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Jewish World Review
August 4, 2006
/ 10 Menachem-Av, 5766
I'm game-show-host hot (not)
By
Joel Stein
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
This is why I listed my home number. So that, one day, a casting director would call me and tell me to rush down to his office to audition to be a game show host. Instantly, all those death threats seemed worth it.
"Starface," the Game Show Network program debuting tonight about celebrity scandals, had just dumped former "Entertainment Tonight" anchor Bob Goen. And I — by dint of my pop culture knowledge and willingness to appear anywhere — was tapped as one of a dozen possible replacements. I was going to be the guy in front of a board full of questions, making people's dreams come true. People named me.
I was heading out for my audition, full of images of eating at Dan Tana's with Chuck Woolery and Wink Martindale, when my lovely wife, Cassandra, came home. When I told her where I was headed, she grabbed my shoulders and yelled, "You'd make a perfect game show host!" These are not words you want to hear from the person you're closest to.
When your wife thinks you're so phony and plastic-looking that "you'd make a perfect game show host" — and you're not using those skills to cheat on her — you have to look in the mirror. And remove some of that American Crew wax from your hair. Cassandra spent the next 10 minutes assuring me that she meant that I have a cool, ironic, retro-'70s smoothness that would shift the game show host paradigm.
The audition took place in an office at Sunset-Gower Studios with two fake contestants and a fake audience. Determined not to be smooth and plastic, I instead opted for awkward and mumbling. I told contestant Gwen that I was going to introduce myself "Richard Dawson-style — except I'm going to update it and just feel you up." Then, to find out more about Gwen's life, I skipped "Where are you from?" and "What do you do?" and instead went with: "Why are you on a game show? What's going on in your life that you need this kind of validation?" I made Alex Trebek seem caring.
I was feeling pretty good about blowing my audition with my raw, bad-ass attitude until I saw Danny Bonaduce at Gold's Gym a few weeks later. Because he looked like he's off steroids, I walked within four feet of him. Within minutes, he started telling me about his new job as a game show host. For "Starface." Apparently, it was not my raw bad-ass attitude that lost me the job.
Bonaduce told me that as he left for his audition, his wife, Gretchen, told him that he'd make a great game show host. Unlike me, who got all pouty, Bonaduce responded by screaming at his wife. I was not sure exactly what that was supposed to express, because he reacts to everything by screaming at her. But he explained that, like me, he was hurt and insulted. Worse yet, when I called his house to talk about this some more, Gretchen answered the phone and told me that I would make a great game show host. I considered screaming at her, but figured she wouldn't notice.
The real insult in all this didn't strike me until days later: I lost out on a job interview to Danny Bonaduce.
To find out how this could happen, I went to see Rich Cronin, Game Show Network president. To my relief, Cronin said the problem wasn't that I was too phony or soft, but that I was boring. "The knock against you is that you were too low-key," he said. "You want to have enough energy to keep the game going." I chose to paraphrase and tell Cassandra that Cronin said I was too cool.
But Cronin did say I was in the top quarter of people he auditioned, which I would have thought the GSN would give a consolation prize for. And, in fact, Cronin said he'd try me out again. I was feeling pretty good until, in a moment that made me panic about how I'm perceived, he warned me that "there's a lot of math involved." Nothing hurts like knowing a network president thinks there are equations you can't handle but Howie Mandel can.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Joel Stein is a Los Angeles Times columnist. Comment by clicking here.
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