When Game Show Hosts Were At Their Peak...

[carlisle96]

I've said for a long time that there's a pre Eye Guess Bill and a post Eye Guess Bill.  Most of us picture the later Bill for a lot of reasons.  It's the one we remember as a child, or the one we enjoy more in the color reruns.  And he was great then because he was just about always great.  Still, for a career peak, it's hard to match where Bill was in the late 50s and early 60s.  The Price Is Right and I've Got a Secret were prime time hits, plus a daytime version of Price was flourishing AND he was the morning man for NBC's flagship radio station in New York.  Add them all up and he was one of the highest paid entertainers of his era.

I'd put Cullen at his peak in 1974-1975 when you consider the number of shows he was hosting or appeared on during that time: To Tell the Truth, $25,000 Pyramid, Three on a Match, Winning Streak, Blankety Blanks, and countless guest shots on others. Not all of those shows were successful, of course, and just about everything was a Bob Stewart show, but he was clearly popular and would not have gotten the green light from the networks if he wasn't.

[TheInquisitiveOne]

For me…

Jim Perry was in his stride from most of his entire Card Sharks run right up to the Winner’s Board-WBMG transition on Sale of the Century (mid-1987). He brought a lot of energy to those shows, but by 1987, I noticed that energy was down a bit. Not like Bob Barker in the 2000s phoned in, but it seemed to me he was ready for Sale to end.

Richard Dawson from Match Game 1975 (especially PM) to the introduction of the lollipop tree in Family Feud. He basically was THE MAN during that period, but by that point in 1983 (maybe late 1982), with a(n IMO) noticeable change in his demeanor and appearance, the work may have caught up to him a bit.

Bob Barker from about 1978 - 1987. He was “The Dawson” for some weeks of the twilight years of Rayburn’s Match Game, on top of making his eventual ascent as the top guy in daytime television with The Price is Right. I feel that by 1987 - with the recent loss of Johnny Olson, the passing of his wife (which I think led to a lot of the sordid stuff that was brought to light after), and the change in production quality (compare the opening sequences from a 1984-85 episode to one in 1987), he lost a lot of the charm that the grey hair change couldn’t offset.

I read some of the comments regarding Pat Sajak, and there was one part that I read that grabbed my attention:

By 2002 or so, he really started phoning it in, and I really would love to see how much of a correlation there is between him realizing he wasn’t becoming the next Jack Paar.

If I am not mistaken, this was right around the time Pat took one last crack at talk shows with Fox News’ Pat Sajak Weekend. Once that fizzled out, it seemed he accepted the idea that Wheel was the train he was destined to stay on.

The Inquisitive One

[Jeremy Nelson]

If I am not mistaken, this was right around the time Pat took one last crack at talk shows with Fox News’ Pat Sajak Weekend. Once that fizzled out, it seemed he accepted the idea that Wheel was the train he was destined to stay on.

As long as I've been on the "Pat stayed a decade too long" train, I find myself looking at him with a little more grace. Once the newness of the $100,000 bonus round wore off and the show crowned a few new big winners, the show stripped back anything that made it interesting. Fun wedges mostly went away, wheel values flattened, and you could really only count on a million dollar spin a handul of episodes a season. If nothing else, Pat kinda became the avatar for the viewing audience.