I just gotta say Hurdles was one of the greatest Pricing Games ever. Watching this morning, which is episode 4842D (March '83) -it's 2nd to last playing ever, and Bob begins the game commenting that the contestant says its her favorite game and Bob even seems to suggest that it's a fan favorite. He did a hilarious bit with contestant and the starter pistol and and really played up the race portion and had a great time with it. The final pricetag malfunctioned and dropped way too early, as had become common, and Bob and the cameraman skillfully hid the reveal of that until the proper time, so it looked seamless to the viewer (if you were not 40 years in the future looking back noting miniscule details in early TPIR production like I am). It's like they'd developed little workarounds for Hurdles' shoddy propwork by that time. Hate they couldn't find a definitive fix for the it. That set was awesome.
Random thought- Aside from the constant malfunctions, do you think perhaps Hurdles was retired to prepare for then-soon-forthcoming Phone Home Game, which also uses 7 grocery products, like they didn't want to have 2 different games that had that many items to advertise and went with the new gimmick? I remember how popular Phone Home was back then -but its amazing to look back and watch now and realize that not only was it played EVERY week but sometimes twice a week 🤯