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| - William Lawrence Francis "Bill" Cullen (February 18, 1920 – July 7, 1990) was an American radio and television personality whose career spanned five decades. He was best known for television game shows, where he hosted multiple series (including the original version of The Price is Right, The $25,000 Pyramid, and Blockbusters), and served as a panelist for over twenty years combined on I've Got a Secret and To Tell the Truth. His career in American game shows is unmatched by anyone.
- Bill Cullen was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the only child to parents William and Lillian Cullen. He survived a childhood bout with polio that left him with significant physical limitations for the rest of his life. He also wore very thick spectacles, which became a trademark. Cullen contracted poliomyelitis when he was eighteen months old. The long-term sequelae of that illness, combined with injuries sustained in a serious motor vehicle accident in 1937 requiring a nine-month hospitalization, left him with significant and lifelong ambulatory limitations.
- Legendary Game Show host who appeared on more games than anyone else in American television, and whose career spanned across many shows on radio and television from The Thirties to The Eighties (including his own 15-minute Thursday-morning variety show, The Bill Cullen Show, on CBS in 1952). He died in 1990 from lung cancer, and is often called "The King of Game Shows" or "The Dean of Emcees". Not to be mistaken for Peter Cullen (who has a very different fandom), nor the Bill Cullen who hosts The Apprentice in Ireland.
- Cullen hosted the original The Price Is Right from 1956 to 1965. On this show, contestants had to guess the correct price of common commercial products (without exceeding it). This occurred in the brief halcyon days of cut-throat capitalism, just after the New Deal, when prices were actually allowed to vary. Back then, guessing the price of something was simple; all prices ended in 99 to maximize the fleecing of customers. Later, Walmart would begin pricing items with a weird-ass number of cents, usually 88 but sometimes 44, to convince customers they were in on something secretly profitable — the forerunner to those casinos where the House never wins.
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| abstract
| - Legendary Game Show host who appeared on more games than anyone else in American television, and whose career spanned across many shows on radio and television from The Thirties to The Eighties (including his own 15-minute Thursday-morning variety show, The Bill Cullen Show, on CBS in 1952). He died in 1990 from lung cancer, and is often called "The King of Game Shows" or "The Dean of Emcees". He suffered from polio as a child and, for the vast majority of his life, he walked with a limp because of that; Mel Brooks once said that the time that he imitated Cullen's jerky walk after an appearance on Eye Guess, without knowing he was legitimately injured, was the most mortifying moment of his life. Cullen took it in good humor, though, and in fact, actually told Brooks that he was very grateful for his mimicry, as up until that point, Cullen felt that other people were being too pitying of him. This is why many of Bill's shows had him behind a podium or somesuch, but not why he wasn't chosen when The Price Is Right was revived in 1972 (Cullen was in negotiations, but this fell through and Dennis James was chosen instead; note that this was six months before most of the details were ironed out). During a 2007 countdown of the "Top Ten Hosts" by GSN, Bill was listed as #7 despite the narration and commentators essentially saying he deserved top prize. Still, it was better than a subsequent list by WNBC of the top twenty game show emcees that managed to omit Cullen entirely (much to the chagrin of WNBC lead anchorman Chuck Scarborough, who shares a birthplace with Cullen). Not to be mistaken for Peter Cullen (who has a very different fandom), nor the Bill Cullen who hosts The Apprentice in Ireland.
- William Lawrence Francis "Bill" Cullen (February 18, 1920 – July 7, 1990) was an American radio and television personality whose career spanned five decades. He was best known for television game shows, where he hosted multiple series (including the original version of The Price is Right, The $25,000 Pyramid, and Blockbusters), and served as a panelist for over twenty years combined on I've Got a Secret and To Tell the Truth. His career in American game shows is unmatched by anyone.
- Cullen hosted the original The Price Is Right from 1956 to 1965. On this show, contestants had to guess the correct price of common commercial products (without exceeding it). This occurred in the brief halcyon days of cut-throat capitalism, just after the New Deal, when prices were actually allowed to vary. Back then, guessing the price of something was simple; all prices ended in 99 to maximize the fleecing of customers. Later, Walmart would begin pricing items with a weird-ass number of cents, usually 88 but sometimes 44, to convince customers they were in on something secretly profitable — the forerunner to those casinos where the House never wins. On this game show, there were several rounds of bidding, during which leapfrogging the previous contestant's guess by a single dollar, an obvious winning strategy and the predecessor of the modern-day tendency to be a dick, was never employed. It was a lost period of simple courtesy, which ended about the time that President George W. Chump announced he was going to make Washington a more civil place. Additionally, contestants had to state all their positions in the form of a question, a rule that spread to many other game shows. (For example: "Bill, What is, nineteen ninety-nine?") Decades later, the game-show was resurrected as The New Price Is Right, with both a daytime and a night-time segment (and later, a third show daily, broadcast overnight to truckers on CB Radio). Cullen was offered the position of host, but could not commit to the strenuous workload, as he had not been resurrected.
- Bill Cullen was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the only child to parents William and Lillian Cullen. He survived a childhood bout with polio that left him with significant physical limitations for the rest of his life. He also wore very thick spectacles, which became a trademark. Cullen contracted poliomyelitis when he was eighteen months old. The long-term sequelae of that illness, combined with injuries sustained in a serious motor vehicle accident in 1937 requiring a nine-month hospitalization, left him with significant and lifelong ambulatory limitations.
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