I liked working with elderly people, even when I was very young. I always had great fun with them. They say things that are priceless, if you’ll excuse the expression. One day, I had this older lady come down in Contestants’ Row, and she said, “I dreamed about you last night.”
I said, “Really? What did you dream? What were we doing in your dream?”
She said, “You were chasing me around the hayloft.” You couldn’t write things like that.
• • •
During those early years of The Price Is Right, we established an enjoyable but professional style and an atmosphere of enthusiasm and fun that would become a trademark of the show for many years. That enthusiasm and joy cannot be faked and it built momentum for the show the longer it ran, but it was all begun in those early successful years. We established loyalty. Later on we would have three generations of family members in the audience who had been watching the show for decades. “Loyal friend and true” became a popular slogan for the show. Somewhere along the line, I had said that to someone on the show and the catchphrase just took off. I received boxes of letters from viewers and audience members who said they were “loyal friends and true,” and we had people in the audience with that slogan printed on their T-shirts. It became another symbol of the family atmosphere that surrounded the show.
Most other shows sought out twenty- to forty-year-old contestants who were physically attractive. I think they were missing some great contestants by not broadening their scope to have all types on the air. We had a lot of twenty- to forty-year-olds, too, and plenty of people who were physically attractive, but I insisted on a cross section. I wanted elderly people, I wanted eighteen-year-olds, and we got them.
We had a lot of kids who had just turned eighteen on the day of the show they attended. You had to be eighteen to be in the audience, and they came to the show on their birthdays to celebrate. Winning a car on The Price Is Right made it one memorable birthday. After I retired, I got letters from people who said they wished I had stayed on a little longer because they were just about to turn eighteen, and they had been looking forward to coming on the show for years. That kind of loyalty means a lot to me.
• • •
People frequently ask me what sort of folks make the best contestants for The Price Is Right, and by and large I have to say women make better contestants than men. I have had great contestants of all kinds, and many men have been hilarious, but it seems there are more good female contestants than there are good male ones. It seems that men have more trouble putting their inhibitions aside and just going for it, but when men do, they make great contestants.
Really beautiful women are seldom good contestants. They may be all right, but sometimes I think maybe their beauty has been so prominent that they haven’t had to be amusing or interesting vocally. But when you do get a beautiful woman who is funny, too, then you have a winner—a superior contestant. For the most part, I like contestants thirty to fifty years old rather than really young. Perhaps the young ones have not seen enough of life, but often they are a little wary of a situation like being on television. But take a woman of thirty-five or forty, on the other hand, she’s lived long enough to know that she’s going to survive this, and let’s just have some fun.
We also have had handicapped contestants on The Price Is Right. If a person in a wheelchair was called to come on down, a page was prepared to roll them down to Contestants’ Row, and then if they won, I’d say, “You win. Come on up here onstage.” Then the page would start wheeling him or her toward the stage. At this point, we would stop tape. In a matter of only a few minutes, the contestant would be prepared to roll onstage. We would start tape and I would say, “Here comes Harry or Margaret to play our next game.” If someone had potential as a contestant, being handicapped did not prevent them from being on The Price Is Right.
When people came to Price, they wanted to participate. They wanted to be contestants. One day there was a lady in the audience who was very pregnant. During a commercial, she gave every indication that she was about to deliver her baby. I asked the pages to help her out, and she said, “I don’t want to go. You might call my name.” I said, “Madam, we’re not going to call any names until you’re on your way to the hospital.” Fortunately, they got her to the hospital in time for the big event, but she represented people’s desire to be on Price better than anyone else I ever met.
The Price Is Right was so popular that after three years, Bud Grant, the network head of programming, decided he wanted to make the show an hour instead of half an hour. This was revolutionary. Nobody had been successful with an hour-long game show. It was a bold and audacious idea. He went to Mark Goodson and said, “Do you think you can do this for an hour?”
Mark assured Bud that we could do it. We began playing six games instead of three, and it was then that we added what was to become the famous Big Wheel to the show.
Our format became three games, the wheel, three more games, the second wheel, and the showcase at the end of the show. Not only were we the first game show to succeed as an hour-long show, but our show thrived. In fact, Price was even better in the hour-long format than it had been as a half-hour show—because it gave me more time to have fun with the contestants and the audience. Following on the heels of our success, other game shows tried the hour-long format, but all of them struck out.
We had a solid structure and format in place, seasoned people involved in the production of the show, and audience popularity that was unprecedented. We knew we were onto something, but we had no idea that it would last as long as it did. That surprised all of us—but it was a wonderful surprise.
I eventually became involved in the production of the show as well. Frank Wayne was executive producer for eighteen years before I took over. Frank was ill for most of a year, and during that year, Roger Dobkowitz and Phil Rossi, our producers, came to ask me for advice in making decisions. After Frank died, I told Mark Goodson that things were going very well and that I would like to become executive producer and continue as we were. Mark said, “Bob, let’s do it,” and do it we did, for thirty-five years.
