The Nighttime Price Is Right with Dennis James

[jaywilliams]

During Dennis James' tenure as host of The Nighttime Price Is Right, does anyone know exactly how many pricing games were in the pricing game rotation on James' Nighttime TPIR during his five season run as host? I know of a handful of pricing games that were played on James' version such as Any Number, Bullseye I, Bonus Game, Clock Game, Double Prices (as Double, Double Prices sometimes), Five Price Tags, Lucky Seven (debuted during season 2), Money Game (debuted in season 3), Most Expensive, One Right Price (debuted in season 4), Race Game (debuted in season 3 or 4; need clarification on the exact debut season of this game), Range Game, Shell Game and 2-player Auction.

I also know that these five pricing games debuted during James' last season as host of nighttime TPIR (1976-77): Cliff Hangers, Danger Price, Dice Game, Hurdles and 3 Strikes. However, I am not sure if Golden Road was ever played on James' version of Price.

If anyone has the complete list of pricing games that were used on Dennis James' version of The Nighttime Price Is Right, I would appreciate that. Thank you for any help you provide.

[GuyWithFace]

From these two 2007 posts (although Mr. Gavazzi has almost certainly acquired new info since)...

* Season 1: Any Number, Grocery Game, Double Prices, Bonus Game, Five Price Tags, Clock Game, Most Expensive, and one use of Range Game. Double Bullseye played once, before it migrated to daytime.
* Season 2: Lucky Seven added, Range Game becomes a regular, Double Prices and Most Expensive dropped.
* Season 3: Shell Game and Money Game added, Most Expensive returns, Double Prices played once and discarded for at least the rest of James' tenure.
* Season 4: One Right Price and Race Game added.
* Season 5: Cliff Hangers, Danger Price, Three Strikes, Dice Game, and Hurdles all added.

Aside from that, available footage of Seasons 6-8 shows Five Price Tags, Money Game, Cliff Hangers, and One Right Price. Records are missing for those three seasons, but a logical assumption is that most, if not all, the daytime rotation went into the nighttime show.

That, of course, leaves open the possibility of appearances by Professor Price, Finish Line, Shower Game, Telephone Game, the original Punch-A-Bunch, and the original Penny Ante.

[SteveGavazzi]

Actually, there's precious little nighttime info to go around, although I've since become skeptical of Double Prices and Most Expensive disappearing.  I find it more likely that some of the legal pads for those games are simply missing.

[tpirfan28]

Actually, there's precious little nighttime info to go around, although I've since become skeptical of Double Prices and Most Expensive disappearing.  I find it more likely that some of the legal pads for those games are simply missing.

Is it possible then that Hi-Lo was played on the nighttime show with Dennis?  It seems very bizarre they made him play it when he was subbing for Bob in Christmas '74.

[Nick]

Is it possible then that Hi-Lo was played on the nighttime show with Dennis?  It seems very bizarre they made him play it when he was subbing for Bob in Christmas '74.

Subbing being the operative word.  The show has demonstrated it doesn't usually replace games unless it becomes absolutely necessary.  I would also say Dennis was a competent enough host to have learned Hi Lo quickly if he wasn't already familiar with the game.

[SteveGavazzi]

Is it possible then that Hi-Lo was played on the nighttime show with Dennis?

I can't say for absolutely sure, but based on the data I do have, I'd put the odds at less than 1%.

[tpirfan28]

Subbing being the operative word.  The show has demonstrated it doesn't usually replace games unless it becomes absolutely necessary.  I would also say Dennis was a competent enough host to have learned Hi Lo quickly if he wasn't already familiar with the game.

Heh, you're probably right.  Plus, looking at the lineups, Grocery Game was Wednesday (was there another grocery product game in the rotation then?).  Just seems odd then that it never migrated over.

[SteveGavazzi]

Plus, looking at the lineups, Grocery Game was Wednesday (was there another grocery product game in the rotation then?).

There was not.  After Grocery Game and Hi Lo, no more GP games were introduced until Hurdles.

[JohnHolder]

Double Bullseye played once, before it migrated to daytime.
...
Season 5: Cliff Hangers

Is Double Bullseye the only game ever to debut on the nighttime show rather than daytime?

Season 5 was 1976-1977. Janice's husband disappeared in 1975, and every account I've read of Dennis's "There goes Fritz!" faux pas says or implies that the accident had happened so recently that Janice was still grieving and Dennis didn't know it had happened. Can we be sure CH wasn't on the nighttime show earlier than fall '76?

[William]

So there's still no evidence that Bullseye '72 was played on the Nighttime show even though Double Bullseye was. Odd.

I do remember reading on Tony Harrison's TPIR site that Bullseye was the first game to be played. Even though Steve said that Tony was wrong, I wonder why he would write that and how he would know.

Records are missing for those three seasons, but a logical assumption is that most, if not all, the daytime rotation went into the nighttime show.

I think at least Golden Road is believed to have never been played on the Nighttime show at all; even though the show's higher budget probably would have suited it.

So it seems that the games that were not played during the first five seasons of the nighttime show are:

Bullseye '72
Give or Keep
Hi Lo
Double Digits
Temptation
Mystery Price
Card Game
Ten Chances
Golden Road
Poker Game
Safe Crackers
Bullseye '76
Hole in One

I can understand why most of these were not played because Dennis was not good at learning games, but seriously, how hard are Give or Keep and Hi Lo to learn?

[William]

Here's a chart that I made that shows which games were in regular rotation in an easy to read way:

[SteveGavazzi]

So there's still no evidence that Bullseye '72 was played on the Nighttime show even though Double Bullseye was. Odd.

I do remember reading on Tony Harrison's TPIR site that Bullseye was the first game to be played. Even though Steve said that Tony was wrong, I wonder why he would write that and how he would know.

It's hard to say, actually.  There are no legal pads for Bullseye and Double Bullseye (Roger said that at the time, he didn't think they'd be historically significant), and further muddying the waters is the fact that double Double Prices gets listed twice for episodes where one prizes was won but the other wasn't, which throws my game counts off (unlike the daytime show, I don't have lists for the nighttime show of exactly what was played on each episode).  I thought I'd discussed the records of 001N with someone at the show once back in the days before Roger was fired, but it's buried so deep in my e-mail box that I'd never find it.

[JohnHolder]

I'm curious as to why the daytime show records were apparently both well-organized and easily accessible, and the nighttime show records were neither.

[SteveGavazzi]

They were easy enough to access, as far as I know.  They just weren't all there.

[JohnHolder]

They were easy enough to access, as far as I know.  They just weren't all there.

Any idea why not? From what you've described, it seems as though the two shows were treated as completely different beings. They seemed to really care about the contestant records, episode counts, game rotations, and everything else about the daytime show, while the information on the nighttime show (which had an audience twice as big) seems to have been put together on the fly and not kept reliably. Why wasn't the nighttime show just treated as the sixth show of the week?