UPDATE August 11th: They did it. Richards IS the new host, AND a possible justification of his conduct has been hired for some ABC prime-time events...
Pardon the pun, but that's about all the humor I have for this subject.
As a long-time game-show fan (read: basically, my entire conscious life -- we're talking I knew about "Match Game 75" IN 1975!!!), I definitely have a continuing interest in the genre.
One of the longest-standing game shows of all time is Jeopardy!, the Merv Griffin creation, based on the quiz show scandals of the late 1950's. Merv figured, at that point, they'd GIVE YOU the answers, you win (and lose!) money based on the questions you supply in response.
Within the last year, to the great sadness of anyone who cared about the show, we lost the most venerable host the show ever knew, Alex Trebek, to pancreatic cancer.
What ensued was a parade of former contestants and celebrities to host the show to complete this season. Ken Jennings began the process with a stellar six-week run, everyone else has had a week or two. Many felt the job was Jennings' to lose -- as he was not only a great host, he was also already on the show's staff.
It now appears the entire exercise may have been a STEAMING FAT FRAUD.
Enter the one man who has probably done more to attempt to destroy the entire genre of game shows in the last ten years than any other man alive: Mike Richards.
Richards, to many in the game show fan community, was seen as the man who alternatively either saved or tried to kill The Price is Right after Bob Barker's departure from the show and the firing of show-runner Roger Dobkowitz a year later. Richards not only took the show and added gimmicks to it -- falling just short of changing Price toward an English language version of Sabado Gigante, he appeared to take many of those gimmicks out of the prize budget, as it appeared he led the show down a very dark path where the audience at home no longer wanted to see people win, but see people LOSE.
So it was with great joy to many in the Price fan community when he finally decided to relinquish his role as Executive Producer of the show.
Unfortunately, it was to take the same position at the two largest syndicated game shows of the last 30 years, the Jeopardy!/Wheel of Fortune pairing many are quite familiar with.
That was bad enough... But there's another post that some may not be so familiar with: Mike Richards, while he was (thank you to my anonymous friend and fellow game show fan for a couple corrections!) Price's executive producer, was also a game show HOST -- the Game Show Network version of Pyramid. It didn't last that long, blink and you probably missed it.
Anyway, the reason this is important is that Richards used that to manipulate his way as the second guest-host of the show after Alex's passing -- after the wonderful six-week run of "Greatest of All Time" Ken Jennings.
The reason given was that Richards claimed that no other celebrity or former contestant was available at the time.
As another syndicated host would say: That was a LIE.
Over the course of the past week, it has become reported (and, some of us believe, in a manner consistent with a publicist for Richards' press release) that the decision on the new host has been made and it's not Ken Jennings (who had also spent at least part of this season as a show consultant). It's not popular former contestant Buzzy Cohen. It's not popular guest hosts Aaron Rodgers, Mayim Bialik or even LeVar Burton.
It's Richards!!
Now, for some of us, this is bad enough. There has already been reporting of misleading "gotcha" clues being snuck on the show to trick contestants in a more unfair manner than the more conventional "think it out" questions trivia shows would often have.
But Richards has already made it clear he wants to change Jeopardy! not dissimilar to the way he changed Price -- gimmickry. One idea attributed to Richards is to take the College Tournament they used to have and change it into a team event, not unlike the "Jeopardy All-Stars" event from a number of years back. (Reported by long-time Jeopardy! website-collator Andy Saunders.)
There is no way the show could be maintained with any degree of gimmickry. To even get the 60 questions in in a show basically requires the show to be completely rapid-fire. If Richards was able to start gimmicking stuff up, there's no way that significant numbers of questions on a game (instead of the occasional 1-3) would be able to be completed.
But that may be the least of Richards' problems -- and what has now surfaced is nothing short of a reign of terror (on both Jeopardy! and Price) which WILL get Jeopardy! cancelled if Richards succeeds in taking over as host.
You see, Mikey Richards has a lawsuit problem. I'd say it's just sexual harassment, but it's not.
CBS, Richards, and The Price is Right were sued by Lanisha Cole, a model for the show from 2003-2010. Verbal abuse and sexual harassment by Richards were the main claims. In fact, it appears, through the lawsuit, that Richards manipulated the firing of Cole in 2010 after Richards started a relationship with another of the models!
An unannounced settlement was reached in 2013, before which Richards was, in fact, removed as one of the defendants.
At about the same time, the show had a second lawsuit by another of the models, Brandi Sherwood. This lawsuit surrounded Sherwood being discriminated against for wanting to (and eventually succeeding in) become pregnant. Richards was named as a producer who openly said that, had Sherwood not revealed the eventual pregnancy to another long-time producer on the show, she'd have been fired.
According to a 2012 Hollywood Reporter article on the affair, a court in Los Angeles gave Sherwood everything she asked for -- almost EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS in damages, mostly PUNITIVE.
In fact, there was also a THIRD lawsuit about the same time, from model Shane Stirling. This one, the producers won when Stirling (probably inferring from the other two lawsuits and not actually gathering evidence on her own situation) did not have sufficient evidence other than "course of conduct" with the other models.
All this happened under Richards' watch at Price.
While on Jeopardy!, Richards is partially believed responsible for age-discrimination against long-time contestant coordinator Glenn Kagan, according to former contestant Roey Hadar -- who also revealed the changes in clue styling to trick the contestants. (Hadar does note that some of the harassment appears to pre-date Richards' ascension to the Executive Producer role.)
So that's at least FOUR lawsuits (at least two regarding sexual harassment, at least in part) in Richards' ascension through media.
In this day and age, Mike Richards is utterly cancel-able. How he was allowed to remain Executive Producer of The Price is Right, much less made producer of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, is beyond me.
As Saunders later said, in editorial on Friday:
"Matt’s 12-game streak has been completely overshadowed the past few days by the leaked report on Wednesday that Mike Richards (who has been sued multiple times for harassment and discrimination, by the way) was in advanced negotiations to become the next host of Jeopardy. Yesterday, it came out that Richards lied to Jeopardy! fans about the circumstances behind him taking an “emergency” guest hosting spot. Mike Richards is a man who has lost my trust and my goodwill. He needs to be fired. There are plenty of people in the game show production sphere with show-running and hosting experience who could immediately step in and replace Richards and who don’t have these issues."
There is no way that Mike Richards should be allowed to host the show or remain as Executive Producer of either show. There are already open plans, including former contestants and many fans, to boycott the show, should he be named permanent host. He has all-but-certainly either successfully manipulated his way into being the permanent host, or there will be a significant delay in next season.
I predict he'll get at least Jeopardy! cancelled within two years.
Something to think about in that regard: Has Mike Richards already injected the poison pill into the franchise to kill it, believing he's the only one who can "save" it? All you have to do is go back to the decision (which Richards had to be a part of) to put that quack Dr. Oz as a guest host of the show.
The show's ratings have never substantially recovered. Recently posted on the show's Reddit: The 2021 Tournament of Champions ratings were down 27% from the previous edition in 2019. This is consistent with an 18% immediate drop from Katie Couric's hosting session to Dr. Oz (Saunders reported that on his page on Friday, in continuing calls to have Richards ousted from the show) -- and the show has not recovered those numbers.
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