The price is right card game gallery

—Opening Narration used from 1977-2009. The "Bob Barker Studio" bit was added in 1998, and the current opening is an abridged version.

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The Price is Right is a Goodson-Todman Game Show originating in 1956 with Bill Cullen as host and directed by Paul Alter, asking four contestants to look at a prize and guess its actual retail price; whichever contestant got the closest without overbidding won the prize. This format ran in daytime and nighttime on NBC, later ABC, from 1956-65 (moving to the latter in September 1963). This original incarnation of the shownote Retroactively referred to as "The Cullen Era") so as to differentiate it from its more well-known reincarnation was pastiched in a famous episode of The Flintstones.

The more familiar format, with the Catchphrase "Come on down!", debuted in 1972...but the story of how it got on the air is a bit odd: Goodson planned to bring back the show as a weekly primetime syndicated series and wanted Cullen as host, but those talks fell through at about the end of January. Mark's next choice was Dennis James, who caught his eye upon seeing him fill in on Let's Make a Deal; Goodson and James recorded a pitchfilm on February 16 for the New show, distributed by Viacom, sharing ideas and concepts that had elements of what was to come.note James would eventually host Price's weekly syndicated nighttime version from 1972 to 1977, his last hosted show.

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Around mid-May, while the format was being hammered out (one suggestion was to use three Showcases), CBS daytime programming chief Bud Grant expressed interest in a five-a-week daytime version (along with two other new shows, The Joker's Wild and Gambit) and selected Bob Barker to host it...but Barker wanted no part of it and felt the show could be better produced, begging Grant to let him host one of the other games (it's been speculated that Barker simply wanted to expand his abilities by doing a quiz-based game, as he'd been doing Truth or Consequences for the past 15+ years); Grant's response was that, whereas the other two shows had "traffic cop" roles, Barker had "far more talent" (unwittingly insulting eventual hosts Jack Barry and Wink Martindale in the process).

The daytime series can still be seen on CBS, with the concurrent nighttime show airing until 1980 (Barker replaced James in 1977). Other concurrent syndicated series starred Tom Kennedy (1985-86) and Doug Davidson (1994-95). This format added two new elements — contestants are now chosen from the Studio Audience, and the winner of each item up for bids joins the host onstage to play one of dozens of pricing games. The hour-long format for Price was tried for the week of September 8, 1975 and became permanent on November 3. Johnny Olson was the CBS version's initial caller of the phrase "Come on down" until his 1985 death, at which point Rod Roddy replaced him following rotation of substitutes. Another rotation followed Rod's 2003 death, resulting in Rich Fields becoming the show's third announcer. In addition, the show's rotating cast of models ("Barker's Beauties") provided a larger cast of characters to draw from. As a one-hour daytime show, Price was at its peak for a long period of time, becoming a fixture for stay-at-home moms, children sick from school, and college students, garnering a fandom of all ages while making household names of Bob and Rod.

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After starting his 35th year with the show, Barker announced his retirement from TV at the end of October 2006; his final show aired June 15, 2007, and Drew Carey succeeded him on October 15. Carey had already cut his teeth in the game show hosting field for CBS with Power of 10. Fields left the show in 2010, and a third rotation of substitutes ensued until fellow Whose Line Is It Anyway? colleague (and former The Weakest Link host) George Gray replaced him.

The show has been made in many other countries, such as the United Kingdom from 1984-2007 (with hosts including Leslie Crowther [who notably called the contestants to "Come on Down" himself, rather than having The Announcer do it] and the legendary Bruce Forsyth) and Australia (which featured versions hosted by Ian Turpie and Larry Emdur, although there were versions prior to these, including several short-lived adaptations of the original Bill Cullen format).

Tropes applying to the Price is Right, come on down!

