3-2-1 Rogers became the presenter of
ITV's variety gameshow
3-2-1 in 1978. It ran for just over ten years in a top-rating Saturday night slot. He earned £130,000 a year in the early 1980s from
3-2-1 alone and combined this with a career as a highly paid
after-dinner speaker, also making regular cabaret and public appearances. In March 1986, he was featured on
This Is Your Life. Rogers was surprised by host
Eamonn Andrews in
Covent Garden, central London, with guests on the show including
Jimmy Edwards and
Sacha Distel.
3-2-1 was cancelled in December 1987, when it was still attracting audiences of 12 million and in the Top 20 ratings. Initially, the plan was for the show to carry on with Christmas and one-off specials. There was an
Olympics special shown in September 1988, and a Christmas special that year, which was the final ever episode. In April 1996, Rogers told the
Sunday Mirror that "The
Oxbridge lot got control of TV and they didn't really want [the show]. It was too downmarket for them. We were still getting 12 million viewers when they took it off after 10 years. These days if a show gets nine million everyone does a lap of honour".
After 3-2-1 In 1989, Rogers appeared on the
ITV game show
You Bet! In the early 1990s, Rogers fell on hard times and was declared
bankrupt in February 1992, having apparently invested his fortune in a failed business venture, Wyvern Rogers Television. His home at
Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire, was repossessed, and Rogers' production company collapsed with debts of £50,000. In 1997–98, Rogers appeared in a touring production of
Danny and Me, a play about his hero,
Danny Kaye, which often sold out. Towards the end of the decade,
Challenge TV began repeating episodes of
3-2-1. In 1999 and 2000, Rogers made several commercials for fast food chain
McDonald's. On 10 November 2000, Rogers appeared as a guest on
TFI Friday. His final television appearance, which was screened at the end of January 2001, saw him playing the host of a downmarket quiz show in the Series 13 episode ''Let's Get Quizzical'' of the
BBC children's sitcom
ChuckleVision. Had he lived, he would have worked with his old friend
Jackie Mason on a
Vaudeville-type act in America which was due to start in October 2001. ==Personal life and death==