The veteran TV game show host, actor and radio personality died today of pneumonia at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica. Geoff Edwards was 83. He hosted a series of game shows from the 1970s into the early ’90s, including Jackpot!, The New Treasure Hunt, a later version called Treasure Hunt, Shoot For The Stars, Play It By Ear and Chain Reaction. He might be best known to viewers in the Golden State as the longtime host of The Big Spin, the California Lottery’s TV show. He also appeared on a number of TV series ranging from Petticoat Junction and I Dream Of Jeannie to The Paper Chase, Diff’rent Strokes and Trapper John, M.D. and was the straight man to the star on NBC’s short-lived variety series The Bobby Darin Show in 1973. Edwards was a regular on Southern California radio for decades, starting in San...
- 3/6/2014
- by ERIK PEDERSEN
- Deadline TV
As a kid growing up in Toronto, I was struck by the radically different approaches of Canadians and Americans to TV game shows. While a housewife was winning a catamaran, car, or European holiday on Buffalo's channel 2, her equivalent north of the border was elated to take home an electric mop and 30 dollars cash on the CBC. With hilariously low production values, tacky sets, suspiciously loopy hosts and cheap, quirky prizes, Canadian game shows made staying home sick from school an inadvertent lesson in absurd comedy.
Canadian Game Show Hall of Lame:
The Mad Dash
What's not to love about players in ill-fitting polyester racing around a lit-up life-sized board game that could've been made by Dawn Weiner's Special People's Club? Hosted by the Franco-Vegas and notably distracted Pierre Lalonde (he often forgot the score, and on one episode had to be told by a team he'd incorrectly declared...
Canadian Game Show Hall of Lame:
The Mad Dash
What's not to love about players in ill-fitting polyester racing around a lit-up life-sized board game that could've been made by Dawn Weiner's Special People's Club? Hosted by the Franco-Vegas and notably distracted Pierre Lalonde (he often forgot the score, and on one episode had to be told by a team he'd incorrectly declared...
- 2/18/2010
- by Dustin Rowles
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