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Studio 33 - Price is Right Discussion => The TALK Is Right => Topic started by: MSTieScott on April 01, 2007, 05:54:12 AM
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The official press release on this isn't set to come out for a couple of weeks or so, but I thought the loyal fans should hear about it first.
The recent host tryout shows have definitively proven one thing: No matter how good of a host a candidate might be, no one will be able to host "The Price is Right" the way Bob Barker could. And since viewers are used to Bob's superb hosting style, no executives want a new host that won't live up to those impossible-to-meet standards.
That's why, for the past five months, the electronics and mechanical technicians at CBS have been hard at work creating a Bob Barker robot that will be able to take over hosting duties for "The Price is Right" in season 36. They gave it a test run last week, and while there are still a couple of bugs to be worked out (during Ten Chances, instead of sounding exasperated at a series of bad guesses, the robot caught fire -- incidentally, don't expect to see Ten Chances played for the next couple of months), it looks like it'll be ready to go by the time episodes for the new season will be taped.
Named the BarkerTron 3500 (the number of episodes it's estimated the robot will last -- this will take it through the milestone 10,000th episode), this machine is an incredible reproduction of Bob -- it has the same height, it can wear the same suits... it even has realistic skin, so female contestants won't notice they're not kissing the real thing. The optical sensors scan Contestants' Row and the audience to pick up any interesting events that happen during gameplay that should be pointed out, plus they've been specially designed to read even the most illegible handwriting, so the pages can go ahead and get even sloppier with their name tags.
The speech center has been programmed to match Bob's voice exactly, and the internal computer can comment on any situation. If the prize is a piano, the BarkerTron 3500 will ask the contestant if he or she knows how to play the piano. If the contestant is particularly anxious before the reveal of the last number in Temptation, the BarkerTron 3500 will perform a number of fake-out motions before finding out whether the contestant has won or lost. They've even programmed a number of facts such as "Pathfinder hasn't been played perfectly since 1993," so the BarkerTron 3500 will be able to declare its own historic moments.
Naturally, a robot of this complexity requires a reliable power source -- nothing would frighten the audience more than seeing the host suddenly stop moving in the middle of a game. But with the amount of energy required to simultaneously power the internal computer and external mechanics, batteries were not a viable option -- they would have been too large, making the robot too heavy and bulky. However, the CBS technicians have come up with a brilliant solution -- the BarkerTron 3500 is powered by an extension cord plugged into the robot's hand. In that same hand, the robot is holding the microphone, making the power cord look like the microphone cable that we're used to seeing trailing Bob.
The BarkerTron 3500 is a stunning piece of cutting-edge robotics -- while watching the show, you'll forget that you're not really watching Bob Barker. I've heard some of the people around the studio say that viewers won't like the robot, but I say they're vastly underestimating how identical the BarkerTron 3500 is to the real thing. They claim that the BarkerTron 3500 won't even make it to the end of April. Fools.
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Gotta love April Fool's Day...
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[insert O RLY? owl here]
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:lol:
Brilliant!
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lmfao!!!
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yeah, yeah. Cut all the techno-babble crap. What I want to know is, can this robot-thingy putt?
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I can live with a Barkertron 3500 but if I so much as see a glimpse of a Beautytron 3500.....
GREAT post, Scott!!
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sideshowPA wrote:
yeah, yeah. Cut all the techno-babble crap. What I want to know is, can this robot-thingy putt?
Nope. Effective at the end of the season, Hole in One (or Two) will be retired.
I also will have the pleasure of telling you that CBS ran out of parts to assemble the BarkerTron 3500...so they had to scrap a pricing game in the process. That game? Well...you'll have to figure it out on your own.
One hint...it starts with "Double" and ends with "Prices".
The robot's main designer is April, and newbie to the department. Scott and I discussed this earlier. She was quite "fooled" when she heard this was her first job.
Man...I love this time of year!
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tpirfan28 wrote:
The robot's main designer is April, and newbie to the department. Scott and I discussed this earlier. She was quite "fooled" when she heard this was her first job.
Are you sure that April is new at robotics? Word is that she quit at NBC after several botched attempts at the CarsonTron, and she's looking at CBS for redemption.
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Nice try, but you're not fooling me!
Everybody knows the Bob Barker robot has been in use since 1996.
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I wasn't fooled either (even though a BarkerTron 3500 would undoubtedly have a better personality than a certain weatherman who auditioned last December).
