Game-show hosts you've had a crush on

(Note – none of these is particularly embarrassing if you consider my age at the relevant time.)

  1. John Davidson (“Hollywood Squares”). Dimples. My age – high single digits.
  2. Richard Dawson (“Family Feud”). Accent and charm. My age – teens.
  3. Chuck Woollery (“Love Connection”). Dimples and twinkle; “niceness.” My age – 20s.
  4. Tom Bergeron (“Hollywood Squares,” “Dancing with the Stars”). His ad libs seem legitimately off the cuff, at least part of the time. My age – late 40s to present.

I preferred Ray Combs to Richard Dawson, but I’m right there with ya on Chuck Woollery.

Bob Barker, too.

Groucho Marx.

I’m sorry, but having a crush on Richard Dawson at any time is embarrassing. Be ashamed; be very ashamed.

Chuck Woollery is teh hot, though. He was hot then and he’s still hot. Nothing to be ashamed of there. And I have a total switchfor on for his Lingo co-host, Shandi Finnessey. She’s adorable.

Roger Lodge from “Blind Date” and now “Camouflage” is pretty attractive, and the guy who hosts “Chain Reaction” is pretty cute in an oddly plastic sort of way. I’m a little embarrassed that I find A.J. Benza, who co-hosts “High Stakes Poker,” hot, because he comes off more than a little sleazy. It probably doesn;t help that he was in the film adaptation of “P.S. Your Cat is Dead” playing an ambisexual scumbag.

Chuck Barris – “The Gong Show”

I was 6 years old, if that helps my case any.

Uh… Vanna?

Really? I’d have placed them contrariwise on the embarrassment scale.

Bert Convy from Tattletales.

I always thought Peter Sagal (from “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on NPR) sounds cute. And he’s definitely smart and funny, so…y’all can have Carl Kassel, but I know who I’d want on my answering machine.

I’d say the most appealing game show hosts, in no particular order, would have to be:

Brooke Burns (Dog Eat Dog)
Brooke Burke (Rock Star)
Chuck Barris (Gong Show)
Chuck Wollery (Scrabble, many others)
Peter Tomarken (Press Your Luck)
Ron Ely (Face the Music)
John Davidson (Hollywood Squares)

Disproportionate number of Brookes and Chucks.

Perverted wet kisser, Richard Dawson? Really?

I am still not completely convinced these are actually two different people.
Really? I’m totally alone on the Richard Dawson thing?

Oh yeah. This is who I first thought of (even though she’s not really the host.)

Summer Sanders (“Figure It Out” on Nickelodeon). What a cutie!

Susan Stafford, though (like Vanna, appropriately enough) she was not the host per se.

Edit: Oh, and Holly on TPIR. Again, not “host,” but come one, there aren’t that many true female hosts.

About 6 of the “Deal or No Deal” models.

They count, right?

Johnny Carson in “Who Do You Trust?”

We were very young then. I was in elementary school! And he was very, very funny.

Add me in to the Chuck Woolery fangirl club. I still do that “two and two” thing he used to do on Love Connection. He does twinkle, doesn’t he?

Shandi Finnessey and Mel Peachey.

Kennedy, from Friend or Foe.

Nancy Pimintel from Win Ben Stein’s Money.