This might be an odd maybe controversial question but I'll bring it up anyway. I've been reading some posts here, checking out some websites and hearing things about Wink Martindale's perosnality. I've heard that his style is "cheesy, corny, over the top, flashy, sterotypical game show host" and the like. Now I am aware that it's all opinion but why do some of you feel this way? I never found old Winston to be "cheesy, corny" etc. I saw him as likeable, charming in screen personailty who liked to tell a bunch of bad jokes, but that's just me.

Because it's, um, true? There's a reason they tapped him for Debt.

"Cheesy" and "corny" <> "dislikable" or "charming"

He's an entertaining enough fellow, but the slow buildups along the line of "if you answer this correctly, you'll have Tic Tac Dough and a grand total of Eleventy Billion Dollars" along with the overexcited "You got it!" is the very textbook definition of cheesy.

It's the very textbook definition of Dan Enright.

Winston did do the slow buildups less annoyingly than the more senior Jack Barry. It is, however, hard to defend a guy named Wink against a charge of cheesyness.

Hey, at least he was more tolerable than Patrick "YOU WIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNN!" Wayne. :-)

TV Guide had this funny exchange for TTD in their 84 game show host issue:
Wink: Name this James Bond movie from the summer of '83.

Contestant: The summer of '83?

Wink: No, the answer is "Octopussy."

Which was not the point of the discussion at all.

I guess the best way to describe Wink is that if you took one attribute from nearly every game show personality of the 60's and 70's and put those traits together, you would have Wink (i.e. where he was from, eyes, hair, voice, what non game-show jobs did he hold, teeth, mannerisms, etc...).

Wink became the official stereotypical game show host of modern day game shows of the 20th century. He was pretty much the model for the Mr. Game Show emcee doll, which pretty much spoofed him and his antics, which in a sense poked fun at most other hosts at the same time.

I think Bert Parks is the host Wink most closely resembles.