Monthly Archives: January 2008

As we all know, The Price is Right has been running on CBS since about ten minutes after Philo Farnsworth invented television. I think they're now keeping it on the air because of some obscure clause in the AFTRA contract that says that at all times, Drew Carey must have two series.

What you may not know is that there's a version that is not televised. Fremantle, the company that owns the venerable prize dispenser, has a "live" Price is Right show that plays around the country, sometimes in more than one city at a time. One current outpost, and it's been there for a while, is at Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas. Audience members can buy tickets (about fifty bucks a head) to watch one of their favorite programs, approximately recreated on stage, and they can win prizes.

At the moment, it's hosted by Todd Newton, who seems to be the emcee of about half the new game shows done these days. The announcer is Randy West, who has announced and/or handled warm-ups on dozens of shows, including Deal or No Deal and the televised Price is Right.

I've followed Randy's career for years. He's a terrific announcer in the tradition of the late Johnny Olson and Rod Roddy…a tradition that sadly is excluded from most game shows these days. Randy and I have some mutual friends and have exchanged the occasional e-mail…so last night, I went over to Bally's, met him in person finally, and was his guest for the show there. It's not something I would have otherwise attended — I can walk from my home to where the real Price is Right is taped and get in free — but I was curious as to how they refashioned the program for the venue, and I wanted to see Randy work.

Boy, he's good. I know about voiceover and warm-up work (here's an article I wrote several years ago about audience warm-ups) and it ain't as easy as it seems, especially when a real pro does it. Randy is a real pro. Todd Newton is very good, too. He keeps it moving but puts contestants at ease and — most important — makes sure they know how to play the games they're up there to play.

Even though Randy arranged for my ticket and I was ineligible for prizes, I still had to stand in line and get the little pricetag nametag to wear on my chest. The line was fascinating. I got to talking with a couple from Wisconsin who never missed The Price is Right on the telly and were tingling at the very thought of seeing it in person. The possibility of being called to "Come on down" and play was too chilling to even contemplate. Also chatted with a family from Michigan and a few others who all admitted that it was a long-nurtured dream to see the TV show in person…and I got to wondering why that seemed so unreachable to them. Granted, all I'd have to do to get to a taping is walk about nine blocks and wait in line a few hours…and of course, since it's right there, I never have. But it was humanly possible for these people to get to Las Vegas and buy tickets. Why did it seem so inconceivable to them that they could go the extra miles to Los Angeles and get tickets to the real thing?

The excitement along the line was quite real and maybe even a bit contagious — this, even though they all knew they weren't about to see The Price is Right the way they really wanted to see it, which was with Bob Barker. It has been said that everyone loves Bob Barker except every single person who ever worked with him. A book is rumored for later this year that will itemize some of the reasons for the latter sentiment. I doubt it will make any difference to these folks. They all love Bob, they cheered him in clips that were shown throughout the proceedings and applauded when Todd or Randy invoked his name, always with great reverence. My sense is that they aren't particularly fond of the new host, Drew Carey, but only because he has committed the unpardonable sin of not being Bob Barker. That seemed to be the one complaint about Todd Newton, as well. Not much he can do about that at this stage of his life.

That aside, they loved Todd and Randy and also two stunning young ladies who ably filled the shoes and bikinis of Janice, Holly, Dian and other Barker's Beauties. They even accepted the reality of smaller prizes and necessary modifications in their favorite game show. To maximize the number of folks who get to play, each round starts with four players, chosen by a random draw, being called down to Contestants Row to bid on an item. One wins and comes up on stage to play a bigger pricing game. The others get Price is Right t-shirts and get to slink back to their seats, rather than stick around and bid in the next round. Other prizes are given out for no apparent reason…and it seemed like about a seventh of the showroom left with something, even if it was only points for Bally's slot card club.

All the games are exact facsimiles of popular ones from the TV show. The first lady up on stage played The Race Game and won it, first time out. Someone else played Hole-In-One and hit the ball right into the cup. An older man who'd barely seen the TV show did a spectacular wipeout on the Mountain Climber game. Apparently in Iowa, toasters cost $120.

The two most exciting rounds — exciting in that the audience was thrilled just to see these games live and in person — were The Big Wheel and Plinko. The ovation when the Plinko Board was revealed was about the same as when Jerry Lewis was doing his telethon in 1976 and Dean Martin walked out on stage. Maybe a little bigger.

