Funny how Daniel Rosen got a second week when he brazenly copied Rod's signoff and seemingly tried to do the flashy jackets, too.
Maybe they signed him to two weeks? Maybe nobody else was available? Do we have records of the tapedates for his run and the surrounding episodes? It would be nice to see this on a timeline to know the sequence of tapedates here.
I can't remember if it was Roger or Randy who talked about Gene Wood trying too hard to ingratiate himself with Bob, but that seemed to have been his limit at the time of the 1985 search. He must have seen something in Rod he liked at the time to banter with him but not get put off.
It's a bit frustrating that the '85 announcer search story has several different accounts that don't necessarily
conflict with each other but don't necessarily
align with each other.
The official unofficial version that was said for years was Bob Hilton was offered the gig but turned it down for Bamboozle, which never went anywhere. Bob himself offered in his recent Strong interview that Barker overruled the decision to hire him because he didn't think Bob was "funny enough" (though none of the quartet that auditioned in '85-'86 were ever made to interact with Barker in their audition shows the way Johnny did, so something about this claim seems off to me). Marc Summers also said in his Strong interview that he went to Barker asking for the gig, to which Barker said he was capable of much more and should aspire to that (There's also that story that's been repeated that Phil Hartman had a chance at the gig, though this, to me, seems to be founded in no fact, considering he ultimately had zero game show experience of any sort. I'm not even sure if this is in reference to the '85 opening, but considering he was dead before Rod died, I don't see when else this could have been).
What seems pretty definitive is that Gene Wood, while being the number-two announcer at Goodson-Todman, didn't have a voice that fit with the show and thus didn't proceed beyond the first fill-in in daytime and The Nighttime Price Is Right. It also seems Rich Jefferies wasn't considered a good fit (though finally having more than one episode to go off of thanks to the Barker Era channel, I'm inclined to say he was better than most people remembered and, I think, in time would have worked well). Former Price producer Barbara Hunter, who later left to work for CBS, is said to have been the driving force behind Rod ultimately getting the gig, lobbying hard for him as the best choice. Considering we now know just how horribly the opening alone of his first show went, it amazes me Rod ultimately ended up with the gig and managed to keep it despite being a "tough negotiator" every time his contract was up.
