MagneticMediaFed

Now this isn’t exactly the most logical choice in live-blogging. A review would probably suffice. That being said, I’m off work today, and the opportunity has presented itself, and generally speaking, people love distractions while at work. More after the jump…

11:01 — What keeps the Price is Right a cool show after all these years is its insistence on never changing. No new colors. No new effects. Lots of cheese. So it seems only fitting that this, the “new” era of the show should look absolutely exactly like the old version… except for the absence of one distinguished gray.

11:06 — Holy bovine this show moves quickly. We’re six minutes in and they’ve already given away a Jeep and a SCUBA set. There is no fooling around with Mr. Drew Carey. He seems quite pleasant and relaxed in the role, though this is in now way “Drew Carey’s Product Pricing Extravaganza.” He is in service of the institution.

11:14 — We’re two games in and everyone is batting 1.000. They just played the mountain climber game and Drew, for the first time, started throwing in a few lo-fi joke lines, like suggesting reminding the woman that the pocket SuDoku game she was bidding on was promised to remove all boredom from her life.

11:16 — My personal favorite thing in this show (aside form Plinko) is the visual of people panicking while placing bids, winning the showcase and not being able to do the math fast enough to know if they won until the announcer says so, followed by shock and adulation and deep breathing. It’s a visual representation of how quickly the average human brain can compute stimuli.

11:21 — Oh my lord I just saw a crazy person win $16,000! Her excitement was so intense it caused her to collapse to the floor. Though the best part was that she kept misidentifying the products and ultimately made Drew describe what exactly was in that box of laxatives. These people are insane. I wonder if they pump in pure oxygen to the studio?

11:25 — We had the first showcase showdown (wait, is that the Wheel segment, or is the showcase showdown the end?… either way, we’re on the big wheel), and this old lady hit the dollar right off the bat. They’re really on a roll with delivering the prizes. Unrelated: a lot of these contestants seem confused at to what they’re suppose to be doing. It’s almost like Drew is trying to slip into the fold so discretely he isn’t even doing much to explain the games to people. Then again, who doesn’t know the rules to The Price Is Right games? It’s like not knowing your own address, or the addresses of your favorite obsessions.

11:31 — We’re through the halfway point and things are going well, the show is still on the air as CBS hasn’t canceled it just yet. Plus, a very bouncy guy with a goofy mustache just won the show’s fourth straight game.

11:34 — I don’t watch the show enough to make this assessment, though 11-year-old summer Rick would probably be much more qualified, but I wonder if the people who get picked to go down to contestant’s role MUST fit certain qualifications. For example: they must have ONE sorority girl, ONE frat guy, ONE old lady, ONE beefy blue collar chap, ONE skinny young person, ONE easily excitable latin woman, ONE novelty t-shirt clad soccer-mom… you get the idea. I’m certain this is the case, but I wonder how rigid their rules are? It seems there is always a sorority girl though… like the one who just took home a new Ford Focus.

11:41 — Has anyone ever gone to see the show live? I’m curious how much is edited out, as this show is soooooo tight there’s no way it could possibly be live-to-tape. This also raises the point that the role of Drew Carey as an improv obsessed comedian would probably be most utilized in those moments when the tape isn’t rolling. The time between games or during setup of sets. His skills are perhaps more in audience passifying than actual game show host. Though I’ve never been and could be way off. AND Woah, they just had a perfect show. Way to go price-guessing contestants!

11:47 — The big wheel is back. People are saying their hellos, spinning the wheel, enjoying life… and DOLLAR! Woah, that’s TWO dollar winners in addition to the show being perfect with everyone winning their prizes. Drew says there have been 77 perfect shows in the history of The Price Is Right… which seems low since they have to be in the tens of thousands of shows by this point, right?

11:53 — Here it is, gang. The SHOWCASE. Amor gets first look. She could very well win a bedroom set and boat, and while it looks pretty swell, she decides to pass it on to Peggy. Peggy seems confused. The second showcase features such gems as an HDTV, a hottub, a three-foot sub sandwich, and a camper — precisely the things a young sorority girl would love (especially that sandwich… I think it had ham on it!).

11:59 — And the winner is… Amor! Though the bigger questions, what would be Drew Carey’s sign-off? Will he remind us to keep the pet population under control? The answer is YES! Wow, the amount of reboot the show went through between Barker and Carey eras was limited exclusively to the host. This is a wise move. The show works because it has always worked and because it insists on living in a world void of change. The products might suffer from price inflation, but that’s it. This is the same show now that it was thirty years ago. It’s a show that is bigger than its hosts. It just… is.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 10:53 am and is filed under Personalities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.