Pointers for Steve Harvey as the New Host of Family Feud, Starring Its 5 Previous Emcees

Louie Anderson

Retain: A level of detached game-running. Louie Anderson has a dubious reputation, but he was probably the wryest host of this Hatfields/McCoys schmaltzfest. If anyone's going to host a circus like a WCW/Playboy match-up, it should be somebody as weird and droll as he is.

Throw Away: The exhaustion. After only two years on Family Feud, Anderson became bored with his job and ostensibly didn't try to make the show fun anymore. These Feud gigs usually go at least four years -- keep up the keeping up, Steve.

Richard Karn

Retain: The avuncular trustfulness.

Throw Away: Everything else. Karn looked so uncomfortable during his four-year run that many thought every season was his last. Louie Anderson once predicted on an E! True Hollywood Story that Karn's role as host would mean the death of the show. He was figuratively right, even if the Feud kept plugging along. (Click this clip for vast discomfort; that pre-show banter is rough.)

John O'Hurley

Retain: The vaguely suave air of this campy Seinfeld vet. I said "vaguely." He's as suave as game show hosts get without becoming patronizing. In the clip below, he answers Richard Dawson's legacy with a kiss of his own. (He also used to host a stellar reboot of To Tell the Truth with panelists Meschach Taylor and Paula Poundstone, and with the same J. Peterman finesse.)

Throw Away: The impersonal, Guy Smiley-esque treatment of every guest. In the end, spewing with Dawson-like romantic come-ons is better than seeming like a put-on.

Steve Harvey Takes Over on Family Feud [PopCrunch]

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