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    Tropes #-M 

• Abhorrent Admirer: During the Bob Barker run, he was absolutely frightened of Samoan contestants—especially women, as seen here
  .
• Absurdly High-Stakes Game:
  • Big Money Week, and how. One game each day is played with its prize cranked up to eleven, such as Punch-A-Bunch for $250,000, 3 Strikes (for a Ferrari with six digits in its price), Grand Game for $100,000, Cliff Hangers for $250,000 ($10,000 is deducted for every step the mountain climber travels), and Plinko (with a $100,000 center slot, and later with a $200,000 center slot).
    • In 2016, games also offered bonus objectives for additional cash prizes (such as winning Range Game within a smaller margin also marked on the rangefinder, and a $1,000 bonus per-second remaining on Bonkers), hitting 45 on a bonus spin in the Showcase Showdown awarded $45,000 (because season 45), and all games on that week's Friday episode were played for cash (and slightly higher cash values than usual on games that already used it).
    • On the Friday episode in 2018, contestants received the cash value of anything they won in their pricing game as a bonus. This even applied to Pay the Rent and yes, somebody won it; add all the other prizes and bonus cash given out, bonus spin payouts (which doubled for this week), plus the Showcases, and the show gave away $340,550.23 in total — breaking the daytime version's previous record.
  • Big Money Week also got a spin-off in the form of Dream Car Week, where one game each day is played for an expensive luxury or sports car.
  • The Million-Dollar Spectaculars, of course, with several ways to win a million bucks (such as a double-Showcase winning bid, meeting a condition in a specified pricing game, and in the original Bob Barker run, getting a dollar on the bonus spin)
  • Season 50 opened with a de facto Big Money Week, with one game per-day being played for a top prize of a million dollars, including Plinko with a $200,000 center slot, Pay the Rent, Time is Money, Grand Game, and Punch-a-Bunch.
• Actor Allusion: Bob Barker would regularly reference his longtime stint as host of Truth or Consequences, at least through the early 1980s. As the show became increasingly forgotten about as time progressed, he quit referencing it.
  • When contestants would react to the rules of a game with skepticism, Barker would respond with a variation of, "This isn't Truth or Consequences, I'm not trying to trick you."
  • In one 1983 episodes, a contestant would reveal to Barker that she appeared on Truth or Consequences as a child, where she won $5.note She would win $10 in her pricing game.
  • Similarly, Craig Ferguson hosting the show on April Fool's Day 2014 is rooted in his old connection to Drew Carey via The Drew Carey Show.
• Adaptation Distillation: Many international versions of the show (particularly in Europe, most notably Bruce Forsyth's 1990s revival) used a half-hour format with elements from the flopped 1994 syndicated version (particularly the Showcase's "pick a range at random, guess the total price within that range to win"), although they still used One Bid and the wheel though, unlike the original half-hour format.
• Affectionate Parody: The "Flaky Flick" Showcases, most notably The Eggs-O-Cist (February 16, 1976), a parody of The Exorcist and a thinly-veiled Take That! to NBC.
• ...And 99¢:
  • Grocery item prices are always in dollars and cents, so seeing a price end in 99 cents is not uncommon. Prize prices are always rounded to the nearest dollar, and quite a few of them will end in 99 dollars. Notable in Clock Game, where occasional Genre Savvy contestants go straight to $x99 to try for a quick win. This worked in one contestant's favor during one of the Million Dollar Spectaculars, when they were offering a $1,000,000 bonus if she could guess both prices within 10 seconds. She got the first one on the first try and the next one in 7 seconds, nearly always going with something ending in 99 dollars, and won the million.
  • Subverted by the retired Telephone Game, whose second half involved finding the price of a (four-digit) car by choosing from three options. Two of the options were actually the prices of two-digit small prizes, with the decimal point between dollars and cents omitted.
  • The Cullen version used cents in their retail prices. The contestants' bids would not be affected by this unless it was specified that certain items up for bids could be estimated in dollars and cents (or just cents in some rare cases).
• All or Nothing: Two different versions are in play for most of the pricing games:
  • The contestant either wins everything at stake or nothing at all. (Examples: Squeeze Play, One Away, Safe Crackers, Make Your Move)
  • If the contestant is offered a chance to stop playing but turns it down, he/she will either win the big prize or lose everything won up to that point. (Examples: Grand Game, Gas Money, Temptation, It's In The Bag, Hot Seat)
• The Announcer:
  • The Bill Cullen version had Don Pardo during the NBC run, and Johnny Gilbert during the ABC run.
  • The four main announcers on the CBS version have been Johnny Olson (1972-85), Rod Roddy (1985-2003), Rich Fields (2004-2010), and George Gray (2010-). Following Olson's and Roddy's deaths and Fields' firing, a number of substitutes ensued until the successor was chosen.
  • Burton Richardson announced the 1994-95 nighttime version; both he and Randy West would occasionally fill in when Rod's cancer treatments left him unavailable. Richardson also filled in on one episode in December 2006 due to Fields having laryngitis that day.
• April Fools' Day: Several times, the show has held April Fools' Day showcases that begin with gag prizes, but then become a high-value prize such as a Cool Car after the contestant is let off the hook.
  • The most notable April Fools' Showcase in the Barker era (aside from 1975, in which every prize got destroyed, and 1999, which consisted entirely of toy cars... then three real Chevrolet Metros) was a "Bicentennial Salute" (a semi-regular Showcase theme that year) to Dr. John Barrett Clapinger, featuring such prizes as his books The Clapinger Report and I'm OK and I Don't Give a Flying Fig Who You Are, a boring trip to Flushing, New York, a case of Athlete's Foot, and an autographed leg cast. The Showcase is then interrupted by two women claiming to be his wife, followed by an appearance by Clapinger himself (played by Roger Dobkowitz), who was thought to have disappeared, and then fled again after getting the women caught in the turntable. The real prize was a Cadillac Eldorado.
  • 2008's gag showcase suffered from a case of Techno Babble overload, featuring prizes such as a Stato-Intellicator (which delicates stordoite cylinders, organizes acetylcolene, and can be used as a gelatin mold), a Trans-Rebounder, and a trip to Boguslovania on OCD Air ("the airline which gets you there on time, even though it's not the cleanest"). The real prize was a Corvette.
  • Drew took the festivities even further beginning in Season 37, by filling the show with gags throughout. For 2009, the April Fool's Day episode (from the Bill Cullen Studio) had everyone wearing Groucho Marx glasses, Drew being introduced as the host of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Mimi Bobeck as a model, various inappropriate displays for prizes (such as a living room set displayed in a forest) and other miscellaneous inconsistencies, the Wheel playing different sounds each time instead of beeps (including the Cliff Hangers music, which even slowed down with the wheel), a Match Game Think Music cue being used for Cover Up, the second Showcase performed facing away from the audience, and the Match Game theme playing over the credits.
  • For 2010, Mimi became the show's new executive producer, setting up an office on the turntable. Among other things, she had the pages write "Pat" on everyone's nametags so Drew wouldn't have to remember everyone's name, demoted the models to stagehands and replaced them with an odd collection of men, became One Away's "almighty sound effects lady" (complete with a steering wheel on her desk), and had Rich Fields replaced by a monkey. Additionally, Plinko's prizes were all "as seen on TV" items, Pick-A-Pair's groceries were all holiday-related items, and both Showcases were exactly the same ... until the contestants were let off the hook and a Mini Cooper was added to the second one.
  • For 2011, the show celebrated its "10,000th"...something, which Drew wouldn't specify but said that those who have been watching the show over the years will know the moment when it comes. However, it was also a bad day for almost everyone: a TV gets smashed, the turntable starts smoking, prizes malfunction, boom mics get into the shots, Drew gives way too detailed instructions on how to visit their website, the Contestant's Row displays go out, George Gray somehow ends up in the "prize bag" for Balance Game (and gets pelted in the shoulder by a tennis ball throwing machine), the screen at the back of the audience malfunctions, the Basket crashes into the floor, Rachel plows a car into Door #3, a light falls from the ceiling and makes nearly everything go out, a prize display catches on fire, and the lights above the Turntable crash down. Oh, and that 10,000th thing? Nothing.
  • For 2013, the models staged a Hostile Show Takeover as hosts, making Drew and George be the models instead. It was relatively less crazy than Drew's past April Fool's Day episodes. Though watching George Gray scamper around trying (and failing) to change into different outfits for different weather prizes (a snowmobile, surfing gear, etc.) on the fly during the Showcase round was entertaining.
  • For 2014, they pulled the old switcheroo: Drew Carey fulfilled his 5-year old prophecy and hosted The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, with George Gray as sidekick. Meanwhile on Price, Craig Ferguson hosted, Late Late Show announcer Shadoe Stevens replaced George Gray, and Ferguson's sidekicks Geoff Peterson and Secretariat the horse were the models.
  • For 2015, George Gray introduced Drew as usual at the top of the show, but Bob Barker came out instead, and guest hosted the first game.
  • In 2016, the show paid tribute to The Drew Carey Show's "Spot the Mistakes" episodes by having hidden gags and abnormalities throughout the show, and inviting viewers to document them to enter a contest for a trip to Costa Rica. Among the more noticeable ones were staff and cameras getting into shots, Money Game's board having boat symbols despite being played for a car, Cliff Hangers being literally renamed "Yodely Guy" (and the titular Guy facing in the other direction), commercial break bumpers using a different logo every time (cycling through those of other holiday and theme episodes), and the wheel's carpet going awol during the second Showcase Showdown (plus, in a more subtle change, the dollar space on the Wheel had a decimal point on the number, which had been removed in the 1980's.). The "Shocases" featured Let's Make a Deal footage playing on a laptop whilst promoting Price is Right episodes on the CBS website, and the second contestant's Showcase was briefly said to include a year's supply of dandruff shampoo.
  • 2019 went down the "future tech overload Showcase" route a la 2008 with a series of "unreal" prizes, including a weird mind-control headset and tablet, a microwave-like device that uses "meal pods", and a "trip around the world" from Los Angeles to ... Los Angeles, on a 67-hour nonstop flight. After the contestants were let off the hook, the second Showcase would deliver on the promised "trip around the world" in a more reasonable manner, with a series of consecutive trips leading from L.A. to Washington D.C., South Africa, and finally Sydney, Australia.
  • 2021 had a running gag with mannequins appearing in prize displays (and eventually George Gray's booth), which would be introduced as characters during the first Showcase. The second Showcase would have prizes inspired by actual events that had occurred on April 1, such as $1,778 in cash and a trip to New Orleans (referencing Oliver Pollock having been attributed with the first usage of a dollar sign in association with the U.S. dollar on April 1, 1778, while working as a merchant in New Orleans), and an iMac (the anniversary of Apple's founding).
  • 2022 had a series of bizarre occurrences throughout the show (many of which catching Drew off-guard): the first item up for bids—a refrigerator—had its shelves and contents fall out as soon as it was opened, a video package for a trip to South Africa had Drew and George's faces edited into its photos, a car was an item up for bids (conversely, Cliff Hangers was played for a $500 dashcam, with cheap fuzzy dice, license plate frames, and floor mats as the small prizes), martini glasses were destroyed when clinked together (prompting George to clarify that the bar set came with four glasses and not six), the Push Over blocks were stuck to each other, a ping-pong table prize included 1,008 balls (promptly dumped on the models), the Balance Game prize sack was stuck to the table, someone in a gorilla suit surprised George Gray while demonstrating a tilting platform and VR headset, Drew threw to a break by saying that the show was "only on ABC", and It's in the Bag was renamed to just "Bag"—with Jonathan Mangum revealed to be snacking on the can of beans behind one of the bags (causing Drew to literally drop and break his microphone in shock). The Showcases were relatively normal, besides Mangum and the gorilla making appearances as the "models" for cars in both of them.
• Arc Number: Barker's spiel about Range Game about how long the Rangefinder needed to be turned off started with random numbers; Bob would most often say "we can't start it again for 37 hours". (It was 48 hours for the prime time specials.)
• The Artifact: A jack was installed on one of the Big Doors' frames for The Phone Home Game's telephone. After The Phone Home Game was retired, the jack sat unused for 18 years until the set's 2007 makeover.
• Artifact Title: Before its name was changed to "Bargain Game", Barker's Bargain Bar was this in the Carey era, since... well, there was no longer a Barker. The only other then-active pricing game to have Bob's name in the title, Barker's Marker$, was instead given its 1994 New Price Is Right name of "Make Your Mark" before its first Carey playing specifially to avoid this.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Manuela Arbeláez was originally supposed to be a substitute for Brandi Sherwood, who had a baby. In February 2010, however, Brandi sued the show over being fired because she was pregnant and won over $8,000,000 in 2012...so it looks like Manuela is here to stay. (Mike Richards attempted to point out that two other models on the show became pregnant and weren't fired, but those pregnancies were under completely different circumstances; further, Shane Stirling wound up quitting in Season 36 for unrelated reasons.)
  • The announcer role is a bit of an ascended extra. Johnny merely read the copy during the early days, but starting in mid-1974, he began participating in Showcase skits and appearing on-camera regularly, and this continued for many years when Rod took over. The on-camera appearances stopped at the beginning of Season 31, but restarted with Rich not long after Drew took over as host. When George took over, the Ascended Extra nature was turned up to eleven; he functions more like a co-host than any of the previous announcers, with a lot more off-copy banter with Drew and the contestants. Drew has taken to introducing him on-camera in every episode, and George sometimes participates in the pricing games, modeling the items and holding a price tag, usually during "Most Expensive".
  • Kyle Aletter was a contestant on the show in 1983, and became a Barker's Beauty several years later.
  • Roger Dobkowitz, who started as a lowly production assistant and stagehand when the show premiered in 1972, was promoted to producer in 1984 and by 1992, after Mark Goodson's passing, was second-in-command on the show only to Bob Barker.
• Asian Airhead: During Season 33, one of the show's models was internet celebrity Natasha Yi, who often acted like this Trope.
• Audience Participation:
  • Contestants were chosen from the audience since the beginning, but the 1972 return made this part of the show as aired. Much like today, the audience yelled out bid suggestions, "Higher!" and "Freeze!" during the original series (with Bill sometimes commenting that Price was a modern-day version of the Roman circuses).
  • Averted when the Clock Game is played. The audience is cautioned to remain silent so the contestant can hear the host's "higher"/"lower" responses to his/her bids. Offending members are subject to ejection and possible ban from the studio, as happened in the Barker era at least once
    .
• Awesome, but Impractical: The original set for Pick-a-Pair was a miniature Ferris wheel with one item on each platform, complete with carnival music playing. However, due to the way it was situated, only half the items were visible to the contestant at once, which caused the game to usually take much longer than it should have. The game was put on hiatus for two years before the much more familiar, single-row setup debuted.
• Berserk Button: When writing about or discussing Price, remember that the "Showcase Showdown" has three contestants competing against each other by spinning a giant wheel while the "Showcase" has two contestants bidding on...well...Showcases. Mixing these up often enrages certain fans, and Drew Carey himself brought this up on March 8, 2012 right before the beginning of the Showcase.

  Drew Carey: This is the Showcase round, not the Showcase Showdown as everybody calls it; that's when you spin the wheel. This is the Showcase round.

• Big "NO!":
  • The hosts frequently yell "No!" whenever the contestant guesses the wrong price.
  • Bob had one of these in reaction to two separate cheating incidents. The first was on October 6, 1986 when a contestant looked under one of the shells in Shell Game, and the second was on April 4, 2005 when a contestant pushed the button that opened Flip Flop's answer prop.
• Big Red Button: Used in several pricing games, including in Range Game to stop the rangefinder, and the reveal mechanism on 10 Chances and Flip Flop. The one used in Split Decision was later adapted for Ten Chances after the original numbered buttons broke.
• Big Win Sirens: The "clang-clang-clang, whoop, Whoop, WHOOP"
  heard when a large cash prize is won or a contestant wins both Showcases is one of the most recognizable examples.
• Bittersweet Ending: Whenever all six pricing games are lost but ends with a Double Showcase Win. Known to have happened on a Carey Million Dollar Spectacular in February 2008.
• Blatant Lies: Bob had a habit of declaring "historic moments" despite the slightly unusual circumstance having happened countless times before (most notably, every time that the four bidders in Contestant's Row each ended up bidding $1 over the other). In 1997, GSN did a promo which showed a supposed "historic moment" in late 1982 occurring on April 15, 1975 (the promo shows their tapedates)...although it also happened even earlier on November 17 and 29, 1972 as well as an early-1976 James episode.

  "Be careful what you say...Game Show Network is watching."

