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The Price Is Right/Trivia

< The Price Is Right


  • Channel Hop: Started on NBC, moved to ABC, reappeared on CBS and syndication seven years after ABC canned it.
  • Media Research Failure: The show is one of the many sources that violate the Nintendo Style Guide by having the word "Wii" preceded by the word "Nintendo".
    • There are also the many sources that confuse the Showcase Showdown (when the Big Wheel is spun) with the Showcase (when they bid on the prize packages at the end).
    • People often refer to the bidding portion as "Contestant's Row", "Item Up For Bid", or aren't even aware it has a name; the proper title for the bidding game is "One Bid".
  • Fan Nickname: Many.
    • "El Skunko", mentioned on the main page.
    • An early pricing game known as "Bullseye" is usually referred to by fans as "Bullseye I" or "Bullseye '72" (the year it debuted), with the current Bullseye unofficially called "Bullseye II" or "Bullseye '76". Similarly, the original Balance Game is generally referred to as "Balance Game '84" while the current one is called "Balance Game '06".
    • The Showcases written by Carey in Season 37 were almost instantly called "Drewcases" after their writer (and, most of the time, the only guy laughing at the "jokes").
    • The fansite Golden-Road.net has a whole lexicon of fan nicknames, to the point where they would need a separate article. Among them are "That's Two Ninth!" (during a stretch where That's Too Much! had its solution in the second or ninth slots) and embarrassingly-cutesy nicknames for the pricing games ("Cliffy" for Cliff Hangers, "Baggy" for It's In The Bag, etc.).
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: All six hosts were known for something big prior to Price:
    • Bill Cullen was famous as a panelist on I've Got a Secret and host of his daily radio show Pulse (and had hosted a variety of game shows prior to Price).
    • Bob Barker was famous for hosting Truth Or Consequences; for viewers of KNXT in California, he was the producer of the 1969-71 game show Lucky Pair — the show which gave Geoff Edwards and Richard Dawson their first hosting assignments.
    • Dennis James had done a plethora of work in TV, most notably the four-year syndicated hit PDQ (1965-69) and the 1950s hit Chance of a Lifetime. GSN viewers will likely associate him with his six-month stint on The Name's the Same, which the network last reran in 2008.
    • Tom Kennedy hosted Name That Tune from 1974-81, with his first few months overlapping with the last few of a daytime Tune hosted by James on NBC. James was pulling double-duty on Price, which during his tenure was airing mostly on NBC stations.
    • Doug Davidson was (and still is) famous for his work on The Young & The Restless.
    • Drew Carey was famous for his self-titled sitcom and the American edition of Whose Line Is It Anyway?.
    • Some contestants are famous as well. Besides those mentioned on Retroactive Recognition, iJustine was a contestant at one point, as was Andrew Copeland of the rock band Sister Hazel.
  • Hey, It's That Sound:
    • The "incorrect number" sound on Pathfinder was taken from the short-lived show Trivia Trap.
    • The sound effects from Penny Ante could also be heard on The Joker's Wild.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Again, the announcers were well-known before Price.
    • Don Pardo was an NBC announcer for several years before Price, and later announced on Art Fleming's Jeopardy! Don would make Price come a virtual full circle when he did a prize description for the Cliff Hangers game during a special week of game show salutes on The Today Show in 2002.
    • Johnny Gilbert hosted Music Bingo in 1958, and has been announcing Alex Trebek's Jeopardy! since its 1984 return.
    • The 1956-65 era also had several substitute announcers, the most famous of whom is Jack Clark (Password, Wheel of Fortune).
    • Johnny Olson announced on What's My Line and To Tell the Truth, plus worked with Jackie Gleason on various occasions (including You're in the Picture, whose commercials were pitched by Dennis James). He also hosted the DuMont series Kids & Company.
    • Rod Roddy was already well-known as the announcer on Press Your Luck, Hit Man, and Whew He also did the continuity announcements on Soap.
    • Burton Richardson was heard on The Arsenio Hall Show and To Tell the Truth, and would later be heard on Family Feud until 2010.
    • Rich Fields was a weatherman at CBS affiliate KPSP in Palm Springs, and also announced (and once guest-hosted) Flamingo Fortune. He also did some temporary work on Wheel after Charlie O'Donnell's death.
    • The show has held on-air auditions to pick a successor each time an announcer has left, and most of the substitutes are notable names as well:
      • Besides Rod, the on-air tryouts after Johnny's death were Gene Wood (a very prolific announcer whose work was mostly with Goodson-Todman; he also filled in for Johnny on the Tom Kennedy version), Bob Hilton (Blockbusters) and Rich Jeffries (Super Password). Phil Hartman also auditioned, but did not make it to the air; it's also believed that Charlie O'Donnell and Johnny Gilbert may have auditioned.
