My friend let me have his copy of Entertainment Weekly from a few weeks ago, which did a predictable salute to Bob. One interesting feature of the article was interviews with Roger Dobkowitz, Anitra Ford, and even Paul Levine, the champion on the first episode. Paul intimates that his mother-in-law was basically responsible for him getting picked. Pulling out the episode to watch it made sense; he may have been the least excited contestant they ever had.
Besides the cringe-worthy fact that the first item ever up for bids was a fur coat, runner-up Connie may have been one of the best contestants the show ever had. She was given to screaming at the drop of a hat and was an absolute laugh riot.
The other bizarre things about that first episode: the never-seen-again pricing game podiums, the turntable spinning completely at random throughout, and every female contestant bringing their purses everywhere they went, even on stage.
Add Drew Carey to the list of interested parties in the Price job. As candidates go, I wouldn't mind him. He kept the game moving on Whose Line is it Anyway and injected little pieces of humor along the way...basically what he'd need to do on Price. It would be a coup for the show if they could get him...even though he's not the celebrity he was a few years ago, he's still well-recognized and far more famous than Mark Steines or Todd Newton.
The Rosie furor continues to fly this week. I still say, it's not going to happen. However, I hope the reason it doesn't happen has more to do with the fact that she simply can't commit to the schedule, and less to do with the fact she's gay. It's not being explicitly said that way on some other sites (give me a break with that picture), but one might infer it. Rosie's quote unquote left-wing political views wouldn't matter on a taped game show where anything offensive could easily be wiped from the taped record, and a format like Price's doesn't lend itself to political discussion.
This Rosie thing with Price is just getting messy and weird. Now MSNBC reports that Bob is backtracking on his Rosie endorsement, or to be more blunt, that he never endorsed her in the first place. Calgon, take me away.
GSN's Without Prejudice promos have been kinda blah, but one that I saw today kinda irked me. They have an African-American guy up there and one of the panelists says "...I don't like him on the account that he's Black."
Now, I'm sure this was taken out of context, and perhaps the panelist was actually quoting someone. Still, seems like a pretty tacky way to promote a show.
That's the latest person who has auditioned to host Price. Yes, the guy from 90210. The guy whose ex-wife actually was a model on the show (she's the one who grinned politely while revealing that I lost on One Wrong Price).
The Variety article is basically more about Rosie meeting with CBS this week, but they believe she wouldn't leave the East Coast for the gig.
I had to think for a sec about where I stand on Rosie hosting the show. I like her, and politically we're in sync for the most part, although I think she could definitely choose her words more thoughtfully sometimes. The main issue I think regarding her hosting is longevity. I think she would bore of it easily.
Maybe 20 years ago, when the show's longer run time allowed for more ad libbing and audience banter would she have been a good fit. But with the extra commercial time, the show really has to run like a machine now and a lot of times there's little room to inject humor. Unless they removed a pricing game or two, I think the format would stifle Rosie's sense of creativity and she'd want out. I don't doubt her ability to handle the games and she certainly would be good with the contestants, but I just don't think this is the vehicle for her.
As a kid growing up watching USA and CBN's game show lineup, I always tuned out Let's Make a Deal. In fact, the only thing I ever found rewarding about the 1984-1986 run was Door #4. When Family Channel dusted off the early '70s shows I never really bothered to pay attention.
Now that I'm an adult, I can totally appreciate the series and I'm glad GSN has it back on daily. I never realized what a true genius Monty Hall is. I'm just amazed at the way he starts a deal, and the most amazing part is how he casually goes up to unexpecting contestants and starts the proceedings. In that sense he was the anti-Rich Fields: calm, cool, collected.
People always say that Bob is a legend because Price is the hardest show to host. I think Deal gives Price a run for its money in that department. There are so many combinations and twists and turns the deals in the show can take, and frankly I've never seen Monty even come close to miss a beat. He's just like clockwork up there, and the contestant coordinators were amazing at picking people who would go absolutely nuts when presented with the tough decisions the show threw at them.
The only thing I can knock (at least in the 70s version) is the set at ABC. I mean, it looks less like a game show set and more like something you'd see at a livestock festival. That ugly blue curtain and the omni-present exit doors. Yikes. Luckily you had the lovely Carol to distract you from all that.
But other than that exception, this show is an absolute winner and was deserving of its 14 year consecutive run on daytime. Thankfully Monty had the forethought to allow these tapes to survive 30+ years later for our enjoyment.
One other thing worth touching on--In Mark Goodson's (in)famous Price is Right pitch film in 1972, he basically accuses LMAD of ripping off the Price is Right. But I'm not sure it's not the other way around. The original Price was a simple bidding game for large prizes. As far as I know, the grocery guessing element didn't come in until the 1972 version started. But by that point, Deal was already doing a number of grocery item guessing games. In fact, on today's show they played a primitive version of Check-Out, which didn't premiere on Price until the early '80s. Chew on that.
No word yet on how the original morning broadcast did, but the primetime reair won its timeslot Friday night and in fact outdrew the Daytime Emmy awards in the 18-49 demo (admittedly, we are in the middle of June here). More proof that Bob is going out on top.
For picking up yet another Daytime Emmy. Not that he didn't deserve it outright, but it does continue a trend on the Daytime Awards of hosts winning in the last year of their show. With 19 Emmys though, you have to wonder how Susan Lucci feels, having been nominated nearly as many times?
Well, a good end to Bob's run (or so we think) today. The episode, budget-wise, played like a nighttime show, with two huge showcases and (what I think) is the biggest daytime winner in the history of the show.
His send-off at the end was brief but well delivered. Final episodes are always a mixed bag. Sometime you get no send off (as in the last episode of Press Your Luck). Sometimes you get an overly-emotional exit (Richard Dawson's last Feud in 1985 played like a funeral). This was somewhere in between and felt good.
One other note--good to see the crane cam for this ep.
As a Price fan I should be counting the days down to Friday by the second, but the announcement that Bob may be hosting the show on an interim basis next year has totally clouded my appreciation for the situation. I mean, when Johnny Carson went out, he went out. All the hoopla (high rated primetime specials, media coverage, etc.) will look silly if Bob just comes back out in September like nothing happened.
Of course, if the alternative is Mark "Studs" DeCarlo, I may be willing to accept the awkwardness of Bob's interim return.
Is More or Less the most cursed pricing game in the history of the show? No one can get past the 2nd hurdle. Today's offering was outlandishly huge...3 trips and a Fusion, probably totaling close to $30K. But despite a ridiculously high fake price for the Hawaii trip, the contestant still guessed more.
According to the Episode Summaries page, it's actually been won once out of eight playings, but a game like this should have a higher win rate, no?
I have to agree with Alex over at Buzzer that when Bob's last show airs on Friday, it should really be his last show. I admire the idea that Bob would fill in while CBS looks for a successor, but I'm sure he'd rather just get on with his life at 83. And it's certainly not his fault that CBS couldn't find a host. He gave them months of notice, and they had to know this day was coming eventually. Todd was being groomed to take over as early as 2003.
Why are they so unprepared? Why can't they pick a host and go with it? And at this point, if they haven't found one, why don't they just sunset the show? Most of my friends, fans and non-fans alike, are wondering why the show is going on without Bob to begin with. It's not to say that it can't be done without him, but CBS is sure acting like it. It's already looking unlikely that they will be ready with new episodes by September, and having Bob come back after he already retired just makes them look bad.
CBS has two options -- make up their minds quick or just let the show go out gracefully. The time on option #1 is quickly running out.
So today was the last taping of TPiR. No news to report as of yet (I'll see if KCBS does a bit on their news tonight), but it's hard to believe that after today, Bob will never walk through those doors again.
It will be interesting to see if all of next week's episodes have a special theme to them, or if it's just next Friday's that will be treated differently. You'd like to see Bob have a few minutes on the last show to talk and thank people, but with the crazy pace the show has to take these days, you wonder where they'd fit it in? It would almost make sense to do a 5-pricing game show to give him some more breathing room--we'll have to see what they decided on.
Hands down, in my book, the 2nd best episode of Press Your Luck is the famous spin battle between Cathy and Lori that re-ran on GSN yesterday. So much about that 5 minute back and forth is legendary. You had two great emotional contestants totally into the game. Cathy looked like she was about to have a heart attack every time she spun, having long before traded in the traditional "STOP!" with an exasperated "NOW!" each time she ended a turn.
The climax with Cathy Whammying elicited an exasperated moan from the audience and Peter--it was truly a great game. It's a shame they totally had to chop the episode to bits to get it to fit for time, including a super-rushed closing and a re-shot opening that omitted the contestant interviews (check the sly look on Cathy's face during the opening--you can tell she's still simmering). A great episode of a great game.
