Mr. Allen could play games

Now that I've bashed and been bashed by the older-is-better folks on the GSN boards, I'll do older-is-better myself.

Or at least Steve-Allen-was-better...in appearing on game shows. The guy's IMDb page practically reads like the game show encyclopedia, starting with What's My Line in 1951 and continuing to Lifetime's I've Got a Secret in 2000, a few months before his death. In between, he hit a whole bunch of 'em. Sometimes it seemed like a game show wasn't official until Steve showed up.

Allen's quick wit, smiling persona, and total lack of pretension made him a natural for the genre. The screenshot comes from his 1958 "it wasn't named before me" appearance on What's My Line. One of his many contributions to that show was the bread box question, which has spawned a zillion spoofs.

Steve became a bit of a controversial figure, as he got a little grumpy about modern-day pop culture. But even here he never lost his infectious sense of humor. For instance, he liked to deadpan the lyrics to rock-and-roll songs, often to hilarious effect. A political columnist slammed him for this recently, and sneered: "Who now remembers Steve Allen?"

I do. I remember him quite well, in fact.