A merica’s got a lot to answer for, but no other civilization could have coughed up the game-show host. It’s our culture’s ultimate art form, requiring the soul of a poet, the thick skin of a salesman, and the cold heart of a street hustler. These TV legends dangle the American dream before our eyes in its gaudiest form, with their gleaming smiles and leisure suits. They speak to our most depraved national fantasies, flattering our secret greed and vanity. To be American is to respond to the words “Come on down!” the way ancient Romans responded to “Arma virumque cano.”

Think of greats like Bob Barker, Alex Trebek, Wink Martindale, Pat Sajak — the men who sold the world. They’re glad-handers, backslappers, charmers, making every mark feel ­special. In another era, they would’ve been hawking snake oil out of covered wagons. But on TV, they sold America fantasies of itself, promising every sucker that we could all be lucky, smart, and rich, if the price is right.

Let us now praise famous smoothies: Barker, who neutered and spayed consumerism every afternoon. Trebek, with his pained frown. Steve Harvey, with his comic smirk. Tom Bergeron, who titled his autobiography I’m Hosting as Fast as I Can!. Wayne Brady on Let’s Make a Deal, following in the footsteps of Monty Hall, the wheeler-dealer whose “What’s behind the door?” antics inspired a famous math paradox, the Monty Hall Problem. They were all born to promise rubes the moon and a lifetime supply of Rice-A-Roni.

Part of an American education is staying home sick from school, watching daytime TV, and getting an eyeful of the glittering prizes on these shows, a burlesque of capitalist desire. My personal fave was Gene Rayburn on Match Game, with his plaid polyester suits and mile-wide tie, trading double entendres with Charles Nelson Reilly and Brett Somers. Watching Match Game after school with my mom was my introduction to hanging out with tipsy theater queens.

Game-show lore is fascinatingly emblematic of America — like Richard Dawson of Family Feud, who famously kissed 20,000 contestants over the years. The first time he met his second (and final) wife, he was kissing her on the show, when her family played in 1981. Their daughter appeared on the Feud in 1995. A little yeesh, obviously, but then where else would a game-show host ever find true love except a game show? As Stevie Nicks would say, hosts only love you when they’re hostin’.

Dawson was the quintessential host, with his mirth and Old World charm, his hoity-toity Brit accent and turtlenecks, all a put-on. (In the great Cary Grant tradition, he was a working-class street kid who fled poverty by going to Hollywood and posing for Americans as a posh gentleman of leisure.) What other career was imaginable for him? He tried his hand at acting and singing. But he was born to host a game show. Family Feud eventually polled viewers on whether he should knock it off with all of the smooching, but (“aaaaaand survey says!”) the audience urged him to keep bringing the love.

When Donald Trump was running for president in 2015, he made a big foreign-policy speech on the USS Iowa and chose to be introduced by Martindale, the host of Tic-Tac-Dough and High Rollers. Growing up, Martindale’s mama had wanted him to be a minister. But he was called to preach a different kind of gospel. My favorite Martindale project was his Nineties game show Debt, which quizzed broke Gen X’ers about pop culture, with the winners getting their student loans or credit cards paid off. On every episode, Martindale offered lucky players “a chance at going home with …” as the audience joyfully screamed “Nothing!”

Call them con artists if you want, but it goes deeper than that. Because the game only works if we enjoy wasting time there, and that all comes down to whether we like the host. It’s unlike any other gig in showbiz. The contestants, winners or losers, go home at the end. But the host is trapped there, day after day. For them, the game show is the Hotel California they can never leave. They love the players, and they love the game.

ROB SHEFFIELD is a contributing writer at Rolling Stone and the author of seven books about music and pop culture, including Heartbreak Is the National Anthem.