      • Rod's increasing illness in the 2000s led to fill-ins by Richardson and Randy West between 2001 and 2003, and one week in 2002 where Paul Boland (of Match Game 1998) filled in. Besides Burton, Randy and Rich, the post-Rod auditions included comedian Daniel Rosen, voice actor/former VJ Roger Rose and regional radio hosts Art Sanders, Don Bishop and Jim Thornton (who now announces Wheel).
      • Following Rich's ousting in 2010, the substitutes came again — Whose Line Is It Anyway? alumni Brad Sherwood and Jeff Davis, former Shop 'til You Drop host JD Roberto, radio host/author David H. Lawrence XVII, former The Weakest Link host George Gray, and comedian Steve White. Gray was declared the new announcer on April 18, 2011.
  • I Am Not Spock: Contrary to wide belief, Price wasn't an in-house creation of Goodson-Todman. Bob Stewart developed it as early as 1954 on local New York City TV as The Sky's The Limit after seeing an auction house vendor ply this contest to prospective customers. Two years later, Goodson-Todman noticed the show and a pilot, titled Auction-Aire, was ordered for NBC (see Early Installment Weirdness for details on the pilot).
    • There was a show called Auction-Aire," which ran on ABC in 1949. Studio audience members and home viewers called in bids to their local ABC station on Libby's grocery labels.
      • Some references have the pilot listed as The Auctioneer, but Bob Stewart himself said it was Auction-Aire.
  • In Memoriam: In 2003, Bob Barker announced the death of the longtime announcer, Rod Roddy.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes:
    • 67 nighttime episodes and a single daytime show of the Cullen run were aired by GSN. The daytime show (February 21, 1957; incorrectly listed in liner notes as March 10) and ABC nighttime finale (September 11, 1964; not seen on GSN and incorrectly listed as September 4) are on the DVD set. Shokus Video has five shows in their compilation volumes [1], while nighttime shows from November 26, 1962 and August 28, 1964 are on the trading circuit along with three March 1965 episodes sub-hosted by Jack Clark (one being March 22).
      • Three nighttime episodes unaired by GSN (December 25, 1961 to January 8, 1962) surfaced in August 2011.
      • This 1982 report on game shows includes, among other things, brief footage of an episode before February 21, 1957 (see 0:37 and 2:03); the second clip shows a contestant area which is very different than the more recognized variants — the contestant names are above the displays, and both are shown on straight lines rather than four distinct sections. There's also a solid wall behind the players (who are looking to their left) with the show's logo on it, which suggests a vastly different set.
    • Subverted, in that all episodes of the current run are intact (September 1972 is when CBS quit erasing tapes), but even though the show has been released on DVD a majority of the run won't be, mostly due to older episodes offering fur coats as prizes and Barker's later membership in PETA. This includes the 1972 premiere, although BCI (which released a box set in 2007) tried pretty hard to get fur episodes, offering to donate to Barker's favorite charities and/or put a disclaimer before the offending shows. The fact that Barker declined both says quite a lot.
    • The Dennis James version, partly due to offering a lot of furs, hasn't been seen very much since 1977 minus three prominent examples [2]. Only five episodes (including the pitchfilm) circulate, and approximately 30 episodes from 1973-75 were recorded onto audio cassette (heard here and here).
      • The last four minutes of an early-1976 show surfaced in July 2011, which a voiceover at the end clearly marks as being recorded from a local station...but the same episode was also used in an official '76 promo reel. What the hell are the odds?!
  • Lying Creator: When Rod mysteriously stopped appearing on-camera in Season 31, some fans assumed that it owed to Rod's declining health, while Fremantle Media claimed that they had implemented a policy to keep all their game show announcers from being seen. However, this claim was promptly debunked when several substitutes appeared on-camera and Rich himself did the same...and in Season 37, Rich started getting as much face time as Rod did in the early days. It was further debunked in an interview given by Holly Halstrom, who remained friends with Rod even after she left the show — the real reason Rod stopped appearing on-camera was because of arguments over salary between him and Bob.
  • Milestone Celebration: Every x,000th episode features tons of big prizes and special decorations.
    • The show celebrated its 25th, 30th and 35th Anniversaries with a primetime special. The first (#0001S) used the half-hour format, with the other half filled with clips; the second (#0001LV) was filmed in Las Vegas, using the regular format; the third (#023SP) also celebrated Barker's 50 years in show business, with a similar format as the 25th-Anniversary Special and a cameo by Adam Sandler.
