As alluded to in another thread, various celebrities appeared on the Chuck Berris game show The Dating Game. Just from memory, there was Steve Martin, Phil Hartmann, Cheech, Chong, and Andy Kaufman. But to the best of my knowledge, none of these guys were famous at the time.
To answer the first question first - I remember John Ritter on it.
And now for the second. The young actors were looking to get their faces seen and the producers were looking for outgoing attractive people who were not afraid to speak up and to a certain extent make a fool out of themselves. Who better than young actors add to that it was filmed in Hollywood where young actors are looking for any exposure. (did I mention it paid?)
I saw an interview with Kevin Nealon where they showed when he was on the Dating Game. His answer to some question was to get everyone to stop taking showers and use one giant can of aerosol deodorant. I think it was to conserve water or something.
It’s what TV time said, the young actors and comedians were using it as a step in their careers.
I saw one with PeeWee. I had never heard of him at the time. He was Bachelor #2. I remember at times, when they did a group shot, #1 and #2 looking at him like “WTF!”
Harlan Ellison claimed to have been on it once. He “accidentally” got a look at the young lady and decided to take a dive: Asked where he would take her on a date, he described an idyllic restaurant dinner, a rare and expensive bottle of wine, and a trip to a back alley with .22 rifles to pick off some rats.
Cuba Gooding Jr. was on it. He said something silly b/c I’ve seen the clip on one of those “hilarious bloopers” shows. He looks so young it’s kinda creepy.
Michael Jackson as a kid was on the show. This was evidently when he was still interested in females and not trying to get into the pants of little…oh never mind.
From the clip I saw, he appeared to be about 12 though I’m not very good at estimating other people’s age and he was certainly established at the time though not the mega-star, household name he would later become.
In addition to the exposure mentioned above and the fact they shot in Hollywood, where the future star to shlub ratio is higher than in Walla Walla, people with 9 to 5 jobs couldn’t always take a day off to shoot their appearances. But if you’re a struggling actor between jobs you’ve got nothing to do all day but show up on game shows.