{"id":2426340,"date":"2025-04-23T09:32:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T13:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/celebrating-the-life-of-mr-game-show-wink-martindale\/"},"modified":"2025-04-23T09:32:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T13:32:24","slug":"celebrating-the-life-of-mr-game-show-wink-martindale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/celebrating-the-life-of-mr-game-show-wink-martindale\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating The Life Of &#8216;Mr. Game Show,&#8217; Wink Martindale"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcelebrating-the-life-of-mr-game-show-wink-martindale%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2426340&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Winston Conrad \u201cWink\u201d Martindale, who passed away at the age of 91 on April 15, was a highly influential game show host from the 1960s to the 1990s, known for his charming presence and distinctive style. With a career that began as a disc jockey in Memphis, Martindale transitioned to television, hosting several game shows, including the notable &#8220;Tic-Tac-Dough,&#8221; which aired from 1978 to 1985. This show featured computerized graphics and was groundbreaking for its time, allowing players to win significant prizes. Martindale&#8217;s legacy continued through his adaptability to modern media, creating a YouTube channel in 2014 that showcased old game show episodes. Despite the passing of many iconic game show hosts, Martindale&#8217;s contributions to the genre remain notable, as he helped shape its evolution and entertain generations of viewers.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>If a reader could look up the term &ldquo;game show host&rdquo; in an illustrated dictionary, that reader almost certainly would find a picture of Winston Conrad &ldquo;Wink&rdquo; Martindale nearby. From the 1960s through the 1990s, Martindale, who died at age 91 on April 15, helmed several popular game shows, making him a fixture in viewers&rsquo; lives for decades.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly two years ago, on the death of <em>The Price Is Right<\/em> host Bob Barker, I <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/08\/28\/the-legendary-bob-barker-epitomized-game-show-cool\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted<\/a> in these pages that the 1980s electronic game &ldquo;Mr. Game Show Host&rdquo; featured a character that &ldquo;echoed a mash-up of Barker and Wink Martindale.&rdquo; With his toothy grin, immaculate three-piece suits, and perfect coiffure, Martindale personified a &ldquo;look&rdquo; that defined the game show genre for much of the postwar era.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Innovative Yet Classic Show<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Martindale began his career in entertainment as a 1950s disc jockey in Memphis, where he befriended Elvis Presley as Presley&rsquo;s career began to explode. In the 1960s, he shifted from radio to television and began hosting game shows with the musically themed <em>What<\/em>&rsquo;<em>s This Song<\/em>? on NBC.<\/p>\n<p>The shows Martindale hosted ran the gamut, from <em>What<\/em>&rsquo;<em>s This Song<\/em>? in the 1960s, to <em>Gambit<\/em> in the 1970s, <em>Bumper Stumpers<\/em> (a Canadian game show Martindale created) in the 1980s, and <em>Debt<\/em>, a show he hosted on Lifetime in the 1990s. But he achieved his most enduring notoriety by hosting a remake of a show that had its roots in the era of the game show scandals of the 1950s.<\/p>\n<p>From 1978 through 1985, Wink Martindale emceed <em>Tic-Tac-Dough<\/em>, first as a CBS production in the summer of 1978, and in first-run syndication thereafter. The game, with a premise so simple that parents and children alike could identify it from countless games of tic-tac-toe played on long car trips, proved immensely popular. In fact, his stint on <em>Tic-Tac-Dough<\/em> came to an end not because the show got canceled but because Martindale decided to leave so he could host a game he created, <em>Headline Chasers<\/em>, which received little acclaim and was promptly canceled.<\/p>\n<p>Despite its simple premise, <em>Tic-Tac-Dough<\/em> represented an important milestone in game show history. Its game board of nine Apple II systems, linked to a centralized computer, set a new standard. Five years before <em>Press Your Luck<\/em> introduced a massive, interactive game board for players to conquer, and six years before the remake of <em>Jeopardy<\/em>! debuted a wall of 30 television screens featuring game clues, <em>Tic-Tac-Dough<\/em> became the first game show with computerized graphics. The graphics, animated dragon incorporated into the bonus game, and catchy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wLaiape09cY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">synthesized theme song<\/a> (titled &ldquo;Crazy Fun&rdquo;) gave <em>Tic-Tac-Dough<\/em> a futuristic feel.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond being futuristic, <em>Tic-Tac-Dough<\/em> featured a lot of it &mdash; dough, that is. In 1980, Thom McKee won $312,700 on the program, then a record for American game shows. (To give a sense of how much that amount could buy at the time, McKee won no fewer than eight cars, plus over $200,000 in cash.) Because the pots from tie games rolled over to the next match, and because champions faced no limits on the number of times they could defend their title, a number of players won over $100,000 on the show, making it one of the most lucrative game shows since the scandals of the 1950s.<\/p>\n<p><em>Tic-Tac-Dough<\/em> had such an enduring legacy &mdash; one that went beyond Martindale&rsquo;s tradition of signing off each Friday show by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oXAxzXFOlo0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wearing a funny hat<\/a> &mdash; that the Game Show Network launched another remake. Ironically and sadly, the remake&rsquo;s first episode, hosted by Brooke Burns, aired on April 14, the day before Martindale&rsquo;s death.<\/p>\n<h2>&lsquo;<strong>Uncle Wink&rsquo; Stays Relevant<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Somewhat surprisingly for someone born during Franklin Roosevelt&rsquo;s first term in office, Martindale adapted well to the Information Age. He created a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLsyVo9lOaQfI_BJsTMsgzGerIZYRtZVbC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YouTube channel<\/a>, titled &ldquo;Wink&rsquo;s Vault,&rdquo; in 2014, where he would post long-lost episodes of game shows, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kGk5MW4RY6s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the ABC pilot<\/a> for <em>Deal or No Deal<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>When Alex Trebek announced his cancer diagnosis over six years ago, I <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2019\/03\/08\/icon-entire-genre-alex-trebek-last-tv-game-host\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted<\/a> in these pages a series of professional game show hosts, of which Trebek was the last actively working in television. Now, with <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/11\/08\/with-alex-trebek-we-say-goodbye-to-an-era-in-television\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Trebek passing<\/a> along with Chuck Woolery and Martindale, only Bob Eubanks of the original <em>Newlywed Game<\/em> remains with us. Thankfully, however, their legacies live on &mdash; both in archival footage of the shows they emceed and in the noteworthy games, such as <em>Tic-Tac-Dough<\/em>, that they have bequeathed to a new generation of game show hosts.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<div>\n<p>   Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group and author of the book &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1645720020\">The Case Against Single Payer<\/a>.&#8221; He is on Twitter: <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/chrisjacobsHC\">@chrisjacobsHC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wink Martindale, a prominent game show host from the 1960s to the 1990s, passed away at 91 on April 15<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":2426342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/wink-martindale.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2426340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/wink-martindale.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2426340"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2426346,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426340\/revisions\/2426346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2426342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2426340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2426340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2426340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}