• • •
As I look back now on that incredible thirty-five-year run, I have many happy memories. I loved the whole The Price Is Right experience. If there is a theme through this book and my life, it always comes back down to the people, the audiences and contestants. Yes, we had great prizes, and people love to win prizes. We gave away cars and boats and kitchens and living rooms and exotic trips to faraway places. Yes, we had good announcers and support staff, and we had beautiful women displaying the prizes. But everything always came down to the spontaneous energy and entertainment provided by the audience and the contestants. I always said that at Price we don’t solve the problems of the world, we try to help you forget your problems for an hour. And we succeeded.
To me, the real joy of the show was to watch people reveal themselves and to watch the excitement and humor unfold. It was always fresh because it was always about the interaction with everyday people and the hilarious and heartfelt moments that would occur. That humanity, that humor that everyone has somewhere inside, that is what people were bringing to our show and that is what our show was bringing into living rooms around the country. It was fun to give prizes to people, of course, but the real joy, the real reward of the show, was always the contestants themselves and their personalities, dramas, and stories. You never knew what you were going to find. It was always like mining for gold. I searched for that nugget, that person with whom I could enjoy a really good time. Over the course of thirty-five years with The Price Is Right, I was fortunate enough to be in the middle of all that humor, warmth, excitement, and laughter. I found plenty of nuggets, and if you add them all up, I might even go as far as to say, I hit the mother lode.
3
Contestants and Celebrities I’ve Met
While I always loved the contestants on The Price Is Right, I have to say that I took my fair share of physical puni
shment from them over the years. I’ve been stepped on, kicked, pinched, squeezed, bear-hugged, and manhandled by all kinds of excited contestants and prizewinners. There were plenty of kisses to be sure, but I also remember many black-and-blue moments. There is no way to prepare or to defend yourself from contestants gone wild.
• • •
I remember the painful time I broke a couple of toes. I was limping all over the set of Price, and the staff all thought it was funny—everybody thinks broken toes are funny, except people who have broken their toes. When it happened, I was walking barefoot at my house, and I hooked my little toe on a piece of furniture, really banged it hard, and broke the toe. I went to the doctor, but there isn’t much the medical profession can do for a broken toe, so he just taped it up.
A few weeks later, when it was finally healing, I was at home, adjusting the clock in the breakfast room. The clock fell off the wall and broke another toe on the same foot with the first broken toe. I couldn’t believe it. I called the doctor, and I said, “I’ve just broken another toe.”
He kept telling me that I couldn’t have broken another toe. He said, “How sure are you that it is broken?”
I said, “It’s pointing in a direction at a right angle to my foot. It’s broken. There’s no doubt about it.”
He told me to go over to the hospital emergency room, and they just did what he did the last time. They put it back in place, taped it up, and sent me on my way.
I got back to the studio to do The Price Is Right with one just-healed broken toe and one newly broken toe. One of the first contestants was a woman who looked like trouble as she came up the stairs to the stage. I mean, she was excited beyond reason. She was coming up those stairs like a charging animal. I’m thinking to myself, “How much pain can I stand?” The contestants always stood on my right, and I said to each one, especially this lady: “Please be careful. I have not one, but two broken toes on my right foot.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t hurt you, Bob,” she said. “I would never hurt you.”
She won a car, and then she went crazy, jumping all over the stage, and, of course, she stomped on my toe. Pain. Instant agony. But Indians can stand a lot of pain, and I am part Sioux.
• • •
One time I had a woman who was about five feet, four inches tall. She lost control after winning, got underneath my chin, and kept jumping up and down. I endured several teeth-jarring uppercuts to my chin—bam, bam, bam—before I broke free. That was one of the most painful experiences I remember. Another woman threw her arms around me, then jumped up and down, and hit me above the eye with her head. She really did a number on my eye. If it had been a fight, the referee would have stopped it for head butting. One woman paused on her way up to the stage, got into a crouch, and then rammed me. I mean she really rammed me, right in the solar plexus, with her head. No explanation. Others would stand beside me and pinch my arm, time after time, saying, “I’m so nervous, I’m so nervous.” Just standing in the line of fire, I received plenty of welts and bruises, believe me.
Samoan women seemed to be particularly hard on me. It actually became a running joke on the show, and I got lots of facetious mail about how the Samoan women loved me, but I’ll tell you how it all started. We had a lady from Samoa on Price as a contestant, and she got so excited when she won a car that she picked me up. I mean, she really hoisted me just like I was a little boy. She wasn’t tall, but she was strong and sturdy. She gave me such a squeeze that I could hardly breathe, but I smiled bravely through my pain.
