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.