All right, LOOONG post incoming. This may be the single best-documented episode of the show in the past ten years, but I want to make sure this is recorded so I never forget it.
For as long as I can remember, ever since I was three years old, I have been completely in love with The Price is Right. I was devastated when I started elementary school because it meant I would miss the show. I got up early and watched every day during summer break. I didn’t know they were reruns. I didn’t care.
A few years later I was fooling around on a search engine and discovered tpir.tv. As a young kid without cable this was an incredible resource for a kid without cable who didn’t know what the show looked like in the 70’s, 80’s, early 90’s. I owe so much to people like Tony Harrison & the tape traders that kept that era of TPIR alive in the early internet. It kept me falling in love all over again as I kept discovering clips and historic moments I would never have been able to see otherwise.
Tony’s site included a link to Brad Fracini’s Game Show Central. Pics of every pricing game from every era. Every set from every game in one easy to read place. I was in heaven. I read that thing for hours and hours.
From Brad’s site, a link to the alleged motherlode of Price is Right pictures, golden-road.net. I remember discovering this at school one day in a computer class. The first thing that popped up on the home page Joe Capitano’s recap for the show airing THAT DAY, less than an hour ago. Finally, I can keep up with The Price is Right even when I can’t watch The Price is Right as it airs!
Armed with this newfound knowledge, I staged little home versions of the show with anybody I could get to play. I built a Plinko Board and Big Wheel we used for neighborhood carnivals. I built games out of butcher paper and ads clips out of the newspaper and played them at family gatherings. It was a hoot. When I grew up I told people I wanted to be a cameraman on The Price is Right.
I grew up. Became a teen and an adult. The show’s staff turned over and hit a rougher patch. I went to college and got an actual job working in TV. I didn’t quite work so hard at keeping up every week, but I checked the board regularly and stayed tuned with the highlights. Eventually, I said “screw it, I need to know what it’s like to be in the studio”, took a weekend off, and drove down to LA to see a taping. It was the greatest thing I had ever seen in my life. I came back the next year and wouldn’t you know it, had the time of my life. I intended to make the pilgrimage one weekend every year until the end of time, but COVID threw a wrench in that.
The audition processI was very bummed I missed the first superfan taping in 2018, so my ears perked up when I heard they were doing another one. I wasn’t too keen on the casting/interview process because it meant I had to work around their schedule instead off mine, but if there was ANY taping to attend, it had to be this one. An audience full of people who are fanatics about the show? That sounds like Price is Right valhalla! Worst they could say was no, right?
I filled out the form, started the process, didn’t hear anything for a while.
Even though it was a superfan special, I was a bit hesitant to mention it publicly. I remember back in the day relations between members of the site & the show’s staff were… prickly. With hindsight there may have been too much unjustified paranoia (reading old threads about
people afraid Stan was on to them is kind of a hoot all these years later) but I didn’t want to risk it. But I privately kept in touch with jsach & a few other members. It was helpful to know somebody else was trying out & going through the same process. One of the best parts of attending a taping is meeting people in line and finding out their stories & bonding over watching the show and trying out together. This community helped bring some of that magic back.
Unlike Jsach, I was not quizzed on the show. I was asked what made me a superfan in the Pitman Casting interview, and I showed him some memorabilia (a signed copy of Come on Down from Stan, a couple of shirts) and said I knew how to play every game backwards and forwards. He asked me what my favorite game was and I said Ten Chances (wasn’t played on the last superfan special, but fit the theme). He asked why, and I said it gets me screaming at my TV more than any other game when people make bad guesses.
Weeks later I get contacted for another interview with Hannah. I’m not able to zoom at the time she requests, so we end up doing an email interview. She uses the clips of my mock Come on Down from Pitman Productions as a baseline. She asks about the Big Wheel and Plinko board I’ve built. I send pics and a video, and cross my fingers. Golden ticket came later that week.
The Taping DayI was asked and re-asked if I could be in LA November 9. I make sure my schedule is clear. I fly out with family. We stay at the Beverly Inn. I go to bed that night ready to be up for an 8:00 AM taping.