  • Missing Episode: Several.
    • The episode aired on September 6, 1972 wasn't the real third episode. The actual third episode (the second one taped) went unaired because a contestant was deemed ineligible; the episode also contained a fur coat (as did the first and third tapings), shoving this one further into the realm of "not gonna air anytime soon"...although there hasn't been a straight answer as to whether it still exists.
    • The third Dennis James episode (#003N) got replaced as well, this one due to a set of special calculators (used to determine the Showcase winner) getting broken and nobody knowing how to fix them. A replacement was taped later on, but it remains unknown how the episode wrapped production (or, as with #0013D, if it still exists).
    • One episode was shelved with a designation of #1513X due to the contestants switching spots in Contestant's Row without anyone noticing; this was to air on September 27, 2000 but, again, the episode you saw that day was a replacement.
    • In its other flavor, many episodes prior to the late 1990s will likely never be rerun, at least during Barker's lifetime, due to various bans he maintains. Most commonly cited are those through about late 1981 or so where fur coats were a prize (Barker became involved in animal rights). But there are also claims that episodes featuring model Holly Hallstrom are also on the "do not air" list because of bitter (non-)relations between her and Barker; Hallstrom testified against Barker at several of his sexual harassment trials, and sided with another ex-model, Dian Parkinson, when the Barker-Parkinson affair blew up; she was unceremoniously dismissed from the show in the fallout, due to Barker's insistence. (Barker's vehemently denied all of Hallstrom's claims.) For these episodes, if the show is seen in reruns in the future, it is not known if the ban will expire upon Barker's death, or if Barker's will has a clause maintaining an indefinite and/or permanent ban. Regardless, numerous episodes from this "banned" period are on YouTube and in private collections.
  • Name's the Same:
    • One of the show's co-producers is Adam Sandler, who is not to be confused with the actor.
    • There are two different pricing games called Bullseye (1972, 1976) and two called Balance Game (1984, 2006).
  • Old Shame: One of the things keeping Price off GSN and out of DVD retailers is Barker's refusal to greenlight shows that offered fur coats as prizes (although GSN screwed up, not once but three times, and aired an episode with a fur). There are certain other episodes Barker won't greenlight, some of which contain his abandoned habit of letting women pull the $100 perfect bid bonus out of his pocket by themselves.
    • Dennis James. Despite spending the first five years alongside Barker, helping to cement the show's popularity among those who were not able to watch the daytime version, GSN never aired any of his nighttime run. The official reason, given by on-air host Laura Chambers, was that the network felt it pointless since less than 50 episodes did not contain a fur coat/stole; said excuse falls majorly flat when one points out the network had "Game Of The Week" and "Wide World Of Games", both of which frequently showed games that either A) ran for less than 50 shows or B) had less than 50 episodes surviving, during the six years it held the rights to Price. One has to wonder whether Barker has something against James...
      • In 1997, a James-hosted episode aired (twice!) in tribute following his death, albeit a daytime one where he was substituting for Barker. Considering the above, this episode (originally aired December 25, 1974) feels a lot more like a "pity airing" allowed through the generosity of Barker. While it was nice, the aforementioned hypocrisy can easily leave a bad aftertaste.
    • The original version averted any shame, and ensured it. In 1958, police arrested a viewer from New York City who tried to bribe the producers into selecting his sweepstakes entry. Later, as the quiz show scandals broke, charges were brought up that producers were instructing certain contestants to not exceed the prices of certain items. The charges were never proven.
  • The Pete Best: Dennis James, to the point where Doug Davidson is better-known for hosting Price amongst those under the age of about 40 or so (excluding die-hard game show fans). There's something wrong when said under-40s will know the guy who did 80 episodes far more often than the guy who did 200, and it certainly doesn't help that about 25+ episodes of Davidson's run circulate versus exactly 5 episodes of James' tenure. [3]
    • And then in September 2012, the official YouTube account posted the aforementioned video of Pamela, making sure the world knew a little more about Dennis.
  • Promoted Fanboy:
    • Both Rod Roddy and Rich Fields were longtime fans of the show, and attended tapings where they asked original announcer Johnny Olson for advice on careers in announcing.
    • Drew Carey is a huge Bob Barker fan, and leapt at the chance to succeed him.
    • Fremantle Media staffer Mandel Ilagan, the creator of the pricing game ½ Off, was the founder of the newsgroup alt.tv.game-shows and a contestant on Match Game in 1998 before Fremantle hired him in the early 2000s.
