They were among the first television personalities to make us feel safe, reassuring us that all would be OK in their skinny-microphone-clutching hands. Bill Cullen helping us name that tune. Bob Eubanks mediating between our newlyweds. Monty Hall cutting deals. Bud Collyer finding out who was telling the truth (while beating the clock).
And so they remain. Over 75 years of social change, political earthquakes, media shifts, military conflicts and, maybe most important, the demise of the mass celebrity, game show hosts have managed to stay above the fray. Their clothes (and mics) have changed dramatically. Yet our trust has never wavered. When Elizabeth Banks roots for no whammies or Drew Carey coaxes out the right price, we genuinely believe they have our best interests at heart.
As current Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings wrote of predecessor Alex Trebek eight months before the icon died, “Carson and Cronkite are long gone, but Alex Trebek remains … the voice of facts in a post-fact world.” Even as the trend worsens and we go from post-fact to pro-fiction — when we privilege feelings of rightness over the nuisances of reality — disqualifying personalities as we go, we spare hosts the sharpness of our arrows. Despite (or because of) everything, game show emcees still matter.
Just look at the Emmys field this year. The pure hosts (Jennings, Press Your Luck‘s Banks and Family Feud’s Steve Harvey) conjure feelings of warmth across a wide swath of the public. Those who dabble in news and politics (Colin Jost and Jimmy Kimmel)? Less universally beloved.
Yet for all the good vibes professional game show hosts stir up, the Emmys can overlook these national treasures and perpetual workhorses, making the category an afterthought somewhere below the sixth guest-actor prize. Hosts got a break two years ago when the award moved from NATAS’ Daytime Emmys to the Television Academy’s primetime prizes. But neglect still reigns.
Worse, voters from both bodies get it wrong way too often. In the spirit of politeness (that a game show host would appreciate), I won’t single out undeserving winners over the years. But it is worth pointing up all the greats who got snubbed. Richard Dawson had 10 epic years hosting Family Feud, making us feel like we belonged to whatever clan we just met, and yet only won once. Pat Sajak skillfully pulled off both mild-mannered and twinkly — the uncle we always wanted — yet lost 18 of the 22 times he was nominated (and it took him 12 years to get his first win) for Wheel of Fortune. Carey, perhaps the most slept-on of the current crop of hosts, has presided over The Price Is Right for 18 seasons and has never even been nominated. Even Alex Trebek only won twice in his first 18 years of hosting Jeopardy!
Drew Carey has them spin the big wheel on The Price Is Right.
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
These hosts possess skills beyond the studio audience. Just consider what everyone on the above list has done when they weren’t hosting: Carey showing off his skills as a comic performer, Sajak as a CNN interviewer, Banks as a film director and Dawson as a transcendently good actor in The Running Man. Plus, are we really going to forget that for an NHL promo Trebek once rapped and skated — at the same time? (No, really, he did this.)
And while a relatively new host, Jennings is far and away the most talented of his generation with his quick banter, his warmth laced with just the right amount of edge. Yet somehow he’s working on an oh-fer streak of his own.
At a moment when trolling is valued and respect seen as weakness, game show hosts quietly, steadily, often five times a week from a contrived soundstage, demonstrate the best of what TV can be, even of what humanity can offer. The Emmys should shine a brighter spotlight. Here’s one idea: Move the prize from the Creative Arts to the main event. And honor the right people more, those who work so hard to honor the medium.
This is the last of the season’s Race columns — of more than a dozen mini-essays on subjects as diverse as income inequality, work-life balance, TV motherhood and late night snubs. Awards are, on one level, of course a most frilly affair, another way for Hollywood to back-scratch while everywhere else we hunch in worry. But in another sense, Emmys are a serious matter, a way to signal to those who bang their heads to get a show greenlit, made and noticed that it wasn’t all for nothing.
Game show hosts seem like the perfect capstone to such a season, on one hand presiding over silly contests for cash prizes and yet also symbolizing the best and most decent of what our media can be. As many American values teeter under the hand of a onetime game show host, let’s remember all the emcees who do so much to keep them upright. Long may they hold the mic.
This story appeared in the Aug. 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.