Mark Davis
More than Sajak, more than Trebek, more than Dawson, Bob Barker deserves his place on the Mt. Rushmore of game-show hosts. Longevity alone would earn him a spot: For more than six decades he hosted Truth or Consequences and The Price Is Right. And when he wasn’t running game shows, he was emceeing beauty pageants, hosting Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day parades, and supplying voice talent for Futurama and SpongeBob.
But outlasting his competition was not his only claim to fame. Barker, who died Saturday morning of natural causes at the age of 99, according to TMZ, always had an edge that the others lacked.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce that the World’s Greatest MC who ever lived, Bob Barker has left us,” Barker’s publicist, Roger Neal, said Saturday, NBC News reported.