On TV, contestants spin the wheel to determine which of them gets to be in the Showcase Game at the end. Here, it's a standalone game played for money. The audience was ecstatic as one of their own not only earned himself $250 by winning the Big Wheel game but got a bonus hundred for making the wheel stop on One Dollar. Then he got a bonus spin which offered a thousand dollars more if the wheel landed on the One Dollar, $500 if it landed on either of the two adjoining spaces. He won the $500. The gent who got to play Plinko took home $900. They were the two big winners of the night.

The way the Showcase Game works here is that, first of all, there's only one showcase. It consisted of five items, two of which were a trip to Mexico and a new car. Two ladies chosen at random from the audience got to compete and each wrote down their estimate of the total price of the showcase. The one who bid closer to the actual retail price without going over would win just the trip to Mexico…but if she was within $100, she'd win the whole showcase, car included. Randy told me that had happened a day or two earlier but at the performance I attended, both contestants way overbid and limped back to their seats with Price is Right t-shirts.

Despite the disappointing ending, the audience seemed to have a very good time…even those who won zip. Right after, just outside the showroom, Todd, Randy and the two prize models posed for photos with audience members who wanted a memento. One lady who'd won nothing inside was telling Todd that she watches him every day on Whammy!, and that the snapshot with him was better than if she'd won the car. Todd didn't seem to believe her but he told her thanks.

Like I said, this is not something I would have gone to see on my own, especially if it meant purchasing a ticket. (I'm not going to see the afternoon Game Show Spectacular over at the Vegas Hilton, which brings audience members up to play various rounds from defunct TV shows. Bob Eubanks, Chuck Woolery and Jamie Farr rotate as its host.) Still, I was impressed with how well the Price is Right folks replicated and modified that program, and I enjoyed seeing people enjoy it so. If I were running Las Vegas, I think I'd get rid of all those roulette wheels and craps tables, and just put in a lot of Plinko games. That's what the public seems to want.

Southwest Airlines just called. They finally figured out where my suitcase is. I have it.

Let's try another one of these, this time about the movie, Skidoo. I'm going to leave this poll up for a week on the assumption that some of you may be taping/TiVoing the film and won't get around to watching it for a bit.

Pick the statement below that most closely summarizes your feelings about Otto Preminger's oddest creation. Yes, I know your precise sentiments may not be among the options I've provided but select the one that comes closest. As Donald Rumsfeld might say, you vote with the choices you have, not the choices you wish you had.

I am told that the rumor about the Top Screenwriters who were pledging to force the WGA to accept whatever the hell the DGA gets…that report has been exposed as a hoax. Like I said: Do not believe any story of that sort that doesn't have names attached and some confirmation from those names. And even then, it could be bogus or a bluff.

And to clarify: I think Jay Leno ought to do whatever is humanly possible to comply with WGA strike rules. I'm not 100% certain what that is, what he can do to fulfill his contractual responsibility as a performer on The Tonight Show and not be in violation of his union's rules. But whatever it is, that's what he ought to do. It's a little difficult for any of us to say what that is from afar and, as I was trying to explain, the line of demarcation between Jay writing and Jay ad-libbing can get a bit smokey. It's one of those "glad I don't have to figure that one out" problems.

Lots of e-mails asking me about this situation where the WGA is saying that Jay Leno is not allowed under its rules to do his monologue and he's saying he got permission and they're saying he didn't and NBC is saying he doesn't need permission, yadda yadda yadda. Nikki Finke, your one-stop shopping link for Strike News, has all the back-and-forth. I don't know much about it that isn't there.

I do know that there can be a murky area in which it's hard to distinguish which words a performer speaks on air are "written." A lot of what is uttered on talk shows is arguable and some of the best hosts are quite facile at taking what someone writes and then paraphrasing or turning it into an approximate ad-lib. If a performer knows what he's going to say before he goes out on stage, is he writing for himself? If he actually writes it down, has someone put key words (or even the whole thing) on cue-cards and then he goes out and says roughly what he'd say if it wasn't on the cards…is that writing? Leno can write all he wants for his stand-up act. If he uses some of those jokes on The Tonight Show, is he writing?

