Sympathy for the Reege

It took a real old guy with beige hair to conquer the decades-long curse of the 1950s game show fixing scandals. Yes, I'm overstating the importance of Regis Philbin to the success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, the Brit import which brought big-money game shows back to American broadcast prime time in 1999. After all, Millionaire's format was strong enough to withstand almost any halfway competent host.

But Regis was much more, a relaxed TV veteran who seemed like everybody's buddy and maybe really was everybody's buddy. His common touch helped make the show's less than breakneck pace acceptable. A grating host would have irritated endlessly in those loooooong pauses before - sorry, I can't resist - the final answer.

As most everybody knows by now, Regis has announced his retirement on that syndie daytime show with the lady who's young enough to be his granddaughter. He hosted a couple other game shows in his career, most notably the sadly short-lived Million Dollar Password. But his turn opposite the hot seat in Millionaire will always be his best-known legacy to the genre. And he's still on GSN at 2:00 AM!