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So that's the "top-secret formula" Bob was hinting at during the one commercial when that annoying frat boy in the back row asked him how he stays so young...
...and here I thought it was tequila. :-D
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Of course this is a bunch of bull. Everyone knows that Shadow the Hedgehog is the REAL next host :-D and he can putt with the best of 'em. ;-) Anyone who can kill a GUN soldier with a street sign and think nothing of it should have no problem sinking that ball every time. Plus, I hear he plays one mean Check Game!
Seriously, nice one MSTieScott.
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Scott failed to mention that I worked on some of the BarkerTron 3500. I added 4 quad core Xeon processors into him, in addition to 8 GB of RAM and a hacked up version of Ubuntu Linux running Apache 2 and PHP 5. I also fine tuned the MySQL database that's being used to store all BarkerTron 3500's historic moments and games for maximum performance and speed. Had a little trouble when his MySQL database was causing him to stop and reboot in the middle of More or Less, but I tweaked the my.cnf file and he's runnin' like a fine tuned machine. :lol:
(Good one, Scott. :-D )
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I now have adjusted my avatar (as it has been throughout this whole process) for the news. Congrats!
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Awww man, and I thought the new host was gonna be Rich or Chuck (Dukas). Still, I think that yours truly would make a GRRR-eat host! :-D
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I don't know why a Bob Barker robot needed to be created. Everyone knows that Bob has been dead since '87. He's been coming out on strings for the last 20 years! Although, maybe Dane Cook isn't the most trustworthy source.
Great post Scott! Happy April Fools everybody!
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Wow. I'm glad April Fool's day is only once a year.
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Scott, that was awesome. I challenge anyone to come up with a better...actually, no, I don't. There's no point ruining the year's one good joke with 20 extra crappy ones.
Seriously, that made my night.
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:hammer: :lol: :hammer: :lol: :hammer: :lol: :hammer:
Purely funny!!!
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JeffP wrote:
Wow. I'm glad April Fool's day is only once a year.
You should all be glad this isn't Invision.
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edmojautis wrote:
:hammer: :lol: :hammer: :lol: :hammer: :lol: :hammer:
Purely funny!!!
I agree. :hammer: :lol: :hammer: :lol: :hammer: :lol:
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ROFL, nice April Fool's joke Scott! :hammer: :hammer: :hammer:
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priceguy wrote:
. . . He's been coming out on strings for the last 20 years! Although, maybe Dane Cook isn't the most trustworthy source. . . .
Damn! I was going to make that joke--see what I get for lurking around so seldom?
Great job MSTieScott. I love the firsthand accounts of a TPIR page who is also a LFAT, even if some of them are fool's gags.
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If it'll only last about 3500 episodes, will it just suddenly stop working one day, or will it just get worse and worse with time...
BarkerTron 3500: Now, drop your first Plinko chip, and hope it lands in the $10,000 slot!
Molly*: Plinko chip? I thougt this was Clock Game.
BarkerTron 3500: But if you come within $250 or less of the actual retail price of your own showcase, we can't start the rangefinder again for seven $1 bills, and if you have even $96, but you only have one more try to find the back of the car.
Molly: ...can I leave?
*Cause I'm sure heels wants to know, she's not hot. And doesn't even really exist, for that matter.
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Here's another good one, loosely inspired by the Shell Game Incident:
BarkerTron 3500: Now just a moment...do you mean to tell me, that after picking that up, and seeing that there's no ball under there, you're gonna put a chip beside that shell?
Roger: I didn't mean to do that...
BarkerTron: That's DUMB! What you did hasn't happened since 1925, I remember it well. You ruined my show! You ruined my game! However, there is a solution to this unique problem...I'm gonna GIVE you the prize. Get off my stage!
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== JAY SEZ: ==
You know what? This oughta work well in the fanfic department. Yeah! You got more where that came from?
:-D
Keep comin' with more!!
What will 3500 say if he saw Big Gene-O-Matic ("Futurama" answer to Gene Wood of FEUD and PASSWORD fame)?
HAHAHAHA!!!
;-)
~JK~
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I love it, Scott. :lol:
In fact, I only have one problem with it... IT'S NOT TRUE, sadly. That really would solve all our problems.
Blasted 21st century technology.
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Robert Searcy wrote:
Ubuntu Linux
best Linux money can buy.....oh wait, Ubuntu's free, lol (I'm on it right now)
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Um... why was this bumped?
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