Wink Martindale Was a Beloved Game Show Host, but Which Shows Did He Host?

The game show has been around almost as long as television itself, and in that time, there have been hundreds of game shows hosted by dozens of different people. Following the news that Wink Martindale died at the age of 91, many wanted to learn more about Wink's television career, and most importantly, about which game shows he actually hosted.

Over the course of his TV career, Wink hosted multiple game shows. Here's what we know about which shows he hosted.

Wink was best known for being the host of Gambit, Tic-Tac Dough, High Rollers, and Debt. None of those game shows exist today, but each of them was well known at some point from the 1970s through the 1990s, which was when Wink was most active.

Wink was the only host of Gambit, which aired from 1972 to 1976 and was briefly revived from 1980 to 1981.

The mechanics of Gambit were basically the same as those in blackjack, with couples competing to get their hand as close to 21 as possible. Wink's role was to ask toss-up questions, with the first couple to buzz in and answer the question correctly gaining control over the top card in the deck.

Tic-Tac Dough was a long-running series that aired as far back as the 1950s, but Wink hosted the syndicated version that began airing in 1978 and aired through 1986.

Tic-Tac Dough is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a trivia game show in which contestants are tasked with completing three in a row on a Tic-Tac-Toe board. They have to answer questions in order to claim a spot on the board, and the show always featured a returning champion going up against a new contestant.

After leaving Tic-Tac Dough in 1985, Wink went on to host High Rollers from 1987 to 1988.

Much like many of the shows that Wink hosted, High Rollers was adapted from a classic game, in this case, Shut the Box. Contestants were asked questions that allowed them to gain control of a pair of dice that they could roll to help them eliminate numbers one through nine. You have to get a series of good rolls in order to eliminate every number, and of course, that's not possible unless you get your questions right.

Wink's last hosting gig was on Debt, which he hosted from 1996 to 1998. That show featured a similar format to Jeopardy!, and featured contestants who were trying to get out of debt (bleak). The major difference between the two shows was that Debt's questions tended to emphasize pop culture more and be targeted toward a younger audience.

Wink continued to work in TV and adjacent mediums even after his career as a game show host was over. For more than 20 years, though, Wink was on one game show or another, and that made him incredibly familiar to an entire generation of audiences. Although none of his shows lasted much beyond him, his presence on TV will undoubtedly be missed.