  • Prop Recycling: Price, for the most part, rarely throws their old stuff out.
    • The original Bullseye board put a prop with a clock on its top half for the first three playings of Clock Game. In April 1973, the board got a unique four-sided faceplate and became Double Digits.
    • Professor Price himself apparently popped up in a few prize displays during Season 6, then languished somewhere until turning up in an early-2000s eBay auction as "Mr. Wiggles".
    • The spotlights used around the Big Doors on the 1986 primetime specials were used in the same role for the 1993 New Price Is Right pilots. They then appeared in an October 1998 Showcase where Kathleen played a studio tour guide.
    • The Barker Silver Dollars for "Balance Game '84" were reused when "Balance Game '06" debuted.
    • The "bonus money" cards for Clock Game during the 1986 Specials occasionally showed up in Barker's Bargain Bar as the "difference" card.
    • The display from Check-Out's giant calculator seems to have been reused for the "change" display in Pocket ¢hange.
    • The "$1,000,000" sign used in the back of the audience for Million-Dollar Spectaculars was cut down a bit, and is now the "$100,000" sign for Pay The Rent's intro.
    • November 11, 2013: When the first digit display on Dice Game was out of service, a number card from Cover Up was taped to it.
  • Screwed by the Network: The original Price on NBC was holding its own in daytime, but the nighttime sponsors were playing around too much with it in other time periods. It flourished at 8:30 PM Eastern Wednesdays, then in 1961 was moved to Mondays at 8:30 PM. A year later it was moved to 9:30 PM Mondays where The Andy Griffith Show was clobbering it, then again at midseason to Fridays at 9:30 PM. NBC wanted to skew younger than Price sponsors wanted and optioned a sitcom called Harry's Girls, but ABC stepped in and offered more for Price than NBC was willing to pony up.
    • Both versions moved to ABC, but their new home couldn't afford to air the nighttime show in color as NBC had. Further, not every market had an ABC affiliate in 1963, so 48 markets got Price on their CBS station instead. Ratings dropped significantly for both versions, with the nighttime show ousted on September 11, 1964 and the daytime show gone on September 3, 1965.
  • Shrug of God: Credit Card and Check Game have not been played in quite some time; while some games have been put on hiatus in the past, these games have gone so long without being played that they're essentially retired. However, the staff has been rather careful in choosing its words so as to give absolutely no clue whether either game has been permanently retired — the official explanation is that they're "being refurbished", which falls flat since Any Number and Temptation were refurbished in far less time.
    • In October 2011, Sandler stated on the official forums that Bargain Game and Check Game would be "coming soon". Shortly afterward, the forums underwent a major overhaul and these statements were removed. Some suggesting that he was lying...but he was proven right when Bargain Game came back on April 10, 2012, and Check Game returned on June 20, 2013.
      • After a very long hiatus, the Card Game returned, with a new computerized design and smaller set that could be played in front of the Contestant's Row.
  • Technology Marches On: Some of the prizes look very outdated when viewed next to an episode from today, such as the clunky desktop computers in the nineties versus the extremely slim and portable computers from the new teens. In a different example, a lot of the pricing games have gone through dramatic changes as digital electronics have improved their appearance and eased the difficulty it takes to operate the props.
  • Throw It In: Many different production or prop errors get left in for the heck of it.
    • Johnny Olson frequently ad-libbed over portions of the written copy, and some of his ad-libs became permanent with Rod.
    • The episode aired March 3, 1989 had two pricing games won due to production errors: one contestant got the top prize of $10,000 because they forgot to put a slip in one of the Punch-a-Bunch holes, and another won a car because One Away had a wrong number loaded into it, resulting in an Unwinnable setup.
    • On at least three celebratory episodes (including Bob's last), some audience members brought in confetti and threw it despite this not being part of the episodes' plans.
    • Make Your Mark's only appearance in Season 37 had its rules changed mid-taping to match Drew's incorrect explanation of them. The pricing game itself was then canned immediately afterward.
  • Too Soon: The show had the misfortune to air a rerun offering a trip to New Orleans as a prize -- a week after Hurricane Katrina. Whoops.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: As awesome as the theme song and the set are, you KNOW they both just scream 1970s (this is also averted in the sense that the show, and the set and the beloved theme song as well, has lasted way beyond the 1970s).
