Pricing Game Fleshing Out: Professor Price

[tpirfansince1972]

Sadly, my randomizer selected this game next for me to try to flesh out...not easy to do considering its life span was one week and just 2 playings total.


The set used was beyond crazy.

The game play allowed ZERO audience participation as it was based on numeric trivia.

Similar to Pocket Change, this game did not necessarily end when the entire price of the automobile was revealed.

About the only semi good thing I can say about this game is that it was...unique.

I was so disappointed when my random number generator selected this game but got it out of the way at least.

[JayC]

I give the game some credit for adding the unique element of trivia into it, but it was just not a good pricing game and one of if not the worst sets in the show's history.

[Alfonzo]

Well, I got more fun out of Professor Price than I did Double Digits, so there's that...

[tpirfan28]

Historical approximation after the first taping:

[GRWHAMMY the 2nd]

the fact that it'd see more playtime as an inclusion to Ludia's TPIR Decades game than on the show itself is telling

[gamesurf]

I'm gonna defend Professor Price a little bit. Not much, but just a little bit.

"X does not belong on The Price is Right" is something you can say now, with 50 years of hindsight, but it's not something you could have said in 1977. 1977 was the year of punk sweeping away old dinosaur musical acts. It was the year Star Wars changed moviegoing forever. Revolution was in the air. Why shouldn't TPIR evolve with it?

Two years prior, Price had become the first (and only) game show to successfully transition to an hourlong format, allowing and demanding more variety that any other game show had ever had. The pricing games changed to fill this demand. The year before, Price introduced both its first luck-based pricing game (3 Strikes) and its first skill-based pricing game (Hole in One). They had successfully pushed the envelope of what a pricing game could or couldn't be. Why couldn't you do a pricing game that had elements of trivia? Who says?

Four new pricing games debuted on Price's sixth season. Squeeze Play and Secret "X" are pretty traditional ideas at their core. Finish Line adapted a proven idea to a new prop. Only Professor Price stood out as trying to bring something new to the table.

They quickly realized Professor Price didn't work and yanked it after just two playings. What lessons could the showrunners have learned from this? They could have easily said "we've strayed too far from our roots, let's get back to basics".

To their credit, they did the exact opposite. If anything, they experimented even harder and doubled down on some really weird ideas next season. If the issue with Professor Price was "it's a bridge too far from pricing", those other ideas--like, say, a giant luck-based punchboard filled with money--would be nipped in the bud. They didn't let their experience with Professor Price scare them away from experimentation, and now the show has nine cash games in the rotation.

So why didn't Professor Price work?

On paper it should have played to Bob's strengths. He could do a classic Truth-or-Consequences style bit with the contestant, ask a funny yes-or-no question to the puppet, have some kitschy classic old-fashioned Price is Right fun.

But the biggest problem was the puppet just looked creepy.



They didn't just want it to nod its head "yes" or "no". They wanted it to emote. They wanted to show him smiling or frowning via its moustache. And it does not look good emoting. They were aiming for "goofy and eccentric" and accidentally landed in "get that thing off the air".

The other issue with it was the presentation of the pricing elements and the trivia elements were like oil and water. The price mattered, and then suddenly it didn't. And then suddenly it did again, and suddenly it didn't again. Bob's going back and forth and reexplaining what matters and what doesn't matter and making it far more confusing than "get three questions right". It's not like the pricing portion was fun to play along with, either--"Is there an eight in the price of the car?" isn't a very interesting question in the first place.

But the idea wasn't devoid of potential. If they had figured out a better way to integrate the trivia elements into the presentation, like 3 Strikes or Hole in One or Punch a Bunch did, maybe a trivia game could have worked. The presentation just ended up being... Professor Price.

[Nick]

Sadly, my randomizer selected this game next for me to try to flesh out.

Which is why I would suggest you rethink doing these weekly threads for every pricing game.  Besides, aren't these types of discussions the reason for which "The Review Is Right" sub-forum exists?

"X does not belong on The Price is Right" is something you can say now, with 50 years of hindsight, but it's not something you could have said in 1977. 1977 was the year of punk sweeping away old dinosaur musical acts. It was the year Star Wars changed moviegoing forever. Revolution was in the air. Why shouldn't TPIR evolve with it?

Because I don't see where any of those things would have anything to do with Price "evolving with it" or not.

Two years prior, Price had become the first (and only) game show to successfully transition to an hourlong format, allowing and demanding more variety that any other game show had ever had.

What Price did that competitors didn't was go to an hourlong format doing something more than just double what they were already doing, and given that there was already a lot of built-in variety with the pricing games, a kind of variety of other game shows just didn't have, it was a recipe for success.

The year before, Price introduced both its first luck-based pricing game (3 Strikes) and its first skill-based pricing game (Hole in One). They had successfully pushed the envelope of what a pricing game could or couldn't be. Why couldn't you do a pricing game that had elements of trivia? Who says?

Because it should have been recognized within five minutes that Professor Price barely qualified as a pricing game if you could even consider it to be one.  3 Strikes and Hole in One employ pricing skill and knowledge.  Professor Price only got to anything of a pricing nature by using trivia that had numerical answers for which you could then ask, "Is # X digit in the price of the car?"