Sort of, sometimes…but you can see where this can get messy. If I ever felt sorry for people in his income bracket, I'd feel sorry for the guy now. He's always been an honorable man and that seems to be the consensus of those who've had a lot more contact with him than I have. Because he's a writer-performer and only one of those professions is on strike, he's caught in an awkward position. He ought to do what the WGA says is Kosher but that may be at odds with what he feels he must do to keep his ratings up.

They weren't so wonderful last night. He beat Letterman but not by a wide margin…this, despite the fact that NBC had a powerhouse prime-time line-up with all new shows, whereas CBS had all reruns. Someone's got to be a little worried and it ain't Dave.

Ms. Finke has also posted the rumor that a bunch of "A-List" Screenwriters and possibly top TV Showrunners as well are going to press the WGA to accept whatever deal the DGA makes. I find it hard to believe that someone could become a wealthy writer in this town if they were willing to accept someone else's deal before it was even negotiated. You don't do that if you're writing a movie and the other guy is writing a similar movie. You especially don't do that when the other guy's deal may involve cash points (i.e., ways of figuring how much he gets paid) that don't apply to you.

The DGA has sometimes been very clever about agreeing to some deal that puts money in the pocket of the guy who directs a film or TV show but doesn't yield revenue to anyone else who takes those terms. It would be like if we were both negotiating to write comic books and you said, "I'll take whatever deal Evanier makes." And then I made a deal where the writer works for free but gets a huge cash bonus if he's had Gastric Bypass Surgery in the last two years, is Jewish but has a last name people think is French, and once got punched in the arm by Jack LaLanne. (I was going to add in "…keeps having his luggage lost by Southwest Airlines but that could apply to just about anybody.)

In any case, here's a general rule of thumb: Don't put much stock in any rumor that involved unnamed people. It may turn out to be true but most of them don't.

I'll write more when there's more.

It's on tonight…and I really hope I haven't oversold this thing and that none of you feel any obligation to sit through it. Skidoo is the movie of which Jackie Gleason, its star, once said: "The picture turned out to be the greatest meatball that was ever made!" He did not mean that as a compliment even though he probably loved meatballs.

John M. Miller reminds me that they have a lot of info and downloads of Skidoo over at the Turner Classic Movies website. Here's the link…but if you haven't seen the film, I'd suggest going there after your first viewing. You'll enjoy it ever so much more if you don't know what's coming…and yes, I'm using the word "enjoy" in the broadest sense.

Years ago, I was going to write a book called something like Fascinating Movies, and my definition was not that they were necessarily good or bad. It would have contained some of each…a concept which seemed to baffle a company that thought they wanted to publish it but couldn't grasp that I wouldn't just be writing about movies that were fun to watch because they were such utter disasters. I think some films just transcend being thought of as good or bad. The sheer fact that they were made and that they exist is far more significant than whether you can have a good time watching them or why you might enjoy the ones in the Hindenburg category. In some upcoming post, I'll try to list some of the ones I'd cover if I were writing that book today. In the meantime, here's our last posting of the banner for perhaps the most transcendent of them all…

Someone from Southwest Airlines woke me up at 8 AM this morning to tell me they were still looking for my suitcase. She hung up before I could tell her that I'd found my suitcase last night. In fact, I have a copy here of their final report that says I'd found my suitcase. They will probably lose others while they're busy searching for mine.

In a Vegas hotel room and yes, I have my suitcase. It came in on the next plane with no explanation. So did about a half-dozen pieces of luggage for others who were on my flight. A nice gentleman at the Southwest Your-Baggage-Is-Lost-And-We-Don't-Know-Where-The-Hell-It-Is Department apologized profusely and gave each of us a voucher for $50 off on future air travel. Unfortunately, you have to use it on Southwest.

This was a sudden trip…my first to the town in something like six years. I used to come here twice a month on average but things change. The town has changed, too…old hotels gone, new ones in their places. I've changed, too. Since my gastric bypass surgery, going to the buffets will not be cost-effective. The only things that haven't changed are that people drink, people smoke, people gamble and Southwest loses your luggage.

There will be more Vegas Blogging to come. And other things.

I used to write for a comedian who told me one of the "perks" of appearing on talk shows. It was that every time he had some medium-to-small annoyance in his life, he could look on the bright side of it by thinking, "Good panel." That meant it could be material for his next appearance with Johnny, Merv, Mike or whoever. Little by little, I have come to feel that way about blogging.