• Blinking Lights of Victory:
  • Whenever a contestant wins a game, the lights making up a number display or parts of the stage props blink and flash. With a big dollar amount from $10,000 and higher, the amount won often flashes on the screen. If a contestant in the 1970s up to around the end of Barker's tenure won both showcases at the end of the show, the words "DOUBLE SHOWCASE WINNER" would flash on screen. In at least one instance, a glitch caused the ENTIRE screen to flash white (The white was the color for keying in the graphic).
  • In a subversion, the short-lived "Professor Price" had moving characters and props on the game structure, so on both of its wins, when a player won, not only would lights surrounding the price of the prize blink, an owl would flap its wings, a cuckoo clock's hands would go crazy, and the Professor would continue nodding.
• Book Ends: Any Number was the first and last pricing game played with Bob Barker as host.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Present in the game "Flip Flop", which presents a four-digit total. The game has three options that invoke this trope: the contestant may "flip" (i.e., reverse the first two digits to get the right price), "flop" (reverse the second two), or "flip flop" (reverse both sets).
• Brick Joke:
  • Bob Barker normally introduced the Check Game by talking about how often contestants struggle to figure out how to properly play it. (The price of the prize and the amount of money written on the check must add up to between $5-6,000. If it does, the contestant wins the prize and the amount of money on the check. If they lose, the still get the giant novelty check with a large "VOID" stamped across it as a Consolation Prize).
  • A contestant who wore a shirt proclaiming himself to be "The Price Is Right's first male model" (which, according to the Golden Road timeline, isn't quite technically true) ended up being a model in a Showcase later in the show.
• Butt-Monkey: Squeeze Play during the Barker years (until around 2004), Rich Fields during Season 37 (and maybe Summer 2010), That's Too Much! during the Carey years.
• Call-Back: Drew sometimes gives the winning Showcase price tag to the winner, much like Bill Cullen did to winners of the bidding games on his show.
• The Cameo:
  • Several Goodson-Todman hosts made walk-ons to promote the debuts of their new shows, including Bert Convy (for both versions of Tattletales), Bob Eubanks (for the revival of Card Sharks) and Ray Combs (for the revival of Family Feud). Eubanks was even called down as a "contestant". Sometimes, they would also come on for other reasons, such as Charles Nelson Reilly congratulating Bob on the show's 3rd Anniversary.
  • Before she was a well-known movie star, Meg Ryan appeared in one of the Showcases in 1983.
  • Bill Cullen made an appearance in 1982 plugging his new show "Child's Play". Oddly enough, no mention was made that he was the original host of the program during the 1950s and 1960s.
  • Bob Goen appeared in 1989 to plug daytime "Wheel of Fortune" moving from NBC to CBS. It was the only known time a non-Goodson game show was promoted on the show.
  • Although phased out in the 1990s, walk-ons started occurring again in the Carey era. While most are inoccuous enough (e.g., Country Music singers promoting country-themed prizes/Showcases on the episode before the Academy of Country Music Awards, which are also on CBS), some have been derided by the fanbase. One notorious walk-on involved Jack Wagner popping up repeatedly to complain about the noise; he spent a great deal of time Chewing the Scenery, even pretending to "flash" the contestants before deciding that he liked the noise — which he demonstrated by beating on a drum set in a Showcase.
  • Until his death in December 1992, series co-creator Mark Goodson would occasionally appear at season premieres and other milestones. His daughter Marjorie Goodson appeared in his place afterwards; game show fans will recognize her as the Lovely Assistant from the Alex Trebek hosted Classic Concentration.
• Canada, Eh?: Some members of the audience will wear shirts or other clothing to proclaim either that they are from Canada or that their nation loves Price.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Come on down!"
  • "A NEW CAR!"
    • The Mexican edition was famous for rendering the previous line as "¡¡UN AUTO!!"
  • "All this can be yours, if the price is right."
  • Don Pardo and Johnny Gilbert: "Price authority: (name of manufacturer/distributor).
  • "Dennis James saying don't miss the show next week, 'cause if you do then we'll miss you."
  • "This is Bob Barker, reminding you to help control the pet population: have your pets spayed or neutered!" Carried on by Drew as a homage.
  • Of Range Game: "Once it's stopped, we can't start it again for 37 hours."note Changed to "48 hours
    " for primetime specials. Drew tried to carry on this phrase, but said "days" by mistake and has not attempted the phrase since.
  • If Contestants spinning the wheel closely miss a needed number, Bob would often say 'You ate one too many (or one too few) Wheaties this morning'.
  • Drew Carey's advice to the final contestant called down: "This is your one chance to bid, don't blow it!"
  • "THAT'S TOO MUCH!" note (The phrase needed to stop the game of the same name.)
  • Another contestant example for One Away: "Gentleman/Ladies/Oh Mighty Sound Effects Lady, do I have X numbers right?"
  • "And the actual retail price is (pause).."
  • Drew during a pricing game right-or-wrong reveal: "One, two, three, give it to him/her!"
  • For George Gray: "Hi, Mama May!"
  • For much of Barker's tenure, he would close the tag as the show went to commercial by ending with the phrase "...after we do a little business with you" or some variation of the phrase.
• Celebrity Edition:
  • Subverted with the Celebrity Weeks introduced in 2012, where a different celebrity each day gets to help out with the proceedings, everyone's winnings in the pricing games (plus a special spin multiplied by $100) are awarded to a charity they represent, and they present the Showcases. Aside from that, it's business as usual. The May 2016 "salute to CBS's reality show franchises" specials had a similar format, except that there was a larger pool of "celebrities", and they were called down alongside the civilian players (much like the "couples" episodes sometimes done on the daytime version), and the celebrity whose partner won the Showcase got the value of their overall winnings donated to charity.
  • Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn appeared on the October 30, 2017 episode to promote A Bad Moms Christmas. Unlike other celebrity episodes, this was a minor Hostile Show Takeover; they replaced the female models, called down contestants instead of George Gray, and even ran props on occasion (Hahn popped out from behind Squeeze Play, and Kristen Bell ran the cash register on Grocery Game). There were also interstitial segments featuring them trying out things like Plinko and the wheel.
  • On Gameshow Marathon, The Price Is Right was the opening round of a primetime celebrity tournament spanning across seven game shows. In this case, a variation of the half-hour format (but with the Showcase Showdown still intact) was played, and the winner in the Showcase moved to Finalist's Row. a general rule set much closer to several foreign versions.
  • The first "true" celebrity edition of the actual show (with celebrities playing instead of civilians) was a primetime special on November 2, 2020 with the cast of The Neighborhood as contestants. All games were played for cash.
  • When Bill Cullen's version did a Channel Hop from NBC to ABC, a celebrity was employed to play for members of the studio audience.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • In the early days, Bob was a lot more upbeat and jovial. Around the time his wife died, he became much more of a Deadpan Snarker although he still got a few laughs in. He grew increasingly curmudgeonly and testy in the 1990s and 2000s.
  • Bob Barker's hair, which was brown when the show began, but in October 1987 he let it go to its natural white color, a very controversial move at the time that was not supported by Mark Goodson, CBS or the show's sponsors. However, he received a standing ovation from the audience in his first appearance with the new hair and the ratings stayed strong. By the time he retired in 2007, he hosted more seasons with white hair (20) than he did with brown hair (15).
  • Rod Roddy was very high energy and enthusiastic from 1986 to about 1992, when his delivery became much more subdued.
  • Similarly, Drew began his tenure as an upbeat sort who was learning the ropes (even if he was "winging it" by refusing to study the pricing games or attend rehearsals), so the fanbase gave him a pass for Season 36. Carey began creeping about in Season 37, as exemplified by his immature need to smash groceries, but he became jovial again in Season 39 (presumably due to losing so much weight over the taping break- he had a brush with death and was spurred into becoming thin). He seems to show more enthusiasm when contestants are winning a lot.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Mostly subverted. There are only six known occasions of cheaters during the Bob Barker era:
  • October 6, 1986: A contestant playing Shell Game lifted one of the shells to place her first chip. Although the ball was not there, she realized her mistake and placed the chip by the same shell she had just looked under. One Aside Glance from Barker later, she moved it to another shell upon his request, then won two more chips. Bob then made a funny moment with the "exciting" reveal.
  • October 7, 1988: A contestant playing Three Strikes almost pulled out the third Strike but shoved it back in. She later drew the Strike anyway.
  • February 28, 1992 (unproven): A contestant playing Three Strikes for a Porsche had two chips left (the number and the third Strike) and allegedly very nearly pulled the Strike out of the bag...but suddenly dunked it back in and pulled out the number. Despite it never being proven that she cheated, Three Strikes + wasn't played for the rest of Season 20 and the Strike discs became white with red X's for a brief time.
  • December 1, 1992: A contestant playing Pathfinder briefly touched a digit with his foot and moved it back, causing the digit (which was the correct choice at that point of the game) to light up. (To be fair, this could just be the result of the technician having an itchy trigger finger.)
  • April 4, 2005: A contestant playing Flip Flop hit the price reveal button without actually changing the price. Barker, after declaring that "I'm going home" and calling the contestant a "troublemaker", gave him the prize anyway.
    When this happened again in the Drew Carey era- albeit after the contestant had made their choice and pushed the button without delay- the button was relocated out of direct view and changed to a less enticing pushpin to avoid anymore mishaps.
  • October 13, 2006: A contestant playing the Showcase Showdown grabbed onto the wheel, slowing it down after she spun it and got the dollar. A second contestant later tied her and not only did she get no extra money from her bonus spin, she also lost the spinoff.
  • And a variant: In 2008, a lady played Plinko and won $30,000, but it was discovered that the producers had "rigged" the game with fishing line so the chip would land in the $10,000 space every time — however, this rigging was done entirely for a promo, and they forgot to "un-rig" it once they were done. They later stopped tape and had her play with the normal board, where she won only $3,000... but to be fair, they awarded her the $30,000 she had "won" before that.
  • December 18, 2018: A contestant playing 3 Strikes (now refurbished to use actual baseballs instead of flat chips) not once, but twice peeked inside the bag and tried to drop a strike ball before fully pulling it out, much like the 1992 incident. Fortunately, Drew was paying close attention and forced her to pull out the strike both times.
• Chroma Key: Used for several parts of the show:
  • The old (1972-2014) Clock Game board had a section where a shot of the contestant or the prizes could be superimposed. It was originally blue, but this led to an unexpected problem when the set was redesigned in 2003: the pink-purple-blue pattern on the wall behind the game interfered with the Chroma Key. A quick fix was initially made by putting a yellow circle behind the board for two playings, then the board itself was repainted with the Chroma key section becoming green.
  • The original (1976-86) Danger Price board also had a section to superimpose a shot of the contestant or the prizes on.
