Howie Mandel packs suitcase for Stateline

Howie Mandel doesn't believe in destiny. But how else to describe the way the constellations have aligned for the veteran comedian and host of the game show phenomenon "Deal or No Deal?"

"I've never had that sense that I was destined for anything," said Mandel, who began as a carpet salesman in his native Toronto before being discovered at a Los Angeles comedy club amateur night. "Doors open in the form of opportunities, and you go through those doors usually just to get some fresh air. I feel very blessed with the doors that have opened for me."

One of those has been "Deal or No Deal," the hit game show that recently celebrated its first birthday, just as Mandel celebrated his 51st on Jan. 29. It's a project that at first Mandel refused to do. Credit his wife, Terry, for changing his mind.

"I turned it down three times," Mandel said of "Deal or No Deal." "But fortunately my wife saw the beauty of it and convinced me to listen to what the producers had to say. Even after I took the job, I didn't think it was going to go anywhere."

In fact, Mandel was so sure he had a bomb on his hands that when the show debuted during Super Bowl weekend in 2006, he left the country.

"My wife got it, but I still didn't know," Mandel said. "But eventually I began to understand. It's been 15 months since we taped that first episode, and so much has happened.

"It's become a show that really fits my personality," he said. "There are no boundaries. I can do and say what I want, run around the stage and go anywhere with it. And the contestants aren't reigned in either. There's no script for anyone, and I love that. You just don't see that very often."

In case you haven't seen it, the game's premise is a simple one: One contestant chooses among 26 attaché cases which contain amounts ranging from $1 to a million dollars. The contestant doesn't know how much money his case contains, and throughout the show an unseen "banker" attempts to buy back the contestant's case, as the amounts in the other cases are revealed one by one.

"It's interesting to see how different people approach the game," he said. "Every person has their own strategy to try and win this million dollars, and it becomes a real study in humanity. The decisions and predicaments they get themselves into are fun to watch, and no two games are the same."

And Mandel keeps it fun, because it's clear that he's having a blast as well.

"It's a great job," he said. "The show is like a party, and the people who work there - the cast and crew and friends who just drop by - consider it a hangout. It's just a fun place to hang out."

"Deal or No Deal" is a worldwide phenomenon; there are versions in 44 countries, among them Turkey, Argentina, Croatia and Russia. Mandel hosts the Canadian and American versions.

Though the game show takes a lot of his time, that hasn't stopped Mandel from continuing with his stand-up career. His show at the MontBleu on Saturday is one of the first of 280 concert dates he will play this year around the country.

"It's something I want to do, and I love it," he said. "And I love Tahoe, which I have visited both professionally and for fun many, many times. It's a fun, vibrant place for recreation and entertainment, a great place to bring the family.

"But don't bring the whole family to my show," he quickly added. "My show isn't the place for kids."

Mandel can work blue, as they say, but his act has changed over the years as he has changed, perhaps mellowing a bit. In the early days of his stand-up career, Mandel was noted for the gag in which he squeezes a plastic surgical glove over his head and blows it up like a balloon. He did that one once too often, however, injuring his sinuses, preventing him from doing it again.

Mandel is also known as an actor ("St. Elsewhere," "Little Monsters") and creator and executive producer of the Emmy-nominated animated children's show "Bobby's World," which ran for eight seasons on Fox and is in the planning stages for making a comeback. Information on that can be found at www.kabillion.com.

Then there is his obsessive-compulsive disorder which has been in the news recently, a condition which he freely admits. Basically, Mandel has a fear of germs, and avoids shaking hands (our interview was by phone). He has shaved his head because, he says, it makes him feel cleaner.

Mandel is not above making fun of his condition, however. His Web site (www.howiemandel.com) includes tiny, animated bugs crawling around the front page banner. And though he may be compulsive, he's been married to Terry for 32 years. "That's 'Terry' with six r's," he explained. "Four of them are silent. I'm not shocked that it's been 32 years, although she may be."

But the question he is most often asked these days is if he really knows the names of all the models who hold the cases on "Deal or No Deal."

"That's the easy part," he said. "We've been doing the show for 15 months, and most people would be able to memorize 26 names in that amount of time. Plus, it's assigned seating. Claudia is case No. 1, Lindsey is No. 2, we have a seating plan. How could I not remember?"

Howie Mandel has come a long way from selling carpet in Canada (the Web information resource Wikipedia describes his former business as "a carpet empire." That made him laugh).

"Well, if you call owning two stores an empire, I guess," he said. "In third world countries it would be an empire. Mine was in Canada."