He was the secret weapon of any TV show he was on or any movie he was in. He was always comedy gold as a part of any ensemble. But he would never make it as a leading man. And that was a good thing. How he ever got involved in the game show hosting business is beyond any human comprehension. Yet, sometime in 2004, he hosted a pilot for a bizarrely retooled pilot of Match Game called "What The Blank!"
The actual game took a back seat to everything else in this version. Willard came out, introduced the starts and the player and asked the first question of the game However, when he got to comedian Laura Kightlinger and asked how her relationship with fellow comedian Jack Black was going, Laura very quietly said she was no longer seeing him. The Fred floodgates opened right there. He spent a few minutes mourning the fact they were not together anymore and then kept pontificating on what might have went wrong. I admit that I was laughing so hard I never wanted him to stop. I don't know if he knew about this fact beforehand and frankly didn't care. Neither did his former Fernwood 2 Night buddy Martin Mull. He was loving every minute it. I think he finished getting all of the stars answers by about the 8 minute mark. Oh, then there was also the 'inside voice' that would just appear every so often where the hosts and stars would all 'ask questions' about the questions or the stars. It works for a cartoon character like Homer Simpson but not for ANYONE on a game show. Horrible idea. Wait a second; it gets much worse. A little later, a rapper comes out and performs a horrible rap. Then Fred and him actually rap the next question. Now I'm wondering if they wanted this show to be intentionally infuriating.
Everything after that was just inane. For one thing, the questions were boring and most importantly not funny. They did manage to pick a winner and go to the bonus round which followed the classic format but by then, I was just wishing for a quick painless death to this terrible pilot.
As Willard's character in the film "A Mighty Mind" might ask, "Wha Happened?"
My grade: D+