  • Season 37 (2008-09) saw the replacement of the long-used "trip skins" (the giant artwork-filled displays seen in the Big Doors whenever a trip was offered) with green screens of the same shape. Due to technical problems (they couldn't be used in Door #3, which is green) and lackluster reactions from fans and contestants alike (only the home viewer could see the display; the audience and the contestants only saw a green wall) led to them being replaced by decorative arrangements built around LCD screens, and the addition of a new platform at the back of the audience with a similar screen.
  • The "flashing lights" border that was introduced in 1975 used chroma key to insert the flashing lights around the image of the audience. When Drew took over, the flashing lights began to be inserted with CGI.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The four numerical displays in Contestant's Row are separated into red, blue, yellow, and green.
• Comically Missing the Point: During the brief period of the Carey era when Bargain Game was still known as Barker's Bargain Bar, Drew would explain to the contestant that the game was named after "Ezekiel Barker", the "founder" of The Price Is Right. The fandom took this and ran with it.
• Commuting on a Bus: The now-retired Phone Home Game took an annual hiatus from early November until late January due to the "Christmas Memories"-themed Home Viewer Showcase taking place during those months.
• Confetti Drop: When someone wins $1,000,000 on the primetime specials, or $100,000 on Pay the Rent. Balloons were also released at the end of the Season 35 premiere (which, coincidentally, ended with a contestant winning both Showcases and setting the then-current winnings record for the daytime version note it's now the fourth highest win).
• Consolation Prize:
  • The Giant Novelty Checks used in Check Game are given to the players regardless of whether they win or lose, with a nice big "VOID" stamped on losers' checks. Barker joked that they always found voided checks in the trash outside the studio. At least one of these checks, complete with VOID and framed, turned up on eBay in 2007. It went for $50.
  • Drew Carey will sometimes give a contestant that loses in a grocery based-game one of the grocery items as a consolation prize (potato chips, whipped cream, etc.).
  • The "contestants not appearing on stage" prizes (for those who get called down but don't make it out of Contestants' Row), always plugged before the second Showcase Showdown. In Season 41, the plug was ousted and the consolation prize became an unstated $300.
  • Drew Carey has taken to reminding losing contestants that they at least get whatever it was they had bid on, which gets on some fans' nerves due to it being pretty much the only thing he says to losing players. (This, despite the fact that virtually every other game show host will tell bonus-round losing contestants what they had already won in their recap.)
  • Very early in the show's history, Grocery Game contestants were automatically awarded with supplies of the groceries used in the game and were awarded $100 if they didn't go over $7, even if they didn't reach $6.75. Those could double as consolation prizes for contestants who lost the game.
  • One episode featured Kathy Griffin making an appearance in the Showcases to plug the Grammys (she's won in comedy categories). When there was a double overbid, they decided to give both contestants tickets to the show anyway.
• Cool Old Guy: Even as Barker surpassed 80, Barker had this air to him as thousands of college-age contestants dreamed of meeting him. Also true of both Johnny Olson (who stayed with the show until shortly before his death at age 75) and Rod Roddy (who was 66).
• Covering Up Your Gray: Discussed by Bob Barker in an interview
  with the L.A. Times. He started graying early, but disliked how it looked and spent years using tints and dyes to cover it up. However, he finally decided to just go with the gray, debuting the look in the episode that aired on October 15, 1987. Episodes that had been recorded while his hair was still dyed but not aired featured a brief overdubbed piece from him at the very start explaining this when they were broadcast.
• Crossover:
  • The show held a "Salute to CBS Soaps" on the week of June 27-July 1, 1983, where actors from As the World Turns, Guiding Light, The Young and the Restless, and Capitol appeared as guests.
  • Bob, Rod, and some of the models appeared on Family Feud (which at the time preceded Price on CBS and even taped in the same studio), competing against the cast of The Young and the Restless and beating them senseless. The first Feud episode that week even copied the Price intro, and had Bob and his team "come on down" out of the studio audience while Feud announcer Gene Wood called their names. Said Y&R team was led by Doug Davidson, who later helmed a version of Price which got beaten senseless.
  • The 2001 Yes, Dear episode The Ticket had Jimmy appear on The Price is Right where he tries to get the money to pay for his ticket by cheating on the show, namely by trying to move the Showcase Showdown wheel to the $1.00 spot from behind. Bob reprimands him for attempting to cheat but says he can't stay mad at a guy like him, telling him to stay around after taping for a game of Plinko.
  • Pam & Donna get tickets to a Price Is Right taping on the June 17, 2009 episode of The Bold and the Beautiful and Donna winds up playing winning a Double Showcase on the June 18 episode.
  • For sweeps in May 2016, the show did a crossover week with the current Let's Make a Deal: each day, a game from Deal was played on Price and vice versa, with their rules modified to add a pricing component to them, which included Car Pong (bounce a ping pong ball into the designated cup to win. A Danger Price-styled small prize portion was used to earn additional time), Go For a Spin (guess the correct vertical orientation of the price to remove a Zonk from the wheel), Gold Rush (basically Any Number meets Gas Money: pick the 5 numbers of the price of the car from 7 to collect bailout money, make two mistakes and its over), Accelerator (send a ball into a roulette wheel to collect the letters C-A-R and earn bailout money, but spaces for letters collected turn into Zonk spaces that deduct the money; order grocery items Hole in One style to earn turns), and Smash for Cash (basically Grand Game with one more item than usual, a $20,000 top prize, and more piggy bank destruction). The two shows did it again in 2020.
  • Later that month, CBS aired a series of three primetime specials that featured "superfans" of Survivor, Big Brother, and The Amazing Race playing alongside past participants from said shows. Each episode featured approriate flourishes, decorations, and small prizes that tied into the themes of each show (the Survivor episode had camping-related products come up as small prizes, and the first item up for bids was an electric fire pit that was promoted as being good for hosting your own Tribal Council), cameos by their respective hosts, and referencing their elimination procedures when the contestants were culled by the Showcase Showdowns.
  • With The Talk on their show several times. The hosts have made appearances on their own a few times. Julie Chen appeared during the Big Brother primetime special since she is the host of Big Brother. On February 20, 2013; Sharon Osbourne made a special appearance
    on the show. Also in 2015, Sheryl Underwood made a surprise appearance
    on the show and made another appearance
    in 2016 during a CBS Daytime sketch involving The Price Is Right.
  • On January 4, 2019 the show had another crossover with The Bold and the Beautiful as it marked 8,000 episodes on the air. The episode had a few of the main cast members presenting prizes and a special showcase.
  • On December 22, 2019 the show had a primetime crossover with SEAL Team where the cast from that show was playing along with every contestant for charity.
  • On January 9, 2020 the show had a crossover with Carol's Second Act where that show's cast acted as the models.
  • A primetime special on November 2, 2020 had the cast of The Neighborhood as the contestants.
  • On January 19, 2022 the show had appearances from the cast of The Talk
• Cross Promotion: The show has occasionally done cross-promotions for other CBS programming, typically by having actors or hosts appearing in a themed Showcase or elsewhere, such as, for instance, random cameos from The Young and the Restless actors (with Drew inevitably noting that they film at Television City too), having Pauley Perrette and Brian Dietzen doing a Showcase to plug the 300th episode of NCIS, and a "30 Years of CBS Daytime at #1" celebration. If CBS is broadcasting a special event soon (such as the Grammy or ACM Awards, or a major sporting event), the show will inevitably bring it up in some way, if not use it as the basis for a special episode (such as a salute to the Super Bowl — complete with their NFL theme music replacing the usual, and the polarizing "College Rivals" format used to coincide with the NCAA basketball tournament). Expect tickets to said event to possibly be included as a bonus in a Showcase.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Holly Hallstrom. It didn't help that the guys behind the scenes often tried to invoke it by messing with the prizes (e.g., setting the seat on a bicycle too high).
  • Janice Pennington had her moments too, most often accidentally driving prize cars (or the train) into the wall. Her most well-remembered incident is probably from the game of Lucky Seven during the 26th season premiere
    , when the prize Ford Windstar she drove onstage had a smashed passenger door hanging open from her side-swiping the wall on the way out. The sight of the damaged Windstar knocked Barker and the rest of the crew so far out of the loop that Rod Roddy forgot to read the ad copy for the contestant.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • The Doug Davidson version did not use the One Bid round, but a handful of contestants still stopped in Contestant's Row when they were called down.
  • During Drew's first two seasons a good number of contestants still referred to him as "Bob".
• Didn't Think This Through: The short-lived "Professor Price"; since it was quiz-based, Bob had to tell the folks in the audience that they could not yell out answers to help the contestant. Since TPIR relies heavily on Audience Participation, this went over as well as you'd expect and the game died a quick death. (Clock Game, despite also calling for quiet from the audience, doesn't have this problem because a smart contestant can win easily via binary search, and a loud audience would only distract from this.)
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Remixes of the show's theme song have made appearances as a prize cue once in a while, most recently in a piano-based arrangement for certain prizes, and a techno-ish version used on electronics such as video game consoles.
  • One time, when the prize was a piano, Mandel Ilagan (inventor of "1/2 Off", and producer on Whammy and Family Game Night) appeared playing it
    , with him playing the "Splendido" cue instead of a normal cue, and he played the main theme as the show went to break.
  • The Cover Up wrong numbers running gag had a literal example one day, by putting sheet music of the first five notes on the cards.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength:
  • Numerous contestants who, due to their excitement over winning or just getting on stage, will grab Barker, bearhug him, etc. Barker will invariably joke afterward that he had been injured, although he almost always comes away unhurt. This most often is attributed to female Samoan contestants, with many of these examples appearing on online video sharing services. Carey didn't carry on this joke after taking over as host.
  • When a contestant spins the Big Wheel with great strength (causing it to spin very fast and thus take longer than usual to stop), Barker — in addition to making jokes about the show possibly having to pre-empt other programs, usually The Young and the Restless — would sometimes remark that the contestant's vigorous spin will cause the wheel to come off its moorings.
  • Several game props have been damaged through the years. These have happened by contestants trying to complete an objective but breaking the prop, or the host trying to dislodge a stuck prop.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect:
  • In Cover Up, rather than trying to get the price right on the first try, it might be beneficial to leave the first number (or one of the first two numbers) incorrect in hopes of guaranteeing yourself another try and eliminating some of the wrong choices if you get any of the other digits, although you also run the risk of getting no numbers right on your first guess if you try this trick, as happened to at least one contestant over the years.
  • In One Away, getting either one or four numbers right on the first try is better than two or three. You have a better chance of making the needed corrections (1 in 5 vs. 1 in 10), and since the first number is usually the easiest one to get right, the odds shift a bit more in your favor.
  • In Line 'em Up, having zero correct numbers on your first attempt is often better than one or two. The middle prize has only two possibilities, so you already know which digit is correct. Guessing the thousands' digit of a car is easier than the others and that now becomes a 50/50 guess between the other two choices. It just comes down to the tens' digit - also a 50/50 guess.
  • Step Up is based around this trope. After picking the first prize, the next prizes need to be more expensive than the previous one, but not so expensive that there is no room to continue.
• Downer Ending:
  • Double Overbids in the Showcase, especially after a Perfect Show. An "El Skunko" is worse, being any episode in which all six games are lost followed by a Double Overbid. note As of July 2015, there have been 7 known El Skunkos in the show's history - 2/23/2006, 11/3/2006, 12/18/2007, 3/31/2010, 5/24/2010, 10/28/2010, and 11/10/2010.
  • Drew tends to treat very close overbids as this, going as far as to ignore the contestant who did not overbid.
  • At least two contestants have overbid by $1 on their Showcases. One of these also led to a Double Overbid.
  • In one of the first $1,000,000 Spectaculars, a player just barely missed the $1,000,000 win on his bonus spin of the Big Wheel. It looked as if he could've blown on the Big Wheel and it would've clicked into place.
  • On Dennis James' third-to-last show (taped March 1, 1977), a contestant playing Grocery Game lost by one penny. This also happened at least once during the Barker era, with one audience member yelling for Bob to give the contestant the prize anyway, and happened again during the 2011 Thanksgiving show.
  • January 20, 2010: One contestant bid $58,500 on a Showcase including a Porsche. Drew was hesitant to read the actual retail price out loud. The contestant overbid by $176.
• The Drag-Along: Drew has noted that sometimes people who are really eager to be on the show will bring their friends with them on the trip so they aren't by themselves, only for the friends to end up on the stage. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, these people are completely unfamiliar with the game itself and contribute to some its most infamous pricing game moments.
• Dramatic Irony: On the Yolanda episode, Bob appreciated the raucous welcome he got from the audience. He was completely unaware of Yolanda's Wardrobe Malfunction until someone notified him during a commercial break.
• Dude, Not Funny!:
  • One playing of Cliff Hangers in the syndicated 1970s nighttime series in 1976, when host Dennis James yelled out "There goes Fritz!" after the mountain climber's fall... not realizing that Janice Pennington's husband Fritz had disappeared while mountain climbing in Afghanistan. Pennington spent the rest of the episode backstage crying.
  • On March 10, 1983, Bob claims that it's the first time Blank Check (now known as Check Game) is played by a male contestant. He tells the contestant that he hopes he understands the game, because "the women have a hard time" with it. All the women in the audience boo Bob, and when the contestant asks Bob to repeat his explanation, Bob chides the "liberated women" for cheering. Later in the show, during a playing of Trader Bob, Holly Halstrom writes on a drawing pad, "WOMEN UNDERSTAND BLANK CHECK!!!". Once again, the women in the audience cheer. Bob responds by writing "BOO".
• Dull Surprise: Drew tends to undersell the accomplishment of the Showcase winner in order to get to the outro spiel. Particularly in one case, where a contestant got the Showcase price right on the nose for the first time in years and he seemed very unexcited about it. However, that time was somewhat justified as Drew suspected the contestant of cheating, and actually thought that the show wasn't going to air at all. note He didn't, he simply pulled a "Michael Larson" and memorized the prices through countless hours of watching the show.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • The catch phrase. When Price moved to ABC, a celebrity was employed to play for people in the audience. When the celebrity called an audience member's name (as per drawn cards), they were told to "come on down" to a waiting area adjacent to the stage.
  • One Cullen episode had future announcer Johnny Olson filling in for Don Pardo (who was out with laryngitis).
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Very early Cullen episodes had the possibility that a four-way loss could occur through overbidding on every item up for bids. A rule was quickly introduced where, at Cullen's discretion and to guarantee a daily/weekly champion, certain items would go back to the contestants for bidding if all four contestants overbid. In addition, a few early shows (including one which can be found at Shokus Video) used five games instead of the standard four.
  • The 1972 return. First, the audience didn't show much excitement until the contestants began to come on down, although the contestants were told by Johnny Olson to 'stand up please'. Upon Bob's entrance, the very first item up for bids was a fur coat. The first two pricing games revealed themselves as Bob and the contestant approached them, and had a brown podium nearby for the contestant to stand behind. Any Number had an actual piggy bank prop brought out, which remained until partway through Week 2. The Showcase podiums had no "description" plaque until after the commercial, and the prices were revealed by a push-button flap. Also on the very first episodes, Johnny Olson gave the Title Drop after every Item Up for Bids, instead of only during the Showcase; the One Bid was always done left-to-right, instead of starting with the newest contestant first and then wrapping around; and most of the pricing games did not have official names yet. These were all ironed out after the first week.
  • For the first two or three months of the 1972 return, an IUFB music cue was sometimes used when a new car was announced as a prize. This went away once use of cues became consistent.
  • No bonuses were given out for perfect bids in the One Bid portion of the game. These did not start until 1977.
  • The Big Win Sirens were slightly different in the early years; the klaxon was a separate sound effect that played on top of the regular dings.
  • The Big Wheel looked much different when it premiered in 1975; the so-called "Rainbow Wheel" (used for an "anniversary week" of hour-long shows from September 8-12) was much smaller and entirely visible on-screen, and the contestants who spun it were seated in Contestant's Row instead of standing in front of it. When the modern wheel premiered a few months later, the beeping sound was different and there originally weren't green sections until December 1978, when the Bonus Spin for getting $1.00 was introduced. Also, contestants for the first few weeks were not required to get the wheel all the way around one time for the spin to count.
  • Rod Roddy's wardrobe was pretty much a standard suit and tie in his first few years. It wasn't until the show returned from summer break that he showed the cast and crew the colorful suits he got while vacationing in Thailand that Bob Barker suggested he incorporate them into his wardrobe and the flashy suits became his trademark.
  • On a wider scale, the show's first few years were far more staid and formal. Most of the contestants were housewives; the set was mainly brown and earth tones; and there was an overall more formal feel. Over time, it hit a sort of Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: the contestant pool widened significantly; the showcases went from generic prize bundles to clever skits; more pricing games were added, many of which required more interaction from the contestant; and the audience became more involved by shouting out advice to the contestants. By the end of the decade, the show's overall tone had pretty much solidified into what it is now.
  • Also true of individual pricing games, many of which are discussed on the "Game Show" subpage of this trope.
  • At the start of taping for Season 37, the Big Wheel was refurbished for HD and adopted a tasteful new color scheme with
    green borders, violet walls, and dark purple spaces
    , seemingly meant to go with the now-discarded Season 36 set.note (the one with the circled diamonds and the violet turntable walls. The Million Dollar Spectaculars and Season 37 proper replaced this with a squares motif and a blue turntable instead) When Drew first saw it, he did not like it. In the first episode it was used, he shrugged it off by claiming that it was "accidentally painted purple", and even called it "the big ugly wheel" after someone won $1,000. After five shows with the "Purple Wheel", it was briefly replaced for the sixth taping by a Stunt Double of the Barker-era wheel from the touring Price Is Right Live! casino show, while the actual wheel was re-painted with black borders and spaces, and orange walls carrying the aforementioned squares motif. All of the affected episodes were moved later into the season.
• El Spanish "-o": "El Cheapo", a term Bob used that referred to a card of less than $10 (e.g. cards valued from 01 to 09) whenever it appears on playing of Money Game. Contestants still still use the El Cheapo nickname to this day.
• Enforced Plug: Some items up for bid come with a supply of a grocery product as a bonus. We get a close-up shot of a model holding the product while the announcer delivers a plug for it. The entire show is a series of enforced plugs, but what pushes this practice further into this territory is that there is never a logical connection between the item up for bids and the bonus; in one instance, kayak equipment came with a supply of drain opener. Drew heavily lampshaded this during his first season ("Muffins and a range? Finally, two prizes that go together!").
• Episode Code Number:
  • For the 1972 version, the daytime series originally used a "D" designation corresponding to the week number and day of that week — for example, #6543D was the Wednesday show of the 654th week (aired June 10, 1987). Once the show reached week #1000 in May 1996, they switched the "D" to a "K" and went from #9995D to #0011K, skipping a week. Some fans may refer to "K" episodes with their "D" variation in parentheses — e.g., Barker's last show was #4035K (or #14025D). After #9993K (aired November 23, 2022), the letter switched from "K" to "L" starting with #0011L (December 5, 2022).
  • The first week taped in 1972 used a second number according to the taping order. For example, #0011D was also called #0101-1.
  • Exceptions to the rule include #0013D(R) note (the replacement September 6, 1972 episode; the original #0013D was shelved after it was found out one of the contestants was ineligible), #58XXD note (originally numbered #5811D and slated to air on September 23, 1985; it was replaced by another #5811D for unknown reasons) and #1513X note (originally numbered #1513K and slated to air on September 27, 2000; due to Contestant's Row shuffling around without anyone noticing, it was shelved and replaced with a second #1513K).
  • The 1972-80 nighttime show used a three-digit number followed by "N", for nighttime. 39 episodes were cranked out each season from 1972-1977, and from 1977-1980, that number was reduced to 35 each.
  • The Kennedy nighttime version used a system similar to the daytime version, except with a "N" at the beginning, followed by a space. For example, the Friday show of the 10th week was labeled #N 0105.
  • The Davidson nighttime version used a system similar to the 1972-80 version, albeit with four digits (#0015N being, for example, the 15th episode).
  • The 1986 nighttime specials used three digits followed by "P". Nighttime specials from 2002 (the "Salutes" series) onward used the same method, but with "SP".
• Escort Mission: Cliff Hangers, in a unique way.
• Exact Words:
  • A contestant playing Race Game on June 1, 2011 took Drew's advice to "throw down the price tags" a little too literally, throwing the tags haphazardly on the floor in front of the prizes instead of hanging them on their hooks. As a result, the game operator couldn't tell what was where, so she was told that she only had one right instead of two. The confusion resulted in her winning all four prizes.
  • During "That's Too Much", if the contestant says "stop" or the like instead of the titular phrase, Drew will usually wait in silence until the contestant remembers what exactly they have to say to end the game (sometimes he points his microphone at the game title on the board to clue the contestant in.) During his tenure, Bob Barker demanded that the contestant shout the Catchphrase, and the contestant would get booed if they didn't.
• Failed a Spot Check: On this playing
  of Grand Game, one of the prices had accidentally been revealed at the beginning. Bob even points this out. Somehow, the contestant doesn't pick that item first... yet he goes on to win, prompting this exchange:

  Bob: When we revealed this game, [the label] was hanging down. Didn't you see that?
  Sean: I thought it was already picked. I didn't think—I thought it was already—
  Bob: You thought it was already chosen?
  Sean: Yeah.
  Bob: By whom?

• Fake Difficulty: Pay the Rent is frequently accused of this, mainly because its challenge mostly comes from completely subverting typical Price psychology. Whereas typical pricing games involving ordering items from least to most expensive are Exactly What It Says on the Tin, the strange way that Pay the Rent works means that the least expensive item should actually go somewhere in the middle of the order. Players who follow the traditional way of thinking and put the least expensive item on the bottom (which is to say, almost everyone) are almost always doomed from the start.
• Fanservice:
  • The models, particularly when they break out the swimsuits or leotards. There's a reason the show offers an average of at least one pool/spa or boat per episode...and a reason why those prizes get the most cheers from the audience. Likewise with leotards and exercise equipment. If they're dressed this way for a final Showcase, the closing credits can become a Jiggle Show as they walk with the winner.
    • One Showcase Framing Device during Barker's era was notably heavy on the fanservice. "The Reading of the Will" featured one model as a nerd, one model as a Dolly Parton lookalike, complete with a fake chest sewed into her dress, and one model as a Hospital Hottie in a somewhat Naughty Nurse Outfit.
  • Dian Parkinson. Posing for Playboy, wearing hundreds of swimsuits, wearing cheerleader outfits, dressed as a "June Bride" (June 20, 1980)…
  • Also during the late 1980s and early 1990s, before Barker's affair with Parkinson blew up in the press, the models were often asked to pose in a way where only bare shoulders showed while modeling such prizes as hot tubs, boats and saunas (and sometimes, cars), and Barker would imply to the audience that said model was completely naked.
  • The retired pricing game "Bump" which became better known for the way the models, particularly Dian Parkinson, would wind up their hips, more so than the game itself.
  • The women contestants getting to fish $100 out of Bob Barker's jacket pocket for a perfect bid. This practice ended around 1992, when the show tried going in more of a "family friendly" route and Bob/Dian's affair ended.
  • On the Cullen show, the models wore nautical outfits with extremely short skirts whenever a boat was wheeled out as an IUFB.
  • Around 2012, the show has started to use male models and yes, the guys have appeared shirtless at some point. They don't appear as frequently as the female models. Funnily enough, the male model mostly appears in a shirt and tie for a more professional look rather than dressing up for eye candy — then again, a neat shirt and tie is eye candy to some women.
• Flawless Victory: In some pricing games, it's possible to win on the first try, win without making a mistake, or win for the maximum amount possible. In the $1,000,000 Spectacular episodes, winning the million dollar bonus requires a victory of this sort. In the daytime episodes, there's usually no bonus prize, but Bob or Drew will point out the rarity of such a performance, and proclaim the player an all-time great of that pricing game. For example, see Walter's perfect Dice Game.
  • Also, a perfect bid from Contestant's Row.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • Averted and defied by Shell Game: if a contestant wins all four small prizes, there is still an additional bonus for correctly guessing which shell conceals the ball. note (Originally $500 cash, now the value of the main prize in cash.)
  • In the now-retired game Trader Bob, contestants had to choose the more expensive of two products in four different pairs. The price is revealed for the product that was not chosen, while the chose product is moved aside and lined up, and the four prices must be in ascending order to win the game. On the fourth pair, anyone who remembers the unchosen product's price will instantly know if the game is won or lost when the third chosen product's price is revealed. If the fourth unchosen product was less expensive than the third chosen product, it would be a win, since the chosen product for the fourth pair would have to be higher, and vice-versa. Bob would sometimes acknowledge incoming wins or losses by recalling the fourth unchosen product's price before the final reveal.
  • Contestants in the Showcase who win with a difference of less than $250 (or $100 in earlier seasons) on their own showcase are always revealed second, including a very rare occurrence on March 24, 1975. This suggests a precedent that if a contestant who misses by a small amount is revealed first, their opponent will either tie or be even closer.
  • Likewise, when one Showcase bid is under and the other is over, the overbid will almost-always be revealed second. If the first reveal is an overbid, it usually means either a double overbid, or the underbid is by an impressively small amount (even if not enough for a Double Showcase Win) In some episodes, Bob would poll the audience on who he would start with. If he ignored the audience consensus on who to reveal first, it usually meant that contestant overbid. In recent years, when Drew reveals an overbid first, he'll often say, "It better not be a double over."
  • If both Showcase bids are an even multiple of $1,000, there will not be a Double Showcase Win. Since Season 40, with only one known exception, Showcases are priced such that the last three digits fall between 251 and 999, meaning that a bid ending in 000 will never be close enough to win both.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In 1957, the daytime show tested a format which would eventually evolve into the basis of the current show's Bonus Game. Bill Cullen would read a price of an item but it was the wrong price. The contestants had to tell whether the correct price was either higher or lower than the wrong price.
  • Occasionally, a car accessory will come up as an item up for bid right before a game awarding a car as a prize.
• Framing Device: A good number of Showcases over the years had these, varying from a frog prince story
  to a soap opera parody
  .
• Freudian Slip: One contestant who wanted to pick Tidy Cats kitty litter in Grocery Game referred to it as "Titty Cats
  ".
• Fur and Loathing: When Bob Barker joined PETA, furs were no longer offered as prizes. This would be understandable, but he's so embarrassed about those old episodes he doesn't even want them aired on GSN or put on DVD. (Which, unfortunately, rules out the very first episode from 1972 as well as the almost-entirety of the 1972-80 nighttime run).
• Game Show Host: Bill Cullen on the 1956-65 versions, with occasional substitutes (as was the case back in the day when TV shows aired live). Bob Barker helmed the show for an amazing 35 years before Drew Carey took over in 2007. Dennis James hosted a nighttime version from 1972-77 (replaced by Barker from 1977-80), Tom Kennedy hosted a revival for the 1985-86 season, and Doug Davidson hosted a short-lived one in the 1994-95 season. note Dick Van Dyke was asked to try out as host for the original show in 1956. He replied by saying he didn't see any entertainment value in watching four people guess prices for a half-hour.
  • The Cullen-era substitutes included Jack Clark, Sonny Fox, Arlene Francis, Merv Griffin, Sam Levinson, Robert Q. Lewis, and Jack Narz. The announcers of each network have also substituted at least once.
• Game Show Winnings Cap:
  • The show was formerly under the cap CBS imposed on their game shows: $25,000 until 1984 note (with an absolute maximum of $25,000 until 1978, and an ability to keep up to $10,000 over the cap until 1984); $50,000 until 1988 note (with the ability to keep up to $10,000 above that); $75,000 until the 1990s, when it increased to $125,000. The cap was done away with in 2006 on the daytime show; the Million-Dollar Spectaculars were exempt from that rule before then.
  • During the Barker era, contestants were limited to one appearance in their lifetime, even if they never left Contestant's Row. Since Drew Carey became the host, contestants can now return after 10 years.
  • The only known loophole during the Barker era for appearing on the show twice were contestants that were chosen at home to compete in The Phone Home Game from 1984-1992. These contestants were still eligible to compete on the show in person, though it's unknown how many, if any, did.
• George Jetson Job Security: Once Barker became Executive Producer in 1988, lots of people were often fired from the show for rather hazy reasons. The most frequent excuse for the models was claiming the girl was getting too fat,
  although nobody seemed to notice it but Bob.
• Generation Xerox: On the November 26, 1962 daytime show, the prizes up for bids were the prizes given away on the debut show, six years to the day (refrigerator, Caribbean cruise, pedigree collie, women's ensemble, Florsheim shoes, china set, dishwasher, color TV). The prizes won were substituted with modern versions of the same.
• Giant Novelty Check:
  • Appears on "Check Game", where the contestant is shown a prize and must write a check to themselves such that the value of the check plus the value of the prize is between $7,000 and $8,000; the contestant gets the check win or lose, but a losing contestant gets his or her check stamped with a large "VOID".
  • All three million-dollar winners in the Million-Dollar Spectaculars were filmed carrying one in a promo.
• Gone Horribly Right: After the Carey-hosted Million-Dollar Spectaculars decreased the difficulty of winning the million dollars, this happened an unprecedented three times which led to them being canned.
• Golden Snitch: The original Bill Cullen primetime version had a very expensive item up for bid at the end of each game. These included everything from rare jewels, artwork, furs, one-of-a-kind items, luxury cars, business franchises and houses.
• Grumpy Old Man: Barker took on this persona once he let his hair go gray in the late 1980s. To younger generations this just increased his Cool Old Guy appeal, especially after he delved heavily into this trope during his appearance in Happy Gilmore.
• Guest Host:
  • The 1950s version had several people fill in for Cullen; this was standard operating procedure at the time, since the shows taped live and often had others fill in to give the regular host a break. (Interestingly, this
    newspaper article from October 1976 mentions that Cullen hosted Price before Barker, George Fenneman, and James. Yes, in that order. note There's no other evidence that Fenneman ever hosted any incarnation of Price, which means his being listed might just be the result of bad research.)
  • Dennis James guest-hosted four daytime episodes (December 24-27, 1974) because Bob was ill on the tapedate (December 5).
  • The models took turns hosting and announcing during the April 1, 2013 episode, and made Drew and George be the models.
  • For April Fools' Day 2014, Craig Ferguson of The Late Late Show switched places with Drew Carey
  • Lots of guest announcers:
    • After Johnny Olson died, the guest announcer rotation consisted of Rod, veteran announcers Gene Wood and Bob Hilton, and rookie announcer Rich Jeffries. A then-retired Gene returned to do some post-production work on reruns in Summer 1998.
    • Rod had to undergo cancer treatments three times between 2001 and 2003. Burton Richardson (formerly of the 1994 version) filled in for him most of the time, although Paul Boland (formerly of the 1998 Match Game) did one week in 2002.
    • In Season 32, Rod only announced on days that he felt healthy enough, with his good friend Randy West taking the mic in between (plus Burton for one week).
    • After Rod died, a rotation of guest announcersnote (in order of appearance: Randy and Burton; Daniel Rosen, a former comedian/juggler who announces the Live shows; Art Sanders, then a news anchor at KOMO Seattle; voice actor and former VH-1 VJ Roger Rose; former weatherman and Flamingo Fortune announcer Rich Fields; Don Bishop of WLQM-FM in Virginia; and Jim Thornton, a former LA radio traffic reporter who became the announcer of Wheel of Fortune in 2011) occurred. Another rotation note ( Shop 'Til You Drop host JD Roberto, Whose Line Is It Anyway? alumni Jeff B. Davis and Brad Sherwood; author/actor/radio host David H. Lawrence XVII; former The Weakest Link host George Gray; and comedian/actor Steve White) occurred between Rich Fields' firing and George Gray's joining.
    • Rich only missed one episode during his tenure, in December 2006 when he came down with laryngitis. Burton returned one last time to fill in for him.
    • Shadoe Stevens (who was Craig Ferguson's announcer) replaced George Gray during the aforementioned April Fools Day 2014 episode (on the other half of the crossover, Gray replaced both Stevens and Ferguson's robot skeleton sidekick Geoff).
  • The large rotations of guest models. Among the more notable included Kyle Aletternote daughter of former Miss America Lee Meriwether, a onetime contestant who later became a recurring substitute model for over a decade as well as one-off substitute Barbara Hunter, normally a producer who was pressed into service for the December 23, 1980
    episode after Holly Hallstrom injured her knee.
• Halloween Episode: Beginning with Drew Carey's first season, the show has also done Halloween-themed episodes, including one where Drew, Rich, and the models dressed as props and games (Drew was the Yodely Guy, Rich was the wheel), one where everyone was dressed as and referred to as Drew Carey (complete with a Credits Gag of everyone having "Drew" as their first name), one was The Wizard of Oz-themed (complete with Golden Brick Road), one was a carnival, and the 2017 edition featured the crew forming a Super Team to combat the evil Losing Horns Trombone. The episodes in 2011 and 2021 (the 40th and 50th seasons respectively) featured a 70's theme, with both featuring the contestants dressed (stereotypically) in Totally Radical outfits, and throwbacks to the show's look and feel of the era.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: In between seasons, Drew lost—and kept off—nearly 100 lbs.
• Helium Speech: Rich Fields once inhaled helium before reading the prize copy as part of a Drewcase skit. He then did it again when he signed off.
• Home Game: Despite the show's complexity, several board games
  were released along with several DVD and video game adaptations. In a unique subversion of the norm, you can't get the home game as a Consolation Prize, although the 2010 edition did pop up as a small prize in various pricing games during Season 38 and was frequently shown on computers presented as prizes.
  • Other home games have been made by Lowell (1958), Milton Bradley (1964, 1973-75, 1986), GameTek (1990), and Endless Games (1999-2000 and two DVD games).
    • A review/look into the 1990 GameTek version can be found here
      . Needless to say it could be better.
  • There was also a Tiger handheld version in the late 1990s featuring just 4 pricing games (Any Number, Lucky Seven, 3 Strikes, and Squeeze Play). It's incredibly unwieldy to play, since with the unit you get a huge stack of prize cards, and although there's a space in the unit to store one card (the one you're currently bidding on) there's nothing there to hold it in place.
  • The most recent video game version, The Price Is Right Decades (for Wii, DS, Xbox 360, and PS3), uses the respective system's avatars, contains tons of retro clips (most of which "probably won't be things you've seen before"), and features retired pricing games (including SuperBall!!, Walk of Fame, Penny Ante, Hurdles, and Professor Price). However, it probably would've been better if Ludia hadn't developed it, given their track record.
• Home Participation Sweepstakes: Both network versions offered viewers a chance to bid on special Home Viewer Showcases — on a regular basis on Cullen's version, during the Christmas season on Barker's, and most recently on Carey's. The long-since-retired Phone Home Game was a pricing game built around this Trope, and went on a three-month hiatus each season from 1983-88 so it wouldn't conflict with the Home Viewer Showcase.
  • Cullen's home sweepstakes went through three different formats:
    • 1956-60: The first sweepstakes singled out all exact bids on the Showcase, with ties broken through a bid-off on one of the Showcase prizes. In late 1960, an extra bonus was added for the rest of the run where the Showcase winner would be flown to New York to be a contestant on the show. Ties (which this version had plenty of) were broken by the tied players sending a telegram with the price of a particular item from the Showcase, which continued until the tie was broken note (it is not known what happened if the tie remained after all items in the Showcase had been used for the telegrams). Unfortunately, perfect bid ties got far too plentiful (one nighttime Showcase in 1958 had 14 perfect bids, and another in 1959 had 62 perfect bids), and so the format was changed...
    • 1960-61: Used 48 fishbowls, each representing a state in the contiguous U.S., and each with a sampling of postcards from that state. Ten states were randomly chosen and one card from each state drawn and placed on a board. The exact bid (or closest without going over) was the winner.
    • 1961-65: The final format had a random sampling of cards in five rotating drums. One card from each drum was drawn and placed on a board, after which the Showcase price was revealed.
  • The CBS version had a few formats as well:
    • 1973/1980-88/1990: A hybrid of the original series, usually with a Christmas-themed skit used to tie together the prizes, always very opulent for the daytime version. Most often, a fully loaded Cadillac was one of the grand prizes. Contestants were directed to send their bids to an address, with the closest bid without going over winning. All perfect bids and/or ties were placed in a random drawing, with that winner getting everything. The Showcase was introduced in November, with the winner announced on the last first-run program before Christmas. Johnny Olson – and later, Gene Wood and Rod Roddy – played Santa or some grandfatherly figure, while the models played the daughters (if they weren't playing it straight and simply modeling the prizes).
    • 1993: The week of April 12-16 featured the Home Viewer Showcase Showdown. Viewers were instructed to keep a running tally of the value of all spins that week (excluding those that didn't go all the way around) and send in the total for a chance to win a Jeep Wrangler, a Chrysler Imperial, or a cruise.
    • 2011-: The current home viewer contest entreats viewers to call the number on the TV screen when prompted and guess the price of an item from among three prices. Right or wrong, the caller is entered for a chance to win a big prize. note (And receive special third-party offers, the real reason for the call-in.) There have also been tie-in sweepstakes on the show's website, which often involve entering to win certain items (often "special" items related to a Showcase).
    • In 2011, the Home Viewer Showcase was briefly revived with a slightly different format; using two prizes per day during a week of shows (one from the Showcase, one IUFB) instead of a single presentation, and entering through the show's website. The week after, they also trialed a "Prize of the Week" contest where users bid on an item from Monday's Showcase.
• Laugh Track: Although the show has been "sweetening" the audience reactions from the beginning, it was turned up to eleven when the show began taping with no audience, then later a small, limited audience, during COVID-19. Canned loops of an audience shouting suggestions, cheering, or groaning are constantly played at a low volume.
• Let's Just See What WOULD Have Happened: Several pricing games have an option to quit and keep accumulated prizes...but Bob was the kind of guy who just had to know what could have been. Drew has continued this practice.
  • Justified to confirm to the audience and the gaming regulators that it was possible for the contestant to win and the game wasn't malfunctioning or missing the correct price/options.
• Honest John's Dealership: Drew will often portray the model for "Pocket Change" as this.
• Hotter and Sexier: The show played heavily into the "sex appeal" of Bob Barker and Barker's Beauties starting in the late 1970s until about 1992. Examples of this include Dian Parkinson's skimpy swimsuits, the models' Bump windups, and Bob's "hundred dollar pocket" routine when a female contestant makes a perfect bid. The fallout of Bob and Dian's affair, plus a request from CBS to make the show more "family friendly", curtailed this focus significantly.
• Iconic Outfit: For most of his career, Rod wore custom-made Thai silk suits.
• Idiosyncratic Wipes: Several pricing games have wipes themed to the game's motif (e.g., a hexagonal wipe for Spelling Bee, an octagonal one for Danger Price, one with dice for Dice Game, a giant 3D Plinko board to introduce...well, Plinko, the "Yodely Guy" climbing up his track as it wipes for Cliffhangers, etc.)
  • There are also a few physical versions of this practice for revealing games and prizes. The most prominent are the "giant price tag", and the "Race Game curtain" — which is typically used to reveal larger sets, such as Plinko, Race Game, and the Big Wheel (the latter is occasionally seen on-air during the preceding sponsor plug).
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Frequently, Bill Cullen referred to the contestants as "the bargain hunters."
  • "El Cheapo", coined by Barker, is the lowest number pair (usually less than 10, but not always) in Money Game.
  • The Cliff Hangers mountain climber has had several names.
    • Doug Davidson dubbed him "Hans", after one of his The Young & The Restless co-stars.
    • Drew Carey usually calls him "Yodely Guy" or "Yodel Guy", but called him "Hans" at least once.
    • Those at The Price Is Right LIVE! typically call him "Johann".
    • Dennis James once called him "Fritz", in a "too soon" moment for Janice Pennington (her mountain-climber husband, Fritz Stammberger, had gone missing before the beginning of the 1976-77 season). Even worse, Dennis shouted "There goes Fritz!" as the contestant lost...which sent Janice running backstage in tears and not coming out for the rest of that taping.
• Instant-Win Condition:
  • Pretty much the point of Bonus Game.
  • In Bullseye, finding the bonus bullseye behind a product with which a contestant hits anywhere on the board is an instant win. Also, getting a price for an item from $10-12.
  • In Master Key, one of the five keys—the titular Master Key—wins all the prizes.
  • In Pocket ¢hange, choosing the $2.00 envelope is virtually a guaranteed win. The only way to lose is to give nine or ten incorrect guesses and pick three other low amounts of change, as the sale price of the car will never exceed $2.75.
  • In Spelling Bee, the two cards (out of thirty) that say "CAR" are this. To a lesser extent, bidding perfectly on any one of the three small items instantly wins all three items and all three extra cards even if the contestant missed previous items, though this in no way guarantees actually winning the car.
  • In Cover Up, it is possible for one to earn enough chances to the point where a correct digit choice is the only remaining card in that digit's column. On rare occasion, this has led to an automatic win.
  • In Dice Game, rolling all ones and sixes (or the correct digit for that roll) guarantees a win, and no decisions need to be made. The game has also been won at least once by rolling all four correct digits.
  • In the new game To The Penny, if the contestant does not end up spending any of their five pennies to eliminate wrong answers or take a second chance after a wrong guess, the last item turns into an instant win since there are six options, and Drew will even have the contestant spend all of them and declare the game a win. This happened in the very first playing, no less.
• The Klutz:
  • Janice Pennington once infamously modeled an overstuffed Amana refrigerator in early 1976, and occasionally wrecked cars into the Big Door frames.
  • Holly Hallstrom was quite disaster-prone and, on at least one occasion, held a price card upside-down. Most famous are her three bouts with kitchen appliance packages, including a "rogue cantaloupe".
  • Lanisha Cole seems to be a modern-day Holly — in Season 38 alone, she crashed a little scooter into Door #3 (Fall 2009) and had to deal with a refrigerator whose doors kept opening in a very similar manner to Holly in a 1980s Safe Crackers playing (April 22, 2010).
  • George Gray's infamous attempt to share the details on a treadmill during a Contestant's Row bid while running on it backwards. It did not end well.
  • In 2017 a stagehand showing off a coffee maker display as an IUFB on the Price is Right Train knocks it all over by starting the train up too fast when it comes time to move it off stage.
  • George Gray showed in 2019 he still has no luck with demonstrating moving items as he tripped up while showing off a pair of electronic roller skates.
• Large Ham:
  • Dian Parkinson always utilized exaggerated, cheesy dance moves when modeling jukeboxes. It became such a familiar sight that Barker once quipped that "She's going in for disc surgery next week".
  • Holly Hallstrom was good for exaggerated hammy antics, especially during the Showcase sequences, where they were often Played for Laughs. She also copied Dian's cheesy dance moves whenever she modeled a jukebox.
• Large-Ham Announcer: This show is likely the Trope Codifier on the game show front, mainly thanks to Johnny Olson and Rod Roddy.
• Last of His Kind: Daytime network games used to be as ubiquitous as Soap Operas, especially in the mid-1970s. From the end of Caesar's Challenge in January 1994 until the return of Let's Make a Deal in October 2009, Price was the only daytime network game on the air. That said, Let's Make a Deal has done little to nothing for the whole Last of His Kind aspect, as it and Price are still the only daytime network games on the air.
• Leitmotif: The trope-naming Losing Horns, heard when someone loses a pricing game or there's a Double Overbid in the Showcase. If you've seen the show, you probably just heard it in your head by its mere mention.
• Loophole Abuse: Averted with Secret "X". Although you can win up to two extra X's, you can't place them all on the left or right side of the board — the three-in-a-row must involve the middle column.
• Lovely Assistant:
  • The models on Cullen's version were June Ferguson, Toni Wallace, Gail Sheldon, and Beverly Bentley.
  • Barker's Beauties (Carey doesn't have a nickname for them, although the occasional reference to "Carey's Cuties" will show up). Special mention must be made of the "Classic" Barker's Beauties trio of Janice Pennington, Dian Parkinson, and Holly Hallstrom (which became a quartet when Kathleen Bradley joined in 1990), as well as the "new" classic group of Lanisha Cole, Amber Lancaster, Gwendolyn Osbourne, Manuela Arbeláez, and Rachel Reynolds. Since Carey took over, a few male models have shown up too (Rob Wilson, James O'Halloran, Devin Goda). Alexis Gaube, one of the two dealers of the 2019 version of Card Sharks, debuted as part of the 50th Anniversary specials.
• Luck-Based Mission: Skill is often not enough for some games.
  • ½ Off comes down to a random choice between two boxes if you get everything else right, Three Strikes can easily be Unwinnable if the Strike chips are pulled too quickly, Secret "X" still has a 1-in-3 chance of being lost even if both small prizes are priced correctly, and in Plinko and Punch-A-Bunch you're just as likely to get a Zonk as hit the big money. The only game that can usually be won without luck is Clock Game.
  • Pocket ¢hange is also a huge luck-based game in two flavors. The first part, you have to guess a number on the board that goes with the specific place value of the car. Every wrong guess raises the price of the car (score needed) by 25 cents, so it's possible to get nothing but bad guesses and make the winning target for the car be over $2.00. The second part of the luck is every time you do get a number right, you pick an envelope off the board, which can contain values of $.00, $.05, $.10, $.25, $.50, $.75, or $2.00. The contestant then has to hope all their envelopes will match or surpass the target price. Unlucky contestants can get a string of low values and come up short.
  • Any game that requires contestants to guess the tens or ones digits for prizes with three/four/five-digit prices (One Away, Ten Chances, 2 for the Price of 1, etc.) can easily become this.
  • This is actually what got Joker retired — Roger Dobkowitz acknowledged that it was possible for the contestant to successfully earn all four small prizes and still lose the game if the Joker was the remaining card on the board. The Dob figured then-incoming host Drew Carey wouldn't like that, so rather than have a fight about it, he took it out of the rotation permanently and had all its scheduled Season 36 playings replaced. (For all intents and purposes, this game is a duplicate of Five Price Tags.)
• Lucky Charms Title:
  • Pocket ¢hange has had a cents sign in its title since the beginning.
  • As the show's central theme is pricing, it's almost a given to see dollar signs in certain game titles. Examples include Barker's Marker$ (later Make Your Mark) and $uper $aver, with the latter's logo featuring both words housed under the same "$" (both games are, coincidentally, retired). Lucky Seven and Most Expensive added a dollar sign to their titles over the years — Lucky $even by May 30, 1986 and Most Expen$ive on February 12, 2010 (although the first taped playing with the new title didn't air until February 18).
  • Also, Spelling Bee, with "Spelling" actually followed by a drawing of a bee. Doubles as a Visual Pun.
• Made in Country X: After Operation Desert Storm, Bob mandated that all cars offered on the show be from American brands. The rule lasted until Drew took over.
• Match Cut: At the start of the show after the first four contestants were called, the logo appears, which then dissolves to said logo on one of the doors which opens to introduce the host.
• Middle Name Basis: A contestant on September 14, 1982 insisted on being called by her middle name of Colleen instead of her first name of Muriel shown on her nametag (the show always uses a person's legal first name for the nametags even if said person does not commonly use that name). Bob asked her in return to call him by his middle name (William, coincidentally the first name of the host of the 1956-65 version), then called the models by their middle names (Dian = Lynn, Janice = Maurine, Holly = Anne). After the commercial break, he asked a reluctant Johnny his middle name (Leonard) to call him by.
• Minigame Game: The show's format in two words.
• Missing the Good Stuff:
  • The debut of Cover Up (also the Season 22 premiere) was interrupted by a CBS News special report. Only a few East Coast markets where Price aired an hour earlier actually got to see it.
  • Atlanta viewers never saw the debut episode of either the original series or the CBS reboot. In 1956, when Price first premiered at 10:30 AM EST, the NBC station in Atlanta aired a movie from 9:30-11:00 AM. When New Price premiered, the CBS affiliate (as well as several others around the country) was running the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon.
• Monty Hall Problem: The retired pricing game Barker's Marker$ imposed a four-way dilemma. The game board had four prices, three of which matched prizes on display. The contestant marked three prices and, after two were revealed, had the option of switching the last marker to the other price at a cost of $500 given to the contestant at the start of the game. The decision brings the problem into play where the contestant, after blindly picking three prizes, has a 75% chance of winning if the choice is made to switch.
• Motor Mouth:
  • One of the biggest criticisms of Carey's hosting style. He has toned this down after his first year of hosting.
  • Also invoked in the above-mentioned "Drewcase" skit above, which involved Rich reading the copy in various ways. He read the first prize while being held upside down, while the second required him to do this to get through an entire description without taking a breath.
• Mystery Box: Used in Half Off, and formerly used in Fortune Hunter.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In April 1976, Bill Cullen and then-current Price model Janice Pennington appeared as panelists on Match Game '76. At the start of the first show of the week, Gene Rayburn points to Bill and says "This is the face you see on The Price Is Right?"

  Bill: Not if you've watched lately!

  • The April Fool's Day 2009 episode introduced the show as being in the "Bill Cullen Studio".
  • The January 13, 2016, episode's Cover Up placeholder Running Gag featured five versions of the Price is Right logo in chronological order: the first was the Cullen logo.
  • The refresh of Double Prices introduced in Season 46 features the stylized dollar signs from the Barker era Big Wheel as a motif.

    Tropes N-Z 

• Negated Moment of Awesome:
  • Prior to Season 37, any time a contestant playing Punch a Bunch bails with $5,000 only to discover a $10,000 split was subsequently punched.
  • April 9, 1984: A contestant starts off Grocery Game with five bags of Tootsie Pops at $1.29 each. The cash register flashes "WIN!" and the dings and theme music play, until Bob stops the celebration to point out that her total is only $6.45, 30¢ below the winning range. Bob continues the game, and the contestant hopes to secure an actual win with one pack of ramen... which only costs 25¢, meaning she can only spend 5-30¢ and has clearly already used the least expensive item. Knowing it's a Foregone Conclusion, she dismissively picks the leftmost remaining item (a 79¢ pack of sponges) and goes over $7.00.
  • November 11, 2010: A Veteran's Day special leading off with the new extremely-high-stakes game Pay The Rent, which offers $100,000 as its top prize. The contestant playing it left with $10,000, but he actually managed to put the items in the correct order and could've had $100,000; the staff hopes most contestants aren't that lucky/smart and gutsy.
    • It happened again on March 27, 2013. Drew even made reference to the first time.
  • December 27, 2012: 5 pricing game wins out of 5, and a 6th on the way with a contestant setting the Safe Crackers combination to the correct price of $680...but then he is convinced by the audience to change the combination to $860, consequently losing the game. To add insult to injury, a Double Overbid in the Showcase.
• New Year Has Come: In 2009, the show began to occasionally hold New Year's themed episodes, usually highlighting the best moments and prizes from the past year. These have sometimes featured the return of notable prizes from special episodes (most often special sports, luxury, or classic cars). Since 2019, Range Game has often been featured in this special, with the rangefinder reskinned to look like the ball in Times Square, and going down instead of up.
• Nintendo Hard:
  • Seasons 37 onward have been accused of this, as the staff apparently seems to prefer upgrading set pieces and having celebrity guests. Roger Dobkowitz, who generally knew how and when to both avoid this trope and play it straight, was fired by Fremantle after Season 36 to "take the show in a new direction".
    • Kathy Greco's setups from Season 37 to mid-Season 39 were accused of being this trope in general. She also wound up getting sacked by Mike Richards, to again take the show in a different direction.
  • Add 'em Up only lasted in the rotation for two years, and it's no surprise why it was scrapped. The contestant had to figure out the car's price only knowing what the individual digits in the price added up to. Even with one of the numbers being given out for free, there were different probabilities that could add up to the total. Contestants frequently had to be "hand held" throughout the game, and wins were often anti-climatic. It was no surprise that the show's staff scrapped it due to it apparently not being too popular with them.
  • Bullseye '72, the only pricing game that never had a winner. The premise was to guess a car's price to the dollar within seven tries, with Bob saying "Higher" or "Lower" after each bid. Attempts to make the game easier (adding a $500 bidding range for two playings, then ditching the range in favor of the price being rounded to the nearest $10) didn't help. Neither did playing for a boat, which it only did once (and on #0013D(R), at that!).
  • In Dice Game, whenever the