I hear a notification on my phone go off around 11:30 at night. Groggily, I reach for my phone, and see…
It was like a bad dream where you’ve shown up for the final exam only to find that you’ve missed it all. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well that night.
We got up and headed to the studio anyways. We met Richard and his family outside, and Theodora. The pages tell us the taping is cancelled and somebody will be contacting us as soon as they have an idea of what’s going on. We reason that the only thing that can cancel a taping on that short notice is a positive COVID test from somebody they can’t possibly do the show without.
At around 9:30ish I get a call from Hannah. She apologizes profusely for what happened. She says that she knows we have LOTS of questions, and she does too, but she’ll be in a meeting with the execs at such and such a time, when she’ll find them out.
I cannot sing the praises of Hannah enough. She went above and beyond to keep in contact with the contestants. The day everything went down, she kept 20 people connected. In 24 hours she went from contestant coordinator to travel coordinator/press secretary/customer service in a very sticky situation where time was of the essence and good communication was paramount. It all fell on her to answer our questions and keep us in the loop and she did an amazing job at it. Like everyone, I’m going to miss Stan, but the show is in good hands.
I take the family on a trip to Hollywood Boulevard and a tour. I’m not terribly focused, but, lemons out of lemonade.
I told all my coworkers that I was flying out to see the special. They knew that I wouldn’t be able to talk about the taping. They were very skeptical when I got home and told them that it hadn’t taped.
“That’s exactly what you would say to cover for the fact that you got called!”
“No, it’s true. Here’s Drew’s twitter saying he has COVID.”
“How do we know that’s really Drew’s account? You could have made that!”
“Well, it's real because it has a blue check—oh. Touché.”
Anyway, three weeks pass. To make up for the cancellation the first time, the show is paying for our airfare, lodging, and is sending a car from the airport to pick us up. We check into the Farmer’s Daughter and there’s a swag bag waiting for us with 50th anniversary memorabilia.
I sleep MUCH better at the Short Stories than at the Beverly Inn. We get up. CBS has breakfast for us in the lobby at 7:45. Bagels and coffee. Hannah meets us at 8:00 and we walk across the street together. Then the paperwork, then the interviews.
EVERYBODY had an outstanding interview. They picked the cream of the crop.
I can't remember everybody that didn't get called down, but I have a few highlights I'd like to shout out:
Melissa, from Missouri, possibly the most positive person I’ve ever met. Had Big Wheel earrings.
Casey, who was in the front row on the left side of the audience, was a YouTube streamer, who plays BigJon’s TPIR on stream.
Doug has a tattoo of the show’s logo on his leg, including the Big Wheel, Drew’s glasses, Yodely Guy, a Secret X, a Goodson daisy.
Nate watches every day, and messages his friends back and forth with mock CSS bids. Also had the flashiest shoes ever seen. He came on down later and played Master Key, which aired before the special.
I geeked out when I met Tony Harrison. This guy was singlehandedly responsible for opening the door to Price outside of the first run S30-35 episodes I had grown up with. I owe so much to his site. Hannah mentioned during his interview that Tony’s site “predated the golden-roaders”
JJ and I had never met in person prior to this but he was wonderful to talk to during the taping, so happy he was able to make it as part of our group. Same for Tris and Thupa. We had a fun little chat before the show where we speculated about what the color of the floor would be.
We were asked to bring memorabilia to the show. Quite a few people had brought home games, DVD sets, etc. I couldn’t bring my mock Big Wheel so I printed out a photo. We weren’t quite sure what to do with them and TBH it sounds like the production staff wasn’t either, but they wanted to be prepared for the eventuality they could do a bit with them on the air or on social media or something.
After we had done our interviews with Hannah, we got pulled aside by a PA after we had rounded the corner. We were given little blue cards that had one or two brief talking points on them for us to bring up when Drew asked us why we were superfans. Mine read “I’ve made a homemade Big Wheel and Plinko board” and “I’ve hosted the show with friends and online.” It also had a reminder not to discuss the hidden rules to the games on the air. We were told to throw these away before we entered the studio, so I have no pics of it.
