Inside Look at GSN’s 2009 Game Show Awards Red Carpet

You’ll be hearing a lot about GSN’s 2009 Game Show Awards, which debuts on June 6th at 8:00PM ET, for the next few days. We’ve already shown you some pictures of the actual awards themselves. You haven’t seen anything from our red carpet experience yet, though. I’ve never sat through a red carpet event before. Really, how many times will a game show fan have to be on a red carpet?

Some big game show celebrities, and some personal favorites of mine, walked the carpet. GSN personalities like Heidi Bohay and Fred Roggin (GSN Live and The Money List, respectively) walked as well as comedians like Nicole Sullivan (Rita Rocks). One of the biggest thrills I experienced at the awards was talking to Monty Hall, host of Let’s Make A Deal. His co-host from the classic series, Carol Merril, was by his side during the event.

I talked to Mr. Hall about the new edition of Let’s Make A Deal being planned for CBS Daytime and hopefully showing up on your television soon. Monty looked very excited about this prospect and said he’s been auditioning hosts for the past few months and has been searching for the perfect person to carry on the show’s legacy. If Monty’s picking the host, you know it’s going to be good. But what’s been taking so long? Monty joked around, saying he’s been waiting for his grandson.

Who else showed up? Christopher Knight, host of Trivial Pursuit: America Plays talked to us about about how he’s doing, his wife Adrianne Curry, and the status on his syndicated show. I mean we know it’s cancelled, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. On the red carpet he said the show’s not going away because of low ratings but because they don’t have enough money for another season. He’s more gullible than I figured.

The other giant thrill was seeing Cloris Leachman. I’m a huge Mel Brooks fan; Young Frankenstein is my favorite movie. Getting to meet Cloris Leachman was one of the biggest thrills I’ve ever had, in terms of celebrity meetings. There were other fantastic people I got to talk to like Alfonso Ribeiro, the Deal or No Deal models, Jeff Foxworthy, and Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? millionaire Kathy Cox. Meeting the entire GSN Radio crew and seeing them do their stuff was really impressive as well.

All in all, the entire red carpet experience was extremely entertaining and I’d love to go through that situation again next year if it happens. What happened during the show? That will come during the next piece later this week. The 2009 Game Show Awards debuts Saturday, June 6th, at 8:00PM ET on GSN.