About a year later, another woman from Samoa was a contestant on the show, and sure enough, she won a car. Immediately, this woman picked me up and threw me around like a little boy at a picnic. The audience loved it, of course, and I got kidded a lot, and I received tons of mail about how Samoan women really went for me.
Then, about another year later, yet another Samoan woman contestant came down to Contestants’ Row to play for a chance to come on up on the Price stage. I was a little leery of the Samoan enthusiasm by now. I stopped and said, “I’ve been having a problem with Samoan women picking me up and throwing me all over the stage. I want you to swear that if you get up here on this stage and win something, you are not going to pick me up.”
She said, “I swear I will not.” So lo and behold, she won her way up onstage, she won a car, and then she picked me up higher than either of the other women had and tossed me around.
I said, “I can never go to Samoa. My feet would never touch the sand!”
I did have a few of my own knockouts, however. I mentioned the reunion show we did on Truth or Consequences with the Italian woman and her American sister who fainted twice. I had a few women faint on The Price Is Right as well. I remember just stepping over one of them and saying, “Get me another contestant, please.” I’m kidding. I wouldn’t do a thing like that.
I always liked having fun with the contestants on Price. I never put them down, but I joked around with them and tried to have fun. When we introduced the wheel to the show, people were nervous about spinning it. Everyone who was familiar with the show had their own theories about spinning the wheel. But they were also nervous because they were on television and they had a chance at all of the prizes and the money, and the audience was cheering and applauding. It can be a little disorienting for contestants—so it was not so surprising that people would spin the wheel—and then they would fall down. They might fall backward, forward, whatever. There was one lady who wouldn’t let go of the wheel. She pulled down on the wheel and held on. She shot under the wheel on her stomach, across the hall, and ended up on The Young and the Restless. They thought she was an extra and paid her scale. At times when I have told that story, people have asked me, “Did that really happen?” and I had to confess, no, it was just another hallucination.
• • •
As Price became more and more popular with many categories of viewers, one of our biggest fan bases was the college crowd. Eventually we had groups of college kids in the studio audience for practically every taping, sometimes three or four of them. It was one of those things that gained momentum, and pretty soon the show was a cult favorite of campuses around the country. Kids came out on spring break from all over. Instead of going to Miami or Palm Springs, they came out to see The Price Is Right.
The college student interest started years ago, when a group or two showed up, and I thought, “This is good,” so I introduced them. I asked them what school they were from and what fraternity or dorm. I told them thanks for making the trip and that we were glad to have them in our audience, and it caught on. Kids said that they scheduled their classes around The Price Is Right, and they watched the show on their dorm television or in recreation rooms with big crowds.
The college students were wonderful audience members and excellent contestants. They brought so much energy to the show. Many of them had been watching the show since they were very young. They knew the games, they asked great questions, and they loved the show. The University of California at Santa Barbara undoubtedly had more kids at our show over the years than any other group. They came down to see us so often I joked with them that there were kids at UCSB who were majoring in The Price Is Right. All of the college students knew the show well, and they knew me. They truly warmed my heart.
Sometimes I asked the college students what they were studying, and they might say something like communications.
I’d ask, “What do you want to do?”
And some of them said, “I want to do what you do. I’d like to be an emcee.”
“Oh, really,” I’d say. “Well, here’s a microphone.” I asked them to describe for everyone what we’re doing, and then I’d let them take the mike. Some of them were remarkably good. Others should change their major.
• • •
On The Price Is Right, you had to be eighteen years old to be in the audience, but on Truth or Consequences, we had children on the show. Little kids can be marvelous contestants. Art Linkletter had
a lot of success working with children. He even wrote a book called Kids Say the Darndest Things, and they do. If he will talk, a child is going to get laughs. If a little girl or little boy will talk in a natural way with you and you can’t get laughs with him or her, you’re in the wrong business.
I frequently had three or four children on Truth. If you say to the first kid, “What do you like best of all to eat?” and he says, “I don’t know,” get away from him. He is going to answer “I don’t know” to almost anything you ask, and he can ruin all the other kids. If they find out they can cop out by saying “I don’t know,” they will do it. If you ask him, “Who controls the money in your family, your mother or your father?” and he says, “My mother does,” then you go on with him, you have a place to go. If he says, “I don’t know,” go on to the next kid until you find one who talks.
Kids can surprise you. One time I selected a young mother and her five-year-old son from the audience. Backstage, they were separated long enough for the mother to come onstage, where I explained that I was going to give her a chance to win some money. How much would depend upon her son. I told her that I was going to ask her son how much she had paid for various items of his clothing, and we would give her whatever he said. I gleefully told our audience that our writers, who had sons, had predicted that she would be lucky to win a dollar and thirty-five cents. Then I asked to have our five-year-old guest join us. Out he bounded. I had chosen him from the audience because of his confident, cheerful, outgoing personality—and he didn’t disappoint me. He was all smiles, waving to the audience and admiring himself on the monitor.
Priceless Memories Page 5