I was so ready to talk about Hit Man, when a few hours prior to the show, I get an e-mail from frequent caller, Matthew Wojis told me that someone else might be calling in. I start the show and we are talking about Hit Man, when around the 10-minute mark, I get a new caller who calls himself the Mystery Guest. He gives in clues to himself, and when he said, "I heard you were going to talk about the last episode," that's when the excitement hit the roof, because it was none other than game show contestant-turned-announcer RANDY WEST!!!
As the show continued on, we had learned that the second category was replaced with the Vice Presidents from the Wonders of the World, if that's what it was. It was also no surprise to me that Randy was scared of Maureen, one of the challengers who won in the main game because she was taking down the champ like no other, buzzing in quickly and eliminating her hit men, but Sheila fought off the last bullet until Randy West had hit a correct answer to win the game, which was an amazing come-from-behind win.
And then as we discussed Rod Roddy, Randy revealed to us that in his career, he told us that he and Rod became such good friends and became a legendary announcer. Randy was filling in for Rod at The Price is Right while Rod was in his final days. I can only imagine what it's like to know a friend that is in his last hours, but Randy did a terrific job until present announcer, Rich Fields became the new announcer.
Randy was also a contestant on Press Your Luck, the first one to win a car in the show's history. After appearing on a few other shows, he moved on to become announcer of game shows, early ones being Trivial Pursuit with Wink Martindale and futurely replacing Johnny Gilbert on Supermarket Sweep. Randy continues doing announcing business for The Price is Right LIVE! in Las Vegas with Todd Newton, who would futurely be on Game Show Temple LIVE! as a special guest.
