#82: Patrick Duffy - Game Show Host
Bobby Ewing In His Most Boring Role Yet

Host: Bingo America (March - October, 2008)

I have a theory when it comes to game show hosts.  If your name is Pat or Patrick.  Odds are that you're going to suck.  Out of all the Pats or Patricks that have hosted game shows, only two have been good or decent in Pat Sajak, who is the king of Pat(rick)s, and then you have Pat Finn, who has shown to be a serviceable host, especially with shows that aren't really the best around in the 1990 incarnation of The Joker's Wild and Shop 'til You Drop.  But then we have the group of Pats who proved to be the worst of the bunch.  You had Patrick Wayne, who became the archetype of the worst game show host ever and one of the biggest reasons why Tic Tac Dough '90 failed.  You also have the mulleted git that is Pat Bullard, who's smarmy attitude ruined many a game show, such as Baloney, and the 2001 version of Card Sharks. 

But in 2008, Game Show Network was on some weird name kick, especially names from the 1980s that still carried some weight.  For example, they got Corbin Bernsen to host How Much Is Enough.  To be frank, he was pretty much the only good thing about How Much is Enough.  Then when GSN Live came around, they got Heidi Bohay from Hotel to co-host along with Fred Roggin.  Heidi was good, but sometimes could get annoying.  Also, Catch 21 made its debut in 2008, with 80s and 90s child & teen star, Alfonso Ribeiro.  I swear, once Catch 21 goes under, he goes here.

  But in March, GSN got the rights to make their version of National Bingo Night, calling it Bingo America. A streamlined version of the show, minus the lame games, overly dramatic tone of the game and the stereotypical, bordering on the racist, Indian referee who could only speak about 7-8 words, most of them being Play On or NO BINGO.  But instead it featured a lovely blonde co-host named Crystal, who did her job well.  But then came on a host, who looks the part and had quite a pedigree, but unfortunately proved to be one of of the most lifeless hosts in the genre's history.  Ladies and gentlemen, Bobby Ewing himself, Patrick Duffy.

Patrick Duffy is best known for being Bobby Ewing on Dallas.  The level-headed younger brother of evil bastard J.R. Ewing ended up being one of the best known figures of the 80s.  Sadly, his career would take a nose dive in the 90s after Dallas got cancelled and he landed on a sappy TGIF sitcom in Step By Step on ABC with Suzanne Somers.  CBS later picked it up and it got cancelled in a year.  He did other roles later on and then Bingo America came along in 2008.  Now, Patrick Duffy, to my knowledge has never appeared on a game show.  So, he was a major unknown when it came to hosting. 

Now if you know, he's a great actor in many styles in drama, and other light-hearted stuff.  However, when it came to hosting Bingo America, which is a light-hearted quizzer with a bingo element, he just didn't seem he wanted to be there.  So not only did he look like he was disenchanted with doing the show from minute 1, he absolutely sounded it as well.  If you look back at Step By Step, at least he tried to show some passion about the show he was doing.  When he was doing Dallas, he showed immense amounts of passion for his job.  Bingo America, just to him seemed like a good way to get a paycheck, so he just stood there, without caring for the show, the contestants or anything.

His voice had no tone to it whatsoever.  I mean it just sounded like all of the energy that he had in the past, got sucked out to power the big Bingosphere.  He just had no energy whatsoever.  There really isn't much more that can be said about Patrick Duffy's hosting.  He just came in there, read cards well, had zero energy, sounded bored all the time and just seemed completely out of place on the show.  Crystal showed energy, the contestants showed energy, the audience showed energy, but Patrick showed none. 

It was clear that Patrick Duffy was a corpse of his former self.

Wait?  He's a corpse?

And oddly enough, GSN actually did do that.

So instead of bland, lifeless Bobby Ewing, we have excitable, bearded Al Borland replacing him.  Richard Karn took over for Patrick Duffy in October.  Along with Karn came a new co-host in Diane Mizota.  Also, a new bonus game that was much better than the old one.  So, with the departure of Duffy, the show improved, but in the end, it fell victim to a new way of thinking in GSN, and the show was cancelled in 2009, even after they did the auditions for Season 3 & were ready to start filming for Season 3.  Another reason to hate Goldhill.

There isn't much to say that I already said.  It was like having a hosting android doing the show and end up with the same result as Patrick Duffy's performance on the show.  That's all I got on Patrick Duffy.

However, there is one thing on Youtube that pretty much described Duffy's tenure on Bingo America to a T.  I want you all to take a look at this one.

Note from Carl: As this entry was done in 2011, Duffy has reprised his role as of June 2012 in TNT's version of "Dallas". 


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