Video Game Payoff for J. D. Roth

How’s this for a job, kids J. D. Roth gets paid to pay video games.

“We have an arcade at the set,” says the 23-year-old host of TV’s “Game Pro,” which gives the Saturday-morning crowd an inside look at new game technology. (The show airs at 6:30 a.m. on Saturdays and again at 7 a.m. on Sundays on KABC Channel 7.)

The show provides perks for Roth too. “We have an arcade on the set,” he says. And get this--no quarters!

The job’s a perfect fit for the self-described “big kid who got lucky,” most famous as host of the 1988-90 children’s show “Fun House.” The original “messy” game show, “Fun House” is no longer being produced (though Roth still does live shows at theme parks), but it was popular enough to establish Roth as history’s youngest game-show host and the world’s oldest, uh, sixth-grader.

“I envision myself as the next Dick Clark,” he says.

But though Roth admires Clark, it is basketball player Michael Jordan whom he idolizes to the point of fanaticism. “I’ve got over 65 different Michael Jordan T-shirts,” he says. “If I ever need to use a code for anything, I use (Jordan’s) number 23. Out of 341 episodes of ‘Fun House,’ I counted 320 where I said Jordan’s name.”

Roth spends his spare time thinking of ways to meet his idol. But unlike most kids, he carries the monetary clout to do it: “There’s some deal in Hawaii where you pay $25,000 to play golf in a foursome with him,” Roth says.

Now that’s a lot of quarters.