The Price Is Right: All The Things You Want To Know About Your Favorite Game Show

The Price Is Right has been one of our favorite game shows since the ’70s and has passed many other shows to become the longest-running series on television in America. But what about all the things you don’t know about the show? We’ve got it all, right here.

Legendary show

It is a game show that hasn’t stopped since its first debut on September 4th, 1972, where it was shown on CBS. With its continuous run, the show has produced over 8,000 episodes and as of 2018, it entered its 47th season. November 28th sees the showing of the 50th episode from season 47.

Keep it original

Times have rapidly changed since the 70’s with the odd something coming back into fashion but what about The Price Is Right set? Wanting to show respect for the original set, the producers have tried to keep as many original entities as possible. Despite the obvious changes, they have still kept the majority of games in their original forms, complete with mechanical cranks.

The biggest winner

Can anyone remember the first ever The Price Is Right Million Dollar Week? Well, we can! Although many people remember Sheree Heil as the biggest winner of the show, in fact, it was California’s Adam Rose, who a won a whopping $1,153,908 in 2008.

The biggest prize

Although Adam won the biggest lot of money on the show, most fans will remember Sheree Heil as one of the biggest winners when she won a prize which was estimated to be worth $157,300 – the most valuable prize that has ever been won on the show. In 2013, the resident of Tacoma, WA scooped an Audi R8 V-8 and celebrated in the best fashion.

Come on down

We all know how the game show works; audience members eagerly wait in their seats until the lucky name is called for them to “come on dowwwnn”. Due to the energy and excitement in the audience, it often happens that the contestant misses their name being called by the announcer to join Contestants row. There are production assistants who have to step in with cue cards to announce who it is.

Promoting the right message

Nowadays we are a lot more conscious then we were in the past but host from the 1980s The Price Is Right, Bob Barker, was a strong advocate for the protection of animals even back then. When finishing the show, Bob would always sign off by saying “Have your pets spayed or neutered.” In respect to Bob, Drew Carey continued with the famous line.

Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad became one of the most popular shows on TV with everyone talking about and recommending the series, but where were the actors before Breaking Bad? In 2000, it seems Aaron Paul who plays the popular Jesse Pinkman, was an overexcited contestant on The Price Is Right. Due to his recent success, he is now the most famous person to of appeared on the show.

Bob’s appearence

Back in 2009, Bob Barker made a special guest appearance on the show where he was a guest host two-years on from passing the hosting torch to Drew Carey. Although fans loved his appearance, many didn’t know that it was more to promote his new book, Priceless Memories. Bob hosted the Showcase Showdown part of the show.

Too much to remember

When Drew Carey took on the hosting role from Bob Barker in 2007, he knew there was going to be a lot of things he needed to remember. Let’s face it, there are 75 games with a different set of rules each and that is a lot to remember from the top of your head. Easing Carey into it, with the show recording five shows each week, they ensured only six different games were used during each week.

Loosing the audience

Fans were left devasted to hear that Bob Barker was leaving The Price Is Right behind and many wondered, including himself, if Drew Carey could step into his shoes and keep the die-hard fans tuned in to the show. To try and ease the audience into the new host, the producers decided to up the quality of the prizes and made the games easier.

Hosting King

He was there from the very beginning and despite the great arrangement of the game show, fans adored the show in their millions and Bob Barker was one of the main reasons why. Astonishingly, Bob was the king host of The Price Is Right for 35 long years, right from the beginning until his retirement in 2007.

Parking lot

Due to the number of shows The Price Is Right is recording and putting out, they have to make sure they have enough prizes for each show. Because of this, they have their own parking lot full of brand-new cars, with around 37 to 45 waiting over at CBS. That means they get through 18 cars each week, with each show having new cars.

That’s a lot of prizes

As well as the cars, the show gives out around 30 prizes per episode to its lucky contestants. And of course, they have to have somewhere to keep them. The CBS studios are rather big and have three warehouses full of The Price Is Right prizes. All these gifts are those priced at $100 and more and then there’s still the lower priced prizes as well.

Consistancy is key

A part of The Price Is Right is that contestants have to guess the price of household items, but where do they get their prices from? We all know that item prices can vary from place to place as well as in the supermarkets and stores. The show manages to keep the prices as consistent as possible by only using the same retailers for their items.

It’s all down to him

One of the best things about the show is that the audience gets their tickets for free, and the majority of them are there to be the lucky ones who will get picked out to play in the game show. The man with the power is indeed Stan Blits, whose job is to get to know the audience and choose those who will be selected to play.

Not an easy job

As you know, the show’s prize items are displayed by different models, who have become to be known as “Barker’s Beauties” and it seems it isn’t simply standing around looking pretty. The longest-serving model to work on the show was Janice Pennington, who appeared for 29-years up until 2000. It was in 1988, that she had an accident on set and was knocked unconscious by a camera leaving her with two surgeries and scaring on her shoulder.

Where is she?

A great moment on the show was one that happened way back in 1976. With the announcer shouting the next audience member to join Contestants Row, there seemed to be no sign of her! With members of the audience looking around for her, her husband jumped up and exclaimed she was in the bathroom and ran to get her. Bob Barker says this was one of his funniest moments.

Beauty problems

It seems men can also suffer from the rights and wrongs of the beauty industry, and as Bob Barker began to age and his hair started to turn grey, he was told to maintain and dye it. It was in 1987 that he no longer wanted to and had to seek permission from the head of programming to let his hair go grey. It actually ended up being a move that fans related to and they praised the change.

Vanna White

Another famous face who you may not have spotted is Wheel of Fortune’s Vanna White, who took part on the show as a contestant back in 1980. It was just three years before she became a known face on the other loved game show and during her time on The Price Is Right, she actually never made it out of Contestants Row.

Only 10 available

The famous Plinko chips do not come in abundance as you would expect. In fact, there are only 10 chips that exist on the show, with 5 being backups and the others being used on the show. Producer Mike Richards said, “They’re enormously expensive to make. They’re weighted exactly the same and made exactly the same so that they ‘plink”.

Favorite game

As with most things on the show, once it becomes a fan favorite, it tends to stick and stay exactly that. On January 3rd, 1983, the hugely famous Plinko game was introduced onto The Price Is Right. The game has stuck around since then and in 2013, the show had an all-Plinko episode for the games 30th anniversary.

What a guess

When it comes to the Showcase part of the show, fans can barely sit back in their seats, wondering if the contestant will successfully win the money. During an episode in 2010, Terry Kniess surprised fans and everyone behind the scenes with his perfectly accurate guess of the value for the Showcase. He guessed $23,743 and it was 100% correct. The show was actually paused to check he wasn’t cheating.

No cash swap

Several game shows will allow the contestants to swap their prize items for cash behind the scenes, however, The Price Is Right is not one of them. The contestants have the option of accepting the prize, giving it away to friends or family, selling it or donating it to charity. They sound like pretty good options to us!

Keep trying

Those lucky contestants who are picked to make their way down to Contestant Row have the advantage of being able to repeatably come to the show if they didn’t manage to win. They have the option of coming to as many tapings they can and even those who did manage to scoop a win, are allowed back after just one year.

Award time

With the show being as popular as it is and going for as long as it has been, we’re not surprised that the show won an award a television award. The Price Is Right received the award for ‘The Greatest Game Show Of All Time’ by Tv Guide.