So many good T-shirts for this one. My favorite set may have been the group of four that had black 90, green 5, red 100, and green 15 T-shirts from left to right (as seen by the viewer). Too bad none of them got called down.
I’m glad you liked them!
We actually got them backwards— on camera they read 80, 15, 100, 5. There’s a reason for that. JJ was able to join our group for the second taping date, and I had a 5 shirt specially made for him. I had intended to have him on the left, then me, then my family members on my right.
We get led to the studio and we find out that we’re going to be placed right next to Jsach’s pod. PERFECT. And right next to them, Tony Harrison’s pod. As soon as I found out we were being placed in the pod with Jsach to the right (on screen), I saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a very special taping with board members, so I flipped the order so all the GR.netters would be next to each other and we could chat more easily. I figured most of the people who would notice or be bothered we “got it backwards” were people I could explain myself to here.
George does his warmup. We start the show. Drew comes out. We’re going nuts. We show him some love. We’re loud.
Caroline wins. I haven’t talked to her yet. Money Game spins around. It takes about half a second before you realize it’s $53,405—El Cheapo plus the ol’ Front and Back trick. Exactly the same thing from 2018.
I still can’t believe we got her to pick 05 first. It felt like the entire audience was yelling “EL CHEAPO! EL CHEAPO!” And she trusted us and went with it. As as amazing as the experience had been to this point, that was moment we knew things were going to be very special. I won’t bore you with recapping everything, but the audience was MUCH louder than what you hear on the air. I have never been in an audience that was so loud or so unanimous. When George went around the wheel in Now or Then we all loudly yelled “NOW!” and “THEN!” while he was describing every product. You can hear a little bit of it on the tape.
I didn’t see 10 Chances get loaded in. But I did see the board game and zero gravity chair get brought out when Joezen was talking with drew onstage, and I went “oh my goodness, the nerve on these people.”
Drew does a Q&A during the break after Richard’s game. He says that since we’re super fans, we can ask anything we want about the show. To the best I can remember, this was what was discussed.
Jsach: “What happened to Magic #?”“We still play Magic #. Sometimes games take a break for a while. It’s not retired, like Credit Card. That’s more of an Evelyn question.”
Somebody: “What happened to Back to 72? Did you have a Wicker Man party at the end of the season?”“Oh, boy, I’ve got good news for you!
See, I get a rehearsal sheet with the games being played on it, but I don’t typically study it very closely because I like to stay in the moment and not get too memorized. Well, one day I look at the sheet, and I’m shocked. There’s ‘Back to ‘73’ listed on there. So there’s going to be somebody at CBS who will keep it ‘Back to ‘74”, and look up old episodes and find the prizes on ebay.”
Somebody: “Do they win the prizes in Back to 72?”“You mean, do they win the old encyclopedias? No. You wouldn’t want them, you don’t know where they’ve been. I don’t know what they get, but I know they don’t get the prizes.”
Somebody: “Why did you turn down hosting TPIR the first time?” (I think this question took Drew aback somewhat)
“Well, I was at a point in my life where the Drew Carey Show had ended, and Whose Line had ended, and I was at a crossroads in my career and I genuinely didn’t know what to do next. I know, woe is me, feel bad for the millionaire who’s set for life. But I enjoy working and staying busy. So I had thought I might be an actor. I started taking acting lessons. Nothing huge, no lead roles, just bit parts on the side, guest roles on TV shows, things like that.
One of the shows I did was Pepsi’s Play For a Billion. I met Michael Davies on that show. He became a great friend and helped me out quite a lot. Well, he calls me up, and says that he’s doing another primetime big money show for CBS called Power of 10, and says he thinks I’ll be perfect for it. So I say, yes, I have nothing else going on and I owe this guy a huge favor.
