM »

Bob did ad-lib a lot. He once told me that his favorite show to do was Win Lose or Draw precisely for this reason because he could play around with it a bit (and have fun) when introducing the contestants and didn't have to stick rigidly to a prescribed format.

But IMHO he was one of the BEST announcers!

Twentington · « **Reply #5 on:** October 17, 2009, 06:03:28 PM »

[quote name=\'Gameshowcrackers\' post=\'228562\' date=\'Oct 15 2009, 12:31 PM\']Bob did ad-lib a lot. He once told me that his favorite show to do was Win Lose or Draw precisely for this reason because he could play around with it a bit (and have fun) when introducing the contestants and didn't have to stick rigidly to a prescribed format.

But IMHO he was one of the BEST announcers![/quote]

I remember him ribbing the caricatures on the WLoD intro every time he filled in. For instance, there was a caricature of Bert playing tennis with the caption "That's 40-love, Mike!", to which Bob said, "And once again —'That's 40-love, Mike'? Dream on, Bert! — Bert Convy!" Another time, he said "Bert Lawrence" by mistake, and they left it in (as well as Bert's reply of "Bob, where are you working tomorrow?").

I didn't like Bob at first because it was so jarring to hear his much louder voice in comparison to the mellow Gene Wood on shows such as WLoD and Card Sharks, but I agree that he is a great announcer.

Strikerz04 · « **Reply #6 on:** October 18, 2009, 04:07:05 PM »

He wasn't bad, considering the dialogue between him and Uncle Bill on "Blockbusters," and his style was more casual than not.