Best Classic American TV Game Show Hosts

By Raymond Lockley

Like Rodney Dangerfield might say, they don't get no respect (from the critics; but from their fans, they get a whole lot o' love. They are the men (mostly) who make us laugh and help us fritter away our free time. Sometimes they are the star of the show, and sometimes just the ringmaster of the studio audience or the foil of the celebrity panel. They are the game show host. While they are sometimes called the emcee or the moderator, they are almost always called witty and good-looking.

The game show was born on the radio, and easily made the transition to television; and ever since, it has been the staple of our viewing pleasure. This page commemorates the best hosts of the shows from the beginning era. (Note that this is not the same as the hosts of the best shows!) To qualify, the listee must really be known as a game show host (e.g. not Ed McMahon, who was better known by far as an announcer) and made a bit of a career out of it, doing more than one show; they must have been memorable; they must have taken their shows "to the next level"; and they must have been emulated and imitated.

Here's my arbitrary list of the best game show hosts from the classic days (i.e. from my younger days) of American TV, along with a partial list of some of the shows for which they were best known:

1. Alex Trebek Jeopardy!, The $128,000 Question, Classic Concentration, Double Dare, High Rollers, The Wizard of Odds
2. Bill Cullen Three on a Match, Name That Tune, Stop the Music, The Joker's Wild, Winner Take All, The Price Is Right, I've Got a Secret (1976), Chain Reaction,
3. John Charles Daly     What's My Line, Who Said That
4. Bob Barker The New Price Is Right, Truth or Consequences
5. Monty Hall Let's Make a Deal, It's Anybody's Guess, Beat the Clock (1979), Split Second
6. Gene Rayburn Match Game, Choose Up Sides, The Sky's the Limit, Tic Tac Dough (1956)
7. Allen Ludden Password, The G.E. College Bowl, Liar's Club (1976)
8. Robert Q. Lewis The Name's The Same, Make Me Laugh, Play Your Hunch
9. Bud Collyer To Tell the Truth, Beat the Clock (1950), Number Please, Feather Your Nest, Winner Take All
10. Bob Eubanks The Newlywed Game (four times!), Card Sharks
11. Peter Marshall The Hollywood Squares, Reel to Reel
12. Garry Moore I've Got a Secret, To Tell the Truth
13. Richard Dawson Family Feud, Masquerade Party
14. Tom Kennedy Name That Tune (1974 and 1977), Doctor I.Q., You Don't Say, Split Second, The New Price Is Right, The Big Game
15. Jack Barry Concentration, Tic Tac Dough (1956), Twenty-One, The Joker's Wild
16. Jim Lange The Dating Game, Oh My Word

Honorable Mention

Even with so many on the list of the best, there are still many more memorable hosts who are worthy of being remembered and mentioned, but who--for one reason or another (mostly because they were better known for other work)--do not qualify for the list above. Here is my list of the honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):

Chuck Barris Turned in quite a memorable turn as the host of The Gong Show, but also contributed to the genre as the producer of The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The $1.98 Beauty Show, and even composed music for The Gong Show and The Dating Game
Johnny Carson Forever beloved as the long-time host of The Tonight Show, he start out with smaller contributions, being a frequent and popular game show panelist, and even hosting Who Do You Trust (where his announcer was also Ed McMahon)
Dick Clark Seemingly ageless, he hosted many kinds of shows (including the genre-pioneering Bandstand), and also host the game shows The $10,000 Pyramid and The Object Is
Hugh Downs News anchor, announcer, Emmy-winning talk show host (of Over Easy), and nominated for another Emmy as part of the pioneering crew of the long-running Today, he also received an Emmy nomination as the host of Concentration
Ralph Edwards Probably best known for the extremely successful This Is Your Life, Ralph was also the emcee of the game shows Truth or Consequences
Dick Enberg A play-by-play announcer for many Super Bowls and long-time voice of the Angels, Enberg was arguably the all-time best host of a sports-related game show, hosting Sports Challenge
Clifton Fadiman A game show pioneer from radio days, in the 1950s Fadiman hosted TV's Information Please (which came over after a long run on radio), The Name's the Same, and What's in a Word
Art Fleming Fleming was a college football and water polo star, and a Navy pilot, but his acting career actually began at age 4, and he had already been a success on Broadway, radio, TV, and movies when Merv Griffin chose him to be the first host of Jeopardy! in 1964, for which he was nominated for an Emmy.
Arlene Francis A good actress, but perhaps best remembered as the incredibly sharp panelist on more than 700 episodes of the long-running What's My Line, she was also television's first female host, hosting Blind Date (and a few others) back in 1949
Merv Griffin Griffin's contribution to the game show genre (and TV in general) is incalculable, creating, producing, or owning many of the most successful shows, and even composing the theme music himself for Jeapordy! and Wheel of Fortune; he was (less memorably) also an game show host, emceeing Play Your Hunch (which aired on all three of the major networks), Keep Talking, and Word for Word
Art Linkletter Lovingly remembered for getting kids to "say the darnedest things" on House Party, he also helped invent "stupid human tricks" on the game show People Are Funny
Groucho Marx As his long-time foil and announcer, Fenneman, might put it, no one could fail to mention the one, the only... Groucho; so let us not forget that he not only had a brilliant comedic career with his brothers that spanned from vaudeville to the movies, he also hosted several TV shows, including the wildly funny You Bet Your Life, which aired for more than a decade (and much longer in syndication)

Panelisting

It should also be noted that almost all of these hosts were very good panelists themselves on a wide variety of quiz and comedic game shows. For example, who can forget Richard Dawson anchoring the bottom row of Match Game, or Paul Lynde and Charley Weaver (Cliff Arquette) as the long-running celebrity squares on The Hollywood Squares, or the brilliance and wit of the panelists of the old-time game shows (like What's My Line regulars Arlene Francis, Dorothy Kilgallen, and Bennett Cerf)? At some point, I'll have to figure out the criteria for a list of all-time best panelists. Any ideas?

To index of lists