I, unlike my suitcase, am in Las Vegas — at the airport, in fact. Where my suitcase is, God may know but Southwest Airlines hasn't the foggiest. I got there on time, checked in an hour before takeoff, even watched the security folks scan my bag and put it on the little conveyor belt…

…and that was the last anyone's seen of it. It might be on the next flight in from LAX, which is what I'm waiting here to see. Or it might still be on the plane I just got off, which has already continued on to Texas. Other, more horrible possibilities have also occurred to me.

Years ago, when I was coming to this town quite often, I gave up flying Southwest because this kept happening. I thought something might have changed but I guess not.

I have about twenty minutes before the next flight arrives. So what can I do in the meantime? I can blog about it.

I posted these about half an hour ago but the "technical difficulties" of which I write made them somehow go away.

Last night's ratings: Leno had a 5.3/12, Letterman had a 4.3/10 and Nightline had a 3.0/6. More viewers tuned in than usual but that's about the spread that those shows had before the strike. I suspect a lot of people are surprised that Jay did as well as he did and that Dave ain't all that happy this morning. He might become happy in the weeks to come if he can book better guests than Jay and/or if Leno's monologue segment collapses on him. Jay is under a lot of pressure to generate that thing every night and it won't be easier with all the talk that's building about how even writing for himself is a violation of WGA strike rules. I'm not certain if it is, or if it's an issue the Guild wants to press at the moment.

Tonight, I'm betting the numbers look a lot like they did, pre-strike. There's a lot less curiosity tune-in, people wondering "What will he do?" But this could change over the weeks. I still think the strike will be over sooner than the dire forecasts are predicting but we certainly have a number of weeks ahead of us and NBC ain't gonna break and make an interim contract any time soon.

In other news: Conan had a 2.5/8, Ferguson had a 1.9/6 and Kimmel had a 1.4/4. Those are more or less pre-strike numbers, though Kimmel's is a bit lower than the norm.

But none of these are the numbers you care about. You want to know the final tally in our Utterly Unscientific Poll in which thousands of you voted. Here are those numbers and I'll leave you to decide for yourself what they indicate. Me, I'm leaning towards, "Not much…but isn't it fun to vote like this?"

We're having a little trouble here at the old weblog with some postings appearing twice or even three times. I am not repeating myself. I am not repeating myself. It will be fixed. It will be fixed.

As a loyal WGA member, I wish I could report that Jay Leno's first broadcast without his writers was a total disaster. I thought his segment with Mike Huckabee was pretty lame but then politicians on talk shows usually bother me. The venue is not conducive to asking them hard questions and it's annoying to see these guys (all these guys) given the chance to present themselves as good-natured, witty chaps and not have to answer for the slimier things they've said or done.

But I thought what came before that — Jay's monologue and an unscripted Q-and-A with the audience — was entertaining enough. Leno has always been a much better ad-libber than his critics think he is and he has a great rapport with the people out front. His monologue was pretty standard Leno so I can believe he wrote it himself. I'm not as sure though that it wasn't a violation of WGA rules.

I was a lot less impressed with Conan O'Brien's show…and I say that as someone who usually likes Conan. The absence of real comedy material was felt on Leno's show but it was really felt on O'Brien's. Maybe he'll fall into a rhythm but it just seemed like he wasn't sure what he was there to do…play off the absence of written material or move past it. He and Bob Saget didn't seem to have much to say to one another after they got past the strike talk.

Letterman was Letterman. I like the guy but I don't always like his show, especially when it feels like I've seen it before. I was surprised at how totally he fell back into the old ennui and even Robin Williams couldn't do much the change the energy level. (The problem with Williams as a guest on any talk show is that he does what he does and the host could go out for a sandwich while he does it.) I really wish Dave could get back to that time when you tuned him in wondering, "What's he going to do tonight?" Maybe I set myself up for disappointment by thinking he'd seize on this opportunity to do something he hadn't done a hundred times before.

Craig Ferguson is being TiVoed at this very moment but I probably won't watch him until tomorrow.

All in all, nothing really changed much so I'm inclined to think the ratings won't, at least after a day or two. If Letterman can get substantially better guests now that Jay's being picketed and he isn't, that might give The Late Show an advantage. But pretty much everything I think has made a majority of viewers pick Jay over Dave is still intact. I'll be surprised if the numbers show much switchover.