Lust of the eyes

Vanessa Minnillo is replacing Jill Wagner on Wipeout. I'm sure that Vanessa is well-prepared, clever, witty, informative, charming and pleasant. It also helps that she's drop-dead gorgeous.

A few people have noticed that it's good to be pretty if you want to be on camera. Hey, it's a visual medium, right? We don't want the on-air talent looking like the Wicked Witch of the West.

The problem arises when the pretty people obviously don't have anything else to offer except their looks. Then the "eye candy" grumbles start. Game shows aren't immune to this tendency, though actually the genre is hardly TV's worst offender. Nobody would suggest a Miss Universe campaign to Anne Robinson, for instance, and she managed to hang around for a while. Drew Carey was not a thing of beauty, especially before the weight-reduction drugs, but he got Bob Barker's old gig.

Unless a game show host looks like a gargoyle (which won't happen) physical appearance is generally not an overwhelming factor. Bill Cullen was Mr. Average in the looks department, but he could run a show so well, nobody minded. If a show has models, appearance become more important for them, of course. But that's true for models anywhere.