What Is… A MUSTACHE?

I grew the mustache toward the end of my time in Canada, not long before I came to California. Honestly, I can’t remember why. I’d say it was because it was in style, but it wasn’t—at least not in my industry. I was the first game show host since Groucho Marx to be on the air with a mustache. Maybe it was my rebellious streak. I have naturally wavy hair, but throughout most of my career at the CBC, they would straighten it. The hairdresser would come in each week and put the part in my hair and yank it straight. It was the mid-sixties, and they wanted me to look squeaky clean. Once the seventies came along, I started to let my hair grow longer. It got fluffier and turned into an Afro. Once I grew the mustache, I looked like Dr. J.

When I flew to LA to shoot the pilot for The Wizard of Odds, I walked into the NBC studio and the executive producer, Burt Sugarman, came up to me and said, “I like the mustache.”

And then I ran into a doubtful-looking Lin Bolen, who was head of daytime programming for NBC.

“How do you feel about your mustache?” she asked.

“Very strongly,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

And that was the end of that. They did cut some of my hair down. But they left me with my mustache.

I wore that mustache for nearly thirty years. Then, in 2001, I decided to shave it. It was pure whim. We were about to tape our fifth and final show of the day. I went into the makeup room, sat in the chair, and I said, “I’m gonna shave my mustache.” I grabbed the clippers and a razor and shaved half of it. Then one of my producers came in, and he was dumbstruck.

“Do you want me to come out with half?” I asked.

“No, no,” he said. “Not half.”

So I shaved the other half, and I walked out. Half the people in the audience didn’t notice right away. I got the same reaction when I came home. I walked into the house. Jean was there in the Play-Doh Room with Matthew and Emily. I stood in the doorway.

“Hi, guys,” I said.

“Hi, Dad,” the kids responded.

“Did you have a good day taping?” Jean asked.

“Yeah, it was fine.”

We talked for a few minutes… and a few minutes more… and a few minutes more.

Finally, I said, “Anyone notice anything different about Dad?”

“Oh my God,” Jean said. “You shaved your mustache.”

Matthew, who was around ten, started to cry. It was such a big shock. You do not mess with your children’s lives in that way.

What amazed me afterward was the amount of press that got. It made newspapers and magazines everywhere. I was surprised and to a certain extent appalled by this.

Hey, I thought, this is a television quiz show host shaving his mustache. Look at all the tragedy and calamity going on in the world. And they’re asking about my mustache? Sometimes our values are a little off.

The metamorphosis.

I was without a mustache from 2001 until 2014. I grew it back, and then we had our viewers vote on whether I should keep it. They voted I should shave it off again. Not everyone was in favor of this. I was a guest on The Howard Stern Show shortly after shaving it off that second time. Jimmy Kimmel was also a guest on the show that day.

“It was a betrayal,” he said of the first time I shaved the mustache. “I actually filed a class-action lawsuit against you.”

Howard said he found the mustache to be comforting. Perhaps that was always part of the appeal for viewers. During tapings, the audience still always asks: “Are you going to grow it back? When are you going to grow it back?”

Unsurprisingly, it’s usually guys with mustaches themselves who pose the question.

On summer vacation a couple of years ago, I decided I would regrow the mustache. But then things got a little out of hand. Those hairs kept attracting friends. Soon I had a full-blown beard. Once again, we put the vote to fans on whether I should keep it. The winner was… my wife, Jean. She voted for me to be clean-shaven.