If Bert Convy had not fallen ill in 1990, he would have done a great job as host of the revived
Match Game on ABC. Based on the pilots we've seen over the past four years, he had the spontaneity and great interaction with celebrities thanks to his experience on
Tattletales and
Super Password. Maybe he could have kept another show in the Noon slot for a decent amount of time (
Super Password lasted 4½ years in that slot on NBC).
I can understand GSN wanting a younger host in Todd Newton for
Whammy!, but after seeing the pilot Peter Tomarken hosted thanks to Wink Martindale, I have to wonder if having the master of
Press Your Luck hosting the revival would have allowed it to last longer, like Woolery
Lingo. Peter hosted the game like he never left.
After reading his autobiography
Everything in its Place: My Trials and Triumphs With Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I learned that Marc Summers was tapped to host
Hollywood Squares when it was coming back for 1998. He appeared a handful of times in the Davidson era, and he would have had that ascended extra status by becoming the host. However, would he have been able to carry the show the way Tom Bergeron did, who, I think, was part of the reason why that version of
Squares had a good 6-year run in syndication? Also, Marc stated that because he revealed he had OCD, producers thought he would have been difficult to work with, so they went with Tom. It's a shame we'll never know how he would have done.
Geoff Edwards was tapped to host
Family Feud when it was being developed, but he was already committed to
Shoot the Works for Bob Stewart on NBC, so he had to step down. As good a host as Geoff is, I don't know if he would have made the show such a phenomenon that's still with us today the way Richard Dawson did.
On the April Fool's 2003 episode of
Hollywood Squares, Tom joked that "Suddenly turning down the job on
Card Sharks doesn't seem like such a good idea," which makes me wonder if he was seriously considered to host the 2001 revival. If that's the case, at least having a good host would have made that somewhat tolerable to watch. But that also might have meant Tom leaving
Hollywood Squares (and it might have ended with him or soon after he left).
Gene Rayburn was supposedly in the running for Password Plus after Allen Ludden's retirement. I'm not saying he may have done better than Tom Kennedy but that would have been an interesting choice.
That's interesting to hear. No offense to Gene, who was phenomenal on
Match Game, I think he would have been ill-fitting for
Password Plus, which was a much more serious game. Tom played it straight ("French/France" incident notwithstanding) and was a fine successor to Allen.