Around this time, there’s a huge media circus about Bob Barker’s retirement. I’m still trying to get into acting. I do the first show. Michael says I’m great. I’m happy with it, but it’s TV and anything can change, there’s no guarantee the show will get picked up, and even if it does I can’t guarantee that the show will last, so I’m still looking for acting gigs.
One day I’m driving up to Cracker Barrel with my girlfriend at the time. I go on the restaurant, get my iced tea or whatever. I realize I’ve left my phone in the car. I head back to go get it. There’s a missed call from a CBS casting agent. I think, ‘great!’ They want me for a side part on CSI or something. I call him back there in the parking lot. He asks me, “How would you like to replace Bob Barker at the host of the Price is Right?” And in my head, I’m disappointed. In that moment, I was bummed. So I told him no. And then I went back in to Cracker Barrel to get my country fried chicken. Obviously, they talked me out of it. But in that moment, on that day, I didn’t see myself as a game show host, and there’s a quote I made that got kind of taken out of context and people ran with it. I love being here and I love what the show’s become. I hope that answers your question.
Somebody: What’s your favorite game?“I don’t really have one. I do have a least favorite, though. It’s Stack the Deck. People never win Stack the Deck.”
George: “I kind of like Stack the Deck. When they get all three grocery products right, it’s fun to see everything come together. But when they miss the grocery products, then it’s no fun to watch.”
Me: “Do you play along with the contestants in your head? And how often do you win?”“Oh, yeah, I play along all the time. And I win a lot.”
Somebody: “Have you picked up on some of the tricks to the games?”“You bet. I can’t talk too much about it, because some of those games might be coming up. But, Cover Up, for example. You want to miss one of the digits on purpose the first time to get extra tries. If they’re offering two of something and a choice ends in 98, it’s usually right. That sort of thing”
A few people asked Drew/George/Rachel to sign stuff they had brought, since we had all these board games & merch brought to the studio that we still didn’t know why we had it. Stephanie asked Drew to sign her Bill Cullen ticket between the fifth and sixth breaks, immediately before she got called down. Drew agreed. He took it and put it in his pocket and said he'd return it to her after the taping. When her name got called it was a nice moment.
After the sixth come on down, George told us that we were the best audience they had since COVID had started. He begged the 11 of us who weren’t selected to PLEASE come back soon. We got an email from Hannah later confirming that. I took them up on that offer and taped another episode earlier this week. I’d love to share stories and compare and contrast the two tapings… but they’ll have to wait until April 5th.
After the show Tony, Tris, Thupa, JJ and I (Jsach was still backstage processing paperwork for his vehicle) went out to lunch at DuPar’s and just nerded out about everything for a while. Tony asked me if I was disappointed not to get picked. I said “No. Well, obviously a little. I would have preferred to have dinner with Drew and an Alfa Romeo and a signed Yodely guy. But being in that studio for that episode was one of the biggest blessings I’ve ever received in my life.”
To anybody who is considering attending a taping… DO IT! The interview process and zoom interviews are a hurdle, yes. I wish it were possible to reserve tickets at will or walk in off the street without having to go through a “casting” process. I also wish it were possible to attend multiple tapings in a week because it’s the best audience in the business and I wish somebody flying out could get maximum bang for their buck. But seeing the show live is so, so much better than seeing it on TV. And seeing it on TV is already pretty great. Give the new process a shot.
To Jsach: You absolutely killed Now or Then. I'm so glad that you got the chance to go up on stage. Enjoy the trailer! THE CHEESE IS NOW!
To the community here: I can't thank you guys enough for brightening my day by making a great place to come here and discuss the show. If this site doesn't exist, I probably fall off around high school or college. Like 9821 said, this community is something special and thanks for making it that way.
To Drew, George, Evelyn, Hannah, anyone else at the show who may be reading this: Thank you, thank you so much for putting this together. What you did was incredible. To have been in the studio and to have been able to play a small part in this was something I will never, ever forget. My grandkids are going to hear about the time I helped somebody win an Alfa Romeo. And I’ll be watching the show with them.