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Bill Cullen stated in a January 23, 1972 interview that he was in negotiations with Goodson-Todman to do the New show and "We've hit a snag ... the price, so far, hasn't been right for me." While his polio would've made it all but impossible for him to helm a show where the host is required to move around a lot, keep in mind that nothing had really been ironed-out about the format at this point. Also noted is that Bill was in New York City at the time as a regular panelist on To Tell the Truth and host of Three On a Match.
      • Of note, Bill was to have guest-hosted The Tonight Show during the week of July 22, 1963. A dispute between Frigidaire (Price sponsor) and Hotpoint (Tonight sponsor) scuttled the appearance. Arlene Francis filled in for Johnny Carson that week.
    • The pitchfilm, taped a month later, shows that hardly anything is certain except the core concept of winning a One-Bid to play a pricing game, the host (Dennis James), the airing schedule (weekly syndication), and the syndicator (Viacom). Almost everything else either got tweaked (the pricing games became Take Two and Ten Chances, respectively) or were dropped entirely (children bidding on prizes to win them for their parents).
    • Sometime between the pitchfilm and probably early August, the idea was hatched to use three Showcases per episode, so all onstage players could have a chance at more. This was dropped by mid-August.
    • Dave Price (The Early Show), Marc Summers (|Double Dare), Marco Antonio Regil (host of the Mexican version), and Mark L. Walberg (Russian Roulette) were among those who auditioned to replace Barker. Roger Dobkowitz pushed for Walberg, but CBS wanted a "name" celebrity — Drew, who stated that he had never really seen Price and turned it down for that reason until CBS threw more money at him.
    • Season 37 was supposed to have a new pricing game introduced every day on the first week, possibly to make up for the fact that Season 36 had no new games introduced. Thanks to the firing of Dobkowitz and numerous other budget issues with CBS, all but Gas Money got scrapped.
    • After Johnny Olson's death, Bob Hilton almost got the announcing job but turned it down to host two unsold pilots. Although Hilton didn't announce any shows at all after 1991, it's entirely possible he could still be announcing the show today had he chosen it (instead of spending the next 10 years as a local TV anchor and then retiring fairly young to sell cleaning products).
    • Among the post-Rod substitutes, Barker almost hired Art Sanders (a news anchor at KOMO Seattle) on the spot.
    • When Rich DiPirro redesigned the Plinko intro in Season 38, part of his plan was to bring back the Plinko sign (last used December 5, 2002) in its classic opening style. DiPirro asked if the sign still existed (it did) and requested it be brought to the stage so he could examine it and hopefully clean it up to present his idea to the producers...but once "management" (believed to be Mike Richards) found out about this, the sign was destroyed.

DiPirro: This is second hand information, but it seems the sign existed when I asked for it, but was destroyed with the knowledge I wanted to put it back on the air. ... This moment represented my very first, huge disappointment at the show in so many ways. But, as a fan, most important was that a historic prop was senselessly destroyed...

      • More annoying is that for Season 40, the logo-signs in the back of the audience were altered to use a physically-spinning dollar sign. Yes, let's add new physical props but destroy one that's been in storage for seven years.
      • Penny Ante suffered a similar fate when it got left out in the rain, ruining its already tetchy electronics. The game was then canned.
  • Written-In Infirmity: Drew Carey had to make several accommodations for a stretch of Season 37 episodes due to foot surgery. Most notably, he spent several episodes walking with a cane, and had the models carry him out on a prize at the top of the show. They also handled some of the pricing game props that he normally would.
    • And in Season 40, he spent several episodes in a sling after receiving shoulder surgery.
    • Bob Barker did this at least once in the late 1980s, hobbing around stage with a crutch. He blamed it on being hugged by (who else) a Samoan contestant.
    • Because the show's production staff didn't want to deal with the issue, often cited as a reason why Bill Cullen wasn't asked to host over the 1972 revival.
  1. ↑ (NBC daytime May 31/July 5/July 12, 1957; NBC nighttime finale September 6, 1963 {aired on GSN}; ABC daytime January 4, 1965 {widely and incorrectly listed as 1964})
  2. ↑ (a pair of brief clips in Game Show Moments Gone Bananas {circa 1974 where Dennis trips on the Turntable; circa 1976 with a problematic Clock Game player}, a daytime episode where he subbed for Barker {December 25, 1974; aired twice by GSN in 1997}, and a Lucky Seven playing shown during the 1979 Peter Falk film The In-Laws {which leads to a discussion between the leads about Price})
  3. ↑ (Excluding the pitchfilm {not intended to air} and the audio recordings {not "visual", and because about 5-10 or so are missing several combinations of Segments 1-3}. If they were included, it would bring the total to a more respectable 36 of 201.)
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