(Other Host) Was Right There!

[calliaume]

This situation is similar to how MG-BT were caught under a barrel when Bobby Van died, so you think they might know how to navigate it. I have to imagine that the production company wanted whoever was good enough to run things.

Larry Blyden, not Bobby Van? But point taken.

I'm guessing that Bobby had already been doing some G-T run-throughs (or at least they'd talked with him about the possibility of hosting something) when Blyden died June 6; Showoffs premiered June 30. Either that or he got some intensive training in the those three weeks.

I wonder if they ever thought about Jack Narz, who would have been available and probably could have been brought up to speed quickly.

[TLEberle]

WHOOPS. Thank you, Curt. I flipped the two names in my head.

[mmb5]

Larry Blyden, not Bobby Van? But point taken.

I'm guessing that Bobby had already been doing some G-T run-throughs (or at least they'd talked with him about the possibility of hosting something) when Blyden died June 6; Showoffs premiered June 30. Either that or he got some intensive training in the those three weeks.

I wonder if they ever thought about Jack Narz, who would have been available and probably could have been brought up to speed quickly.

Some guy named Allen Ludden would have also been available.

[chrisholland03]

Woof.  Showoffs wasn't intellectual enough

 

[calliaume]

Since it's somewhat on topic (and I tend to be OCD about this kind of thing), here are the hosts who'd had network shows cancelled since the beginning of 1973 as possible Blyden replacements. Let's eliminate anybody who had already been hired to host another network game in the interim, as well as Joe Garagiola and Dick Enberg, who were likely both under contract to NBC due to their sports announcing.

• Jack Barry -- not a good fit, and unlikely that G-T would have considered them after how his brief time working for them went.
• Jack Narz
• Bob Clayton -- not likely he was under consideration, and it seems he was tied to New York, given he turned down the opportunity to host the syndicated version of Concentration after NBC dropped the show.
• Art Fleming -- bad, bad, bad fit.
• Bill Cullen -- staging issues aside, if Cullen turned down moving from New York to do The Price Is Right, I don't think he'd be interested in moving cross-country to host Showoffs, either. (Also, Blankety Blanks may not have been officially cancelled at that point.)
• Allen Ludden -- not as bad a fit as Fleming, but not a very good one, either.
• Jim Peck -- no obvious strikes against him, other than G-T tended to hire hosts with whom they were familiar.
• Nick Clooney -- same as Jim Peck, but it appears he turned down at least one other game show offer around that time. That may have been around the time he moved into news, which would have required him to be in Cincinnati full-time.

I wonder if anybody ever thought, "Hey, what about Richard Dawson?"

Ultimately, I don't think Bobby Van was the reason Showoffs didn't make it -- multiple rule changes during a six-month run are never a good sign.

[TimK2003]

Since it's somewhat on topic (and I tend to be OCD about this kind of thing), here are the hosts who'd had network shows cancelled since the beginning of 1973 as possible Blyden replacements. Let's eliminate anybody who had already been hired to host another network game in the interim, as well as Joe Garagiola and Dick Enberg, who were likely both under contract to NBC due to their sports announcing.

• Jack Barry -- not a good fit, and unlikely that G-T would have considered them after how his brief time working for them went.
• Jack Narz
• Bob Clayton -- not likely he was under consideration, and it seems he was tied to New York, given he turned down the opportunity to host the syndicated version of Concentration after NBC dropped the show.
• Art Fleming -- bad, bad, bad fit.
• Bill Cullen -- staging issues aside, if Cullen turned down moving from New York to do The Price Is Right, I don't think he'd be interested in moving cross-country to host Showoffs, either. (Also, Blankety Blanks may not have been officially cancelled at that point.)
• Allen Ludden -- not as bad a fit as Fleming, but not a very good one, either.
• Jim Peck -- no obvious strikes against him, other than G-T tended to hire hosts with whom they were familiar.
• Nick Clooney -- same as Jim Peck, but it appears he turned down at least one other game show offer around that time. That may have been around the time he moved into news, which would have required him to be in Cincinnati full-time.

I wonder if anybody ever thought, "Hey, what about Richard Dawson?"

Ultimately, I don't think Bobby Van was the reason Showoffs didn't make it -- multiple rule changes during a six-month run are never a good sign.

Another host from that era I was thinking of who hosted a game show with celebrities at the time : Jed Allen of Celebrity Bowling. 

He might have been a fit, but I think he was a little too committed with Days Of Our Lives and NBC at that time.
Jack Clark is another possibility.

[wdm1219inpenna]

Had a daytime version of Password taken place during the early 1990s, I always felt Bob Goen would have made an exceptional host.  He did an outstanding job on a so-so type word game on CBS called "Blackout" and he showed that he could work very well with civilian and celebrity teams together.  Some hosts did well with civilians alone, fewer with civilians and celebrities, but Goen was very underrated as one of those types of hosts.