Games - Jim Perry

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James Edward Perry (born November 11, 1934, in Camden, New Jersey) is a former television game show host, singer and performer in the 1970s and 1980s. He has often been mistaken for Great Britain's Prince Charles, whom he resembles, and has been seen mostly on Canadian television.

Originally starting out in comedy working with Sid Caesar as his straight man for several years (which included a three-year stint with Caesar in Las Vegas), Jim Perry became a popular game show host in Canada in the early 1970s after a stint as an overnight DJ on radio station WABC in New York. His first effort in Canada was the popular game show Fractured Phrases, and afterwards presided over several other game shows, including Eye Bet and Money Makers -- the latter also airing on syndicated television in some markets across the United States. Perry also worked as a singer (under the stage name Jim Dooley), working on Armed Forces Radio during the Korean War as well as a stage singer at Grossingers in the New York Catskill Mountains, where he also served as a host. Jim also served as an announcer for The Joan Rivers Show, a short-lived two month series that aired in 1969 on syndicated television.

In 1973, Perry became host of the CTV game show Definition, a pre-Wheel of Fortune series which was one of the longest running game shows in Canadian Television history, lasting until 1990. Perry also hosted another long-running game show, Headline Hunters, which lasted from 1972 until 1981, with a year of repeats the following year.

In addition, Jim presided as emcee of the annual Miss Canada Pageant, a job he held from 1967 until 1990, about the same length of time his U.S. counterpart Bob Barker presided over the Miss USA Pageant on CBS. Like Bert Parks in the United States, Perry would sing the pageant's closing song soon after the new Miss Canada was crowned.

Perry's first major American network hosting job came in 1967, with a short-lived charades-type game called "It's Your Move." The series was produced in Canada for ABC television in the United States. Another game show of this configuration, "Money Makers" (a game based on Bingo), aired a few years later. His biggest break came in 1978 when NBC and Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions casted him for their new show Card Sharks
. Perry hosted the entire NBC version and the two pilots that preceded the series, airing from April 24, 1978 until October 23, 1981.

Jim also hosted two game show pilots that never made it to television: Casino in 1981 (from Heatter-Quigley Productions), a game show combining elements of High Rollers, Gambit and The Joker's Wild; and Twisters in 1982, which was similar in format to Jackpot
and was produced by Bob Stewart Productions.

In 1982, NBC named Perry host of $ale of the Century, a revived version of the 1969-1973 series, airing from January 3, 1983 until March 24, 1989, including the syndicated version which aired from January 1985 until September 1986. For more than six seasons, he presided over the fast-paced Q&A game. His style helped to make the show a big hit for the network in the last golden era of game shows, and made Perry one of the top game show personalities of the 1980s in the United States.

As the result of his successful work in both the United States and Canada, Jim spent over a decade commuting between Southern California and Toronto, Ontario (except between late-1981 and late-1982). By hosting Card Sharks in the United States and Definition and Headline Hunters in Canada, Perry in 1978 became the first game show host in the industry to emcee game shows concurrently on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. Two other hosts would follow: Canadian-born host Alex Trebek is the second to do so in 1981, hosting Pitfall and Battlestars at the same time; followed by Geoff Edwards in 1989, as host of Jackpot and Chain Reaction. Wink Martindale, Art James, Robin Ward, Mike Darrow, Monty Hall and Jack Narz also hosted game shows in Canada and the U.S. but not at the same time.

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