If the issue with Professor Price was "it's a bridge too far from pricing", those other ideas--like, say, a giant luck-based punchboard filled with money--would be nipped in the bud. They didn't let their experience with Professor Price scare them away from experimentation, and now the show has nine cash games in the rotation.

Because they basically decided that repeating the higher-lower SP-pricing element of Bonus Game in other games was enough to qualify something as pricing game.  Professor Price just was never going to work because it didn't get even that far enough into the pricing element.

[alansh42]

I was aware Professor Price existed, but I always thought it was a reaction to Trivial Pursuit which came out in 1981. Kinda surprised it was 1977.

[gamesurf]

Because I don't see where any of those things would have anything to do with Price "evolving with it" or not.

If Professor Price had been wearing a mohawk and a Chewbacca costume, it would have been a hit!

[Plinkoman]

I've always wondered if this game would've worked as a GP/Car or SP/Car game. Instead of trivia questions, would it have worked better in the following example?

"We have this small prize. The last digit is 9. Is the first digit 2 or 4?" Contestant picks a number, if they are right, they get a correct answer. Then, they can use the correct number and lead in to the "is this number in the price of the car? Yes or no?"

Regardless, the animatronic is very creepy, and could be the inspiration one day for the newest fan game, "Five Nights at The Price Is Right." The set looked a bit like something you'd see in an episode of H.R. Pufnstuf.

[COINBOYNYC]

I wonder if Professor Price would work today (2024) if, instead of a puppet, they had a real person in the role.  Not the same person every time, but a celebrity making a cameo appearance playing the Professor.

Also, instead of random trivia, make the questions about money and prices.  For example: "true or false, the U.S. used to make a 20¢ coin" (true), or "how much did a copy of the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man cost when it came out in 1963?  Your answer must be within five cents high or low to be correct" (12¢).

[gamesurf]

Also, instead of random trivia, make the questions about money and prices.  For example: "true or false, the U.S. used to make a 20¢ coin" (true), or "how much did a copy of the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man cost when it came out in 1963?  Your answer must be within five cents high or low to be correct" (12¢).

I've always wondered if this game would've worked as a GP/Car or SP/Car game. Instead of trivia questions, would it have worked better

I don't think the idea of having a game with elements of general knowledge trivia mixed with pricing was necessarily terrible. It was the awkward format and the awkward way Bob tried to blend them. Maybe with practice Bob would have figured out a better way to host it, but I doubt it--the pricing portion was even worse than the trivia bit!

If the creative team had realized in rehearsals that this wasn't working and iterated on the idea and came up with a better way to blend Q&A with pricing, I have no doubt they could have come up with something interesting, the same way they did with golf and skee ball and pachinko. But by that time they had already paid for an expensive-looking creepy puppet in sunk costs.

I wonder if Professor Price would work today (2024) if, instead of a puppet, they had a real person in the role.  Not the same person every time, but a celebrity making a cameo appearance playing the Professor.

The "ask-the-puppet-something-about-the-contestant-and-the-puppet-responds" bit was tailor-made for Bob. I don't think the idea was terrible. On paper it would have been a funny Truth or Consequences style bit. It was the execution that stunk.

I can't see Drew talking to a puppet. I can see Drew having fun with it if it were, I dunno, something ridiculous like an inexperienced audience member in a wig and bald cap holding up fingers a la "Moving People" from Whose Line, but at that point you've gone so far from the spirit of The Price is Right you've crossed over into something else entirely.

(What I'm saying is, they should totally have Drew do this on LMAD for the next Mash-Up week.)

[brosa0]

In 2020 there was a thread about ideas on how to revive retired pricing games.  One of the ideas I had was how to reinvent Professor Price and I still believe this idea as posted below would work well with the current show.

Many of the retired games could be reimagined to varying degrees to fit modern Price, as Time Is Money has shown.  There are three in particular that I'd most like to see vastly reimagined versions of, which are:

1. Professor Price - retooled as a small prize game for $15,000, with 'Professor Price' being played by a real human (usually one of the models, or perhaps occasionally a 'celebrity guest' where appropriate) wearing a professor's coat and glasses who has "set" the contestant "the ultimate pricing test".  I think Drew would have a lot of fun banter with whoever is playing the role Professor Price in the same way he does with the models in other games like Pocket Change and Grocery Game.   

For the gameplay portion, my idea is that there would be four small prizes.  The contestant goes through the first three small prizes, each of which is a 50/50 decision of different kinds (perhaps subtly based on various other pricing games to lean into the "ultimate pricing test" concept).  The professor then reveals how many of the three the contestant has correct, with the contestant earning $1000 if only one is correct, $2000 for two correct and $5000 for all three correct.   The professor then challenges them to the fourth small prize, which is a 'tripler'.  They can either bail with the amount they won from the first three small prizes, or choose to play the fourth small prize (which would be a 1-in-3 pricing decision) to triple the amount they have already won.