Television Game Show Hosts

This unique work profiles the private lives and careers of 32 American game show hosts, including the originals (e.g., Bill Cullen, Peter Marshall), the classics (e.g., Bob Barker), and the contemporaries (e.g., Regis Philbin). Organized by host, each chapter includes birth and family information and a complete career history. The most significant developments of each host’s early life and career are highlighted—complete with successes, failures, and scandals. Many of the biographies are accompanied by interviews with the host or his family and friends.

A history of TV's most popular form of entertainment moves from radio game precursors through the changing face of game shows and the great game-rigging scandals, to today's popular shows, with highlights on the hosts and other showmen and women who keepthe games going

Game shows have more stories to tell than they have washers and dryers to give away. This Day in Game Show History is a remarkable four-volume set chronicling the best stories—on camera and off—and the most noteworthy milestones for every day in the year. In this volume, you'll find out which game show had a set so elaborate that it used four miles of electric wires...the game show host who was so nervous on his first day that he went thirty minutes without blinking...the game show Lucille Ball loved so much that she always kept a copy of the home game in her dressing room...the true identity of “The Walking Man” on Truth or Consequences...which Seinfeld cast member was implicated in the 1950s quiz show scandals...and lots, lots more!

Provides information about the packager, broadcast history, hosts, announcers, producers, and rules for over five hundred television game shows

"From the original radio quiz shows through the scandal-ridden fifties up to today's extravaganzas, TV Game Shows takes you behind the sets of this uniquely American phenomenon. Here are the 10 worst and the 40 best shows of all time, the contestants, the hosts and the celebrities, the prizes and the profits, the questions and the quizzes ... Includes a complete list of every game show ever aired."--Cover.

This is the HARDBACK version. "I got interested in Gene Rayburn during the 1990s, when I was a teenager and I discovered a marvelous cable channel called Game Show Network. I'd been a fan of game shows my entire life, and I was excited about seeing all these shows that I just vaguely remembered from my early childhood. My biggest surprise was how obsessed I became with a show I had never heard of until I got Game Show Network; a show that was cancelled the same year I was born, funnily enough. It was a show called Match Game. Gene Rayburn, of course, was the host of Match Game, and I appreciated right away how different he was from other game show hosts. He was so hammy and mischievous and physical, and he fit the show he was hosting better than anybody I had ever seen hosting a game show. He and Match Game were absolutely made for each other. I think the biggest discovery I made was the way Gene just got repeatedly sidetracked during his career. He came to New York to become a star in musical theater. When he couldn't find work in musical theater, he wound up becoming a disc jockey. And after a decade of that, he decided to try being a television star. That didn't work out right away, so he took a job announcing a new show. Well, that turned out to be The Tonight Show. His career, right up to the end, was filled with little detours. Gene always wound up doing something besides what he was really trying to do. John Lennon was right and Gene was the proof; life is what happens when you're making other plans. The biggest pitfall I encountered was the dearth of materials from earlier in Gene's career. Because reruns weren't a consideration for so long, a considerable chunk of the man's work in television is just gone. Think about it-he's best remembered for the 1970s version of Match Game, a job that he started when he was 55 years old. So finding resources from earlier than that could be surprisingly tricky, but that made it all the more exciting when I finally did see the occasional kinescope or hear an audio recording. I think readers will enjoy #1, the memories, if they enjoy Match Game as much as I do, and #2, the surprises. Gene really had a remarkable career outside of that show. My hope for this book is that it makes that image on the TV screen a little more three-dimensional. Gene was very human, very flawed; he had his frustrations and disappointments like the rest of us." -- The Author

Award winning television personality Todd Newton only had one career aspiration as a boy: to be someone television viewers enjoyed tuning in to see. From an early age Newton looked up to TV icons Johnny Carson and Bob Barker simply because they entertained millions of Americans by being themselves. Today the same can be said for Todd Newton. From interviewing the world's most famous faces on the red carpets of Hollywood to sharing life-changing moments with game show contestants as they win piles of cash, Newton has mastered the art of being the man you want to invite over for dinner or have a drink with. Join The Host with the Most as he openly shares his journey from a chubby Midwestern kid with a dream to becoming one of the most familiar faces on the air today. You'll find his stories to be as colorful as the tattoos that adorn his body.

GAME SHOWS FAQ: ALL THATS LEFT TO KNOW ABOUT THE PIONEERS THE JACKPOTS THE SCANDAL