This may be more interesting than it sounds. It's an entire hour-long episode of The Price is Right but shot with extra cameras to show you all the backstage doings and how everything is done.
Once upon a time, I was fascinated with this show, not because of the game and certainly not because of its host. I finally stopped watching it because Bob Barker was so self-obsessed and condescending to the players. It also didn't help that I'd heard so many bad stories about the guy from folks who worked on or around the show and wanted him spayed or neutered with a pair of hedge trimmers.
But I was amazed at the directing and staging and what these folks were able to do in a small studio (way smaller than you'd think it was when watching at home) and in pretty much real time. They edited but not much. If before this series ever existed, you'd gone to the network and pitched it, telling them what you had in mind, the reaction would probably have been, "Hey, that sounds great but there's no way you'll ever be able to actually do that, especially not for the kind of money you'd have to do it for."
Still, they did it as a half-hour and that was remarkable enough to anyone who knew the limitations of TV studios, the current equipment, human ability, etc. That emboldened them to double-down and go to an hour and, by God, they made that work. It's a very difficult show to pull off and somehow, they've done millions of them. I poached on the stage there a few times and was astounded. (Something you don't see in this video: The corridors outside the studio. You can't walk down them during a taping because they're jammed full of cars and other prizes and games and props and all. I once could not take the shortest route to a meeting in that building because there was a damned yacht in the way.)
One thing you may not know about game shows: The producers are always obsessed with not getting sued. Losing contestants have been known to take recordings to their lawyers to search for loopholes or anomalies in the game play. In the showcase segment here, one of the bidders — the winner, as it turns out — bids $25,500 but says "for the car." Well, she's actually bidding for an entire showcase of prizes, only one of which is the car. During the commercial break that follows, there's a brief discussion among producers and the director (Adam Sandler, obviously not that Adam Sandler) about whether to edit or retape the bid. They decide not to change it since she did win and, I suspect, because the other guy was so far off.
The last time I went to a taping, well before the Drew Carey days, there were tape stops during the commercials to give the crew time to strike the last game and set up for the next one, and also because Mr. Barker was having a good time chatting with the audience and encouraging them to fawn over him. In this video, they don't stop but I'll bet that at times, they have to.
Give it a look. You may not care for the show but see if you aren't impressed with the fact that they're able to do it at all…
