“Come on down, you’re the next contestant on The Price Is Right!”
If you grew up in the ’80s or ’90s, you probably fantasized about hearing those words in person as you placed your bid alongside the other overexcited Contestants’ Row participants.
Because, before DVR—when the idea of watching television on the Internet seemed like some futuristic flying car shit—tuning in live to the CBS stalwart that saw participants play what are essentially carnival games in the hopes of walking away with a pool table and, ideally, a new car! was the highlight of many a snow day or lazy summer morning.
Just ask future Emmy-winning Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul, who went insane at the prospect of meeting then-host, the legendary Bob Barker, during a 2000 appearance.
A newly minted L.A. transplant eager to try his hand at acting, the Idaho native yelled, “You’re the man, Bob!” “You’re my idol,” he said before successfully placing the closest bid (without going over) on a flattop desk.
He’d make it all the way to the Showcase Showdown before outbidding a $26,368 prize package, which included a sports car, by $132.
It still stung 13 years later, with Paul telling Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, “You have no idea; I was depressed for many, many months.”
But that’s just the way the Plinko chips fall on America’s longest-running game show, which dates back to 1956, when NBC aired a version with only four bidders vying for items and allowed viewers to mail in their best guesses on the retail price via postcard in the hopes of winning big.
The more recent version debuted on CBS more than 50 years ago, with Barker, announcer Rod Roddy, and all of the Clock Game, Lucky Seven, and Cliff Hangers contests we’ve come to expect and enjoy. Even though Barker stepped down in 2007, handing over his skinny microphone to comedian Drew Carey, the wheel continues to spin. (With the exception of the coronavirus pandemic-related production shutdown.)
On February 26, the series will celebrate its 10,000th episode with what Carey describes as a “really expensive” $10,000-themed extravaganza.
So let’s celebrate the timeless classic that has put our grocery shopping skills to use. Continue reading to learn everything you’ve always wanted to know, from how they calculate actual retail prices to where they store all of those new cars. Don’t forget to help control the pet population by getting your pet spayed or neutered.
- Aaron Paul isn’t the only celebrity who has appeared on The Price Is Right stage. Amy Purdy, a Paralympic silver medalist snowboarder, and Giuliana Rancic both appeared as guest models in the series. “I’ve been watching The Price Is Right since I was a little girl. “I am obsessed with Price Is Right, so I know exactly what they do,” Rancic said ahead of her 2013 appearance, which featured only breast cancer survivors in the audience. “The hand is on the hip like this. “I got the whole thing down.”
- In addition, a slew of eager celebrities, including Seth Rogen, Kristen Bell, and Snoop Dogg, have donned price tag-shaped name tags in an attempt to win money for charity.
- Veteran host Bob Barker, who died at the age of 99 in 2023, attributed the show’s longevity to two factors. For starters, the potential for audience engagement is significant. “Once we put something up for bid and the contestant makes a bid, the viewer becomes involved. In 1990, he told the Los Angeles Times, “Once you get involved, we’ve accomplished what every game show producer wants: viewer involvement.” “The Price Is Right has that to the nth degree.”
- The rest he attributed to a good hair day, admitting that ratings began to rise after he accepted his silver streaks. “I began to gray at my temples, and I guess it could be that technology at that time was not what it is today, but I didn’t look good,” he told the local newspaper. So the producers suggested he tint it, which worked briefly before turning his strands blue. When he began dyeing his hair, it turned red. “I went on vacation and I just let it go,” he told me. “When I got home, the people on the show said, ‘You look better this way than with it dyed or tinted.'” “Why don’t you leave it like this?” However, due to the magic of television, his first silver fox episode aired the day after one with his darker hair. “We taped ahead,” he added. “Let’s say I had dark hair on the Wednesday show, but when we taped the next show, I had gray hair, which aired on Thursday. I received a letter from someone who said, ‘Bob, you must have had one hell of a night.'”
- Not everyone drives away from the set in a brand new car. Because winners must pay taxes on any prizes they receive upfront—one redditor told site visitors he had to pay around $20,000 for his $57,000 in prizes—they frequently leave empty-handed. And then there’s the $10,000 recipient who declined the money because he didn’t want to give half to his ex-wife! Though, in 2016, then-executive producer Mike Richards told The New York Times that they send a tax letter to each winner informing them of how much they must pay, and since he took over in 2008, every Showcase Showdown winner has claimed their prize.
- According to Richards, the majority of the prizes are ready for shipment, with all of the dinette sets and exercise bikes stored in three massive warehouses on the CBS Television City lot. They have up to 37 cars in a private lot.
- Are there any awkward moments? There have been a few, including the incident in which model Manuela Arbelaez accidentally gave away a $21,960 car. “I thought, A: Today is my last day of work. B: They’ll deduct it from my paycheck each week. “I thought that was it for me,” the six-year vet told Inside Edition about the 2015 error. Fortunately, Drew could not have been more supportive. Likewise with the producers.” Of course, there were instances when a contestant was in, as Barker put it, “the little girls’ room” when her name was called. But the situation Barker described as “the most talked about single incident in the history of the show” occurred in 1977, when a woman became so excited to come down that she jumped out of her tube top.
- Another exchange could have been even more cringe-inducing if the contestant lacked a winning sense of humor. When announcers revealed comedian Danielle Perez, who uses a wheelchair, was auditioning for a walk-in sauna and a treadmill during a 2015 episode, the audience paused. She later told People, “I just thought, ‘Oh, this is perfect, you cannot write this, you cannot make this up.'” It’s not even that I’m in a wheelchair; I literally have no feet.” Nonetheless, she was determined to win: “I was so pumped up on all the money, prizes, and endorphins.” You go because you want to win. It does not matter what it is.
- Although some of the 73 pricing games have been updated for the twenty-first century, many are still operated using traditional crank-and-pulley mechanisms. Carey has even made it a habit to introduce the crank operator who hides behind the Freeze Frame set-up, as union rules require that if an employee’s face is revealed, they must be paid more.
- For the sake of consistency, those retail prices are sourced from actual California retailers. And, no, producers aren’t about to reveal which ones.
- That earworm of a theme song that you’re probably humming to yourself right now was written by Edd Kalehoff, who also created the themes for Nickelodeon’s Double Dare and ABC’s Monday Night Football.
- Do good things come in threes? Perhaps. Because in a 2017 episode, three (contestants) formed a crowd at the Big Wheel when each of them received exactly $1 during their spins. Though the rules require a tiebreaker to gain entry into the Showcase Showdown, they all received $10,000, and when they spun again, two contestants hit $1 again, winning an additional $25,000 each.
- Perhaps they all read The Royal Economic Society’s “To Spin or Not to Spin?” guide, which invested actual research funds in attempting to crack the code of the famous wheel.
- Contestant favorite Plinko, named after the “plink, plink, plink” sounds the chips make as they drop, offers players the chance to win up to $50,000. However, the chips may be just as valuable, with CBS revealing that there are only 10 Plinko chips in production, and they are considered so special that they are locked away after each use.
- According to a redditor, one person truly had the luck of the draw when they happened to play the game shortly after it had been used for an advertisement, with an invisible fishing line inserted to direct the chip to the $10,000 slot. After the contestant won $30,000 (“Everybody’s screaming, Drew is literally jumping up and down,” the redditor recalled), a producer bolted out just as she dropped her fourth chip “and SLAMS his hand against the token as it falls,” the witness said. After determining the error, producers reshot the segment, but the Plinko player still received $30,000, plus an additional $3,000 from the retake.
- The games became a little easier with Carey’s takeover in 2007, albeit only temporarily. In a blog post, producer Roger Dobkowitz revealed that as viewers adapted to a new host, he “felt it was extremely important for the first couple of months of the show to have plenty of winners.” So, he confessed, “I completely ignored the prize budget for the first few months.” I planned simple games with obvious right and wrong price combinations so that more contestants could leave as winners.” He just completed his mission a little too successfully. “By January 2008, I was about $700,000 over budget!” he revealed, and with the network refusing to spend more money, “We went into a period where we were forced to use tougher games and smaller cars.”
- Of course, Carey devised his own foolproof strategy to foster goodwill. When a player won their way out of Contestant’s Row by making a perfect bid on an item, he’d give them $500 cash from his own pocket. As of 2017, CBS estimated that he had turned over at least $187,000.
- However, Barker was the contestant who received the most kisses on the cheek, with CBS estimating he received around 22,000.
- In a 2010 Esquire interview, one man made an exact bid on his showcase and lived to tell the story. Terry Kneiss, a former TV weatherman, and his wife Linda, a mathematician, spent months studying episodes of the show together. So he knew exactly how much to bid on the Big Green Egg smoker and grill ($1,175) and could make an educated guess on the karaoke machine, pool table, and 17-foot camper in his prize package ($23,743), adding the extra 743 as a nod to the PIN number he and Linda used. Because the situation had never occurred before in the show’s history (and only weeks after they had let go of producer Dobkowitz), Carey and the rest of the team assumed it was a fix, which resulted in changes to the prizes offered. (For example, they now frequently change the options on cars to keep prices fluctuating.) Nevertheless, Terry told Esquire, “I have no regrets, but there have been times when I’ve wondered, What have I done?”
- Filming can be an interesting experience, as one former winner told the AV Club. They waited four and a half hours before entering the studio and then taped for 90 minutes. And, with everyone vying to appear excitable, the shrieks can become so loud that PAs must wave cue cards with the names of contestants invited to come on down, as they frequently cannot hear the announcer.
- However, the production is well-organized. In his blog, Dobkowitz boasted about how their 11-person staff could “produce 6 outstanding hours of first-class programming every week in just four days.” None of us worked longer than 8-10 hours per day (including studio hours). Even better, he added, “Our operations were so efficient that we had three-day weekends every week and 20 weeks off per year! Needless to say, we were a very satisfied staff!”
- Those who want to come down only need to impress one person: producer Stan Blit. Contrary to popular belief, contestants are not chosen at random; instead, they are hand-picked by Blits, who draws on his four decades of experience to select a winner. “I jump around like a court jester out there,” he told the New York Post about his procedure in 2013. “I’m looking for someone with energy, sincerity, and the potential for humor. And if they can match or exceed my energy level while maintaining it, they will be at the top of the list.” For those hoping to make the cut, he said, “Look like you’re having fun,” but don’t try anything too crazy: “Some people believe that jumping up and down or waving their fist will help.” But it does not.
- Keep in mind that you’re competing against participants who are very serious about getting on air. “I was talking to the audience once during a break, and a young woman in the audience began to have a baby,” Barker told the Los Angeles Times in 1990. “I turned the pages and asked, ‘Will you help her out?'” This woman replied, ‘I don’t want to go; you might call my name.’ Now, can you believe this? I said, ‘Madam, we will not call any more names until you are on your way to the hospital.'”
