Hosts With the Most

But when he starts to reel them off by title and year (“Let’s see, 11 years of ‘Love Connection,’ seven years on ‘Wheel’ … ) it’s soon apparent the number of individual episodes could easily top 5,000.

Small wonder that Woolery, 66, watched one session of Bob Eubanks hosting “The $250,000 Game Show Spectacular” at the Las Vegas Hilton, then walked up the aisle to tell producer Jimmy Richards, “I got it.”

If he hadn’t told the audience that it was his first time hosting the Hilton’s new afternoon game show, no one could have guessed it. “I’ve done this a long time,” he says with some understatement for a guy who still knocks out 68 episodes of “Lingo” in six weeks for GSN.

He’s quick with the banter (“I think Polish jokes come from jealousy”) and unflappable with the contestants. “Chuck, you’re in my bed every night at 11 o’clock,” one woman tells him.

“And I didn’t even know it,” he replies without missing a beat.

Woolery plans to host the show two days per week, alternating with Jamie Farr — who lives eternally as Corporal Klinger in “M*A*S*H” reruns — and Eubanks, the chairman emeritus of game shows.

It would take a long time to tally Eubanks’ half-hour total over 34 years of “The Newlywed Game.” One classic clip screened for Hilton audiences captures him in long sideburns and white suit, with matching white tie over a green shirt.

“The ’70s was not exactly the great fashion decade of our century, that’s for sure,” Woolery says. “A lot of plaids nobody wants to talk about. We all looked like golfers who came off the Eastern course.”

Woolery agrees that nobody ever set out in life to be a game show host, even in the ’70s when there were more of them.

He started out as a musician. His band The Avant-Garde was a one-hit wonder with “Naturally Stoned” in 1968. A few years later, “I did Merv Griffin’s show as a singer, and at the end of the show he asked me if I would be interested in being a game show host.

“I thought, ‘A game show host. That’s a guy with bad hair, bad jacket who cares nothing about what you have to say.’ “

Time may not have been kind to his ability to correct the first two. But on the third count, he figures the late Griffin must have sensed something when he hired someone with no previous experience in comedy, radio or theater to host “Wheel of Fortune” in 1975.

“Bob and I were talking about this the other day: The interesting thing about comedians is, they initiate a response. I respond to people, to what they do. That’s what I do best,” Woolery notes.

“(Johnny) Carson was a very unique guy because he did both. I think that most talk show hosts who are comedians are not very good at listening and responding. They’re more interested in doing more what they do best, (which is) initiate conversation and look for the joke.”

Because several episodes of a show are taped each day, he doesn’t remember half of what he said. “After two or three days of that in a row, by the time you come out of that you’re totally shell-shocked,” he says. “I would be on vacation and come across it, and I would sit there and laugh at the jokes like I’d never heard them before.”

The new Hilton show plays like a greatest hits of game showdom. It gives audience members a chance to play digest versions of “The Newlywed Game” and “The Gong Show” by name, and generic games such as “Higher or Lower” that reference “Card Sharks” or other shows on the hosts’ resumes.

Producer Richards has done the show at casinos around the country with Eubanks for the past three years. He’s hoping that the star power of the three hosts and the chance to win real money will sell tickets for a genre people are used to seeing for free.

Bally’s has had good luck with a live version of “The Price Is Right,” which generates genuine suspense from players who have watched the game their entire lives and relish a chance to play.

This one is more laid-back, if no less generous. “The beauty of our show is it’s very entertaining,” Eubanks noted by phone recently. “One of the comments I get all the time was, ‘I didn’t get to get onstage but boy that was a funny show.’ ”

The first guy called to the stage gets a $100 bill “just for getting up here,” Woolery tells him. Another couple walks away with $200 as the “Most Honest Couple” because the husband came closest to guessing his wife’s weight.

The $250,000 title game is a little tougher; the contestant chooses three numbers from 20, revealing dollar amounts that must add up to $1,000. “Those odds are phenomenal,” Richards says, at least compared to keno or other casino long shots.

Still, Richards is the first to agree that while greed is good, “You’ve got to bring star power (to Las Vegas). The authenticity is bringing icons like Chuck and Bob and Jamie together.”

“This is getting embarrassing,” Woolery says.