Ross Downing writes to ask…
I enjoy reading your blog as often as I can. As a high school film and television teacher, it is nice to get an inside perspective on some of the industry goings-on and the people within the business. I learn as much, often, as my students do.
One question I have been pondering for the last few months…what are your thoughts on Bob Barker, his career, his retirement, and the future of The Price is Right? (I have noticed that you have referenced Barker only a handful of times in your entries the last few years, and none of those times have you been overly flattering toward him.) Just curious.
Well, my thoughts on Bob Barker are that he deserves a mass quantity of kudos for sheer endurance but I haven't been able to enjoy the show in years. At some point, the focus changed from Bob playing pricing games with the audience to Bob encouraging the audience to slobber over him. I never liked the guy or Truth or Consequences back when he hosted that program because both exuded a condescending approach towards the contestants. I liked him when he started on The Price is Right because that manner was not in evidence. And then at some point, it crept back in and I stopped watching. The program also lost a lot of its nice family "feel" because of announcers dying and models being replaced.
CBS is still trying to pick a replacement. This coming Thursday, they're taping a couple of "audition" shows which will not be broadcast, testing out three potential hosts — Doug Davidson, Todd Newton and John O'Hurley. I'm not sure why they're auditioning Davidson, who hosted a 1994 syndicated version of The Price is Right that didn't make it — presumably, they know how he'd handle the job — but they are. Mr. O'Hurley has just been announced for the role of King Arthur in the Las Vegas company of Spamalot that opens March 31. Presumably, he has an out clause in his contract there in case he gets Price and can't juggle both gigs.
I have no idea who they'll get but I suspect the show won't last in its present daytime slot. I think it's long since run its course and that a lot of viewers who've been watching from force of habit will take the departure of Barker as an appropriate point to hop off. However, it's been such a money-maker that CBS will do everything possible to keep it afloat and if they give up, its owners will keep throwing it at us in new venues and new formats much the way Hollywood Squares and Family Feud never seem to go away. It also wouldn't surprise me if someone is working on a way to retool The Price is Right as a prime-time entry with the look and feel (and payoffs) of Deal or No Deal.
Hey, did I ever post my one Bob Barker anecdote here? It occurred at a car wash on Highland, just south of Sunset in Hollywood. One day in the mid-eighties, I was getting my auto debugged there and found myself standing next to Mr. Barker, who was waiting for the guys with the blue rags to finishing swabbing down his car. His was a big Lincoln Continental, as I recall. Anyway, I motioned towards the men drying our vehicles and told him, "They don't like it when you tip them in Plinko chips."
I thought that was a pretty funny line but Barker looked at me like I'd just made Number One on his shoes. The incident didn't sour me on him and his show but it was indicative of the attitude that did. I'll bet we could have had a nice chat if I'd just told him he was the greatest thing to happen to television since the invention of the remote control.