I am very fortunate to have Bob Barker as my mentor. I used to go watch Bob do tapings three days a week. It was like college to me.
While I was hosting a show back in 2001 called Whammy!, the traveling The Price is Right started, and Bob was kind enough to say, “Put this kid in. He’s done game shows before.”
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I loved going on the air and being a slightly exaggerated version of myself. I idolized [Johnny] Carson, [Dick] Clark, Barker. They were successful at entertaining millions by being themselves.
Bob taught me that every contestant has a story. Your job is to find that story, to build that connection between the contestant and the audience.
If there’s an audience of 4,000 people and one of those people is onstage, you’ve gotta get those other 3,999 people to care about that person. You ask, you dig, you find out what makes them tick.
There’s a big difference between saying, “This is Nancy. She’s going to play Plinko. Good luck,” and saying, “Nancy is a postal worker who’s never had a vacation, and we want to send her to Vegas!”
Viewers are becoming more aware that game shows are the only true form of reality TV. There’s a structure, but there’s no script.
I get to be Santa Claus 365 days a year: For 90 minutes, I get to give strangers cash and prizes, and there’s never any scandal or scuttlebutt.
I’ve been picked up, swung around, dropped, kissed, hugged, and slapped out of excitement more than any other host. It’s hard to forget the times when some big ol’ boy from Louisiana wins and he picks you up and gives you a bear hug. The soreness tends to remind you of that.
I’m lucky that I get to do this every night. But the contestant gets to do it once—so when I experience it every night, through their eyes, every night is fresh and new to me.
I never check out. I never go on autopilot. Anything can happen, and it usually does.
