September / october 2006:

Fall TV: Howie Mandel
by Gerri Miller



Season Premiere: Deal or No Deal on NBC, Sept. 18 @ 8:00 pm

Brad Garrett Lisa Edelstein Jennifer Westfeldt Amanda Peet Marla Sokoloff Scott Wolf Howie Mandel Jordana Spiro Greg Grunberg Victor Garber Jeffrey Tambor Jeff Goldblum The Young & the Jewish

Actor (St. Elsewhere), standup comic and video prankster (Hidden Howie, Tonight Show) Howie Mandel is having his greatest success yet with the hit NBC game show Deal or No Deal, so much so that his standup comedy bookings have multiplied (he does more than 200 performances a year) and he can’t walk through an airport or pay for anything without hearing his famous phrase. Of course, “it’s always a deal because I brought it to the cash register and I can’t negotiate,” laughs Mandel, who’d turned down the hosting job twice, thinking it would aversely affect his career. “My wife pushed me, and she was right,” he concedes.

Not surprisingly, Deal or No Deal makes it into Mandel’s standup routine, which is far less family-friendly than the TV show. “I talk about how I play the game for intimacy with my wife. I play Feel or No Feel,” he cracks, gleeful that the “bizarre sense of humor” that didn’t make him popular in school is paying off royally now.

Growing up in Toronto, he got kicked out of several schools for pranks like throwing a turd-like chocolate bar in the swimming pool, and soliciting bids from construction companies for a new library. “Nobody liked me. My sense of humor didn’t play. People just thought I was off.”

Today, he still has issues like OCD — a germophobe, he doesn’t shake hands — but he’s been happily married for 26 years and has three kids, all fans of the show. “My eldest daughter is in college and says all the kids watch in the bars. My youngest daughter was a model on the show and loved it. My 17-year-old son hangs out — not to be with me, but to see the models.”

Although his show involves gambling for a possibly huge payoff, Mandel is himself fiscally conservative — he plays Las Vegas often but doesn’t hit the tables or slots, he shops at Target, clips coupons, and drives a hybrid vehicle. Apparently, the frugality started early on. He jokes that his bar mitzvah featured “a cash register at the end of the sweets table. ‘Who had the tarts!?’”


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