On August 12, 2007, the world lost a major legend of the entertainment industry, Mervyn Edward Griffin, to us known as Merv Griffin. Merv was a talk show host, game show host, entertainer and raconteur.
One of the things I’ll remember Merv for most fondly is his contribution to the game show industry, specifically the hits that are Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. I remember being very young and watching Wheel everyday with my grandmother and the rest of my family. Learning how to spell with the letters, being amazed by the wheel and its amounts.
On the Saturday after his passing, GSN aired a marathon of Wheel of Fortune episodes. One of them was a very early NBC daytime show, from June 1976 with Chuck Woolery as the host and Susan Stafford as the hostess. I’ve seen several episodes with Chuck under the helm and I must say, what an incredible job he did. He had the perfect amount of energy, had a wonderful sense of humor, and really helped make the contestants feel at ease. Viewers wrote in complaining about how he hugged the contestants after they won a round. He told them he didn’t care. “I’m a hugger, and if you were here, I’d hug you too.” Susan was also there to encourage the contestants and had a really good rapport with Chuck.
Now this is not to say that Pat Sajak does not do a good job on Wheel. He and Vanna White are very enjoyable to watch. And Pat does have a good job of displaying his drier brand of humor. And he does help make the contestants feel at home also.
Speaking of Pat Sajak and Vanna White, GSN also aired Vanna’s very first episode from December of 1982. I love Vanna. She seems to be a real people person who is very down to earth. She made it very easy for America to warm up to her after Susan’s departure. I love how nice she is with the contestants (she even meets with them ahead of time), and her positive attitude.
After the first syndicated episode, it would be the first episode where they went to all-cash in the syndicated era from 1987. Before this was shopping, where after contestants solved their puzzles, they’d go “shopping” for prizes. These would include trips, furniture, cars. And at the end if they didn’t have enough to buy anything else (usually when their amounts were in the
double or single digits), they’d be asked to either put their remaining monies on a gift certificate or have it put on account. The gift certificates were always seemingly to somewhere fancy (i.e. Gucci, Tiffany’s). I never understood the point of that. What could you do with a $12 gift certificate to Gucci? Or a $5 gift certificate to Tiffany's? I’m mixed about the concept of shopping. It doesn’t sound too bad to me, but some of the prizes were God-awful (ceramic Dalmatian anyone?). Yeah, I’ll stick to cash, thank you.
Jeopardy is another show that I’ve grown up with over the years. After getting over my fear of their theme music and electronic sound effects as a very young child, I managed to learn a lot. I learned about geography, some history, and subjects of that nature.
I haven’t had the chance to see many episodes with the original emcee, Art Fleming. But from what I did see, he did do a nice job as host. Very friendly, serious when it came to the game, good when the tension was high. Really cared about the contestants. Everything you could ask for in a host for a show like Jeopardy.
I am much more familiar with current host Alex Trebek. Alex is just a powerhouse at this show. He works really hard, researching the material used for questions. He goes in the office early in the day so he can practice pronouncing the difficult terms so it sounds very smoothly. A friend of mine went to a couple tapings several months ago, and one of the ways he described it was that it was being “run like a well-oiled machine.” And Alex is another example of a great game show host at their absolute finest. He knows when to be serious, and when not to be. This really proves well if you were to find an episode or two of his old NBC show High Rollers. That was one fun show and he was so upbeat and lively. Sometimes people say they don’t care for him that much because he’s too down on Jeopardy. But what they’re probably not realizing is that on Jeopardy, you need to be serious and into the game. Jeopardy is fun in itself, but it’s not as lively as High Rollers.
As for more about Merv, I wish I could have seen more of his talk show. He had so many wonderful guests on over the years, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Frank Sinatra, Joan Crawford, Soupy Sales, Rodney Dangerfield, The Supremes, Tony Randall, Orson Bean, Betty White. The list goes on and on. Real and true legends. Merv was a truly remarkable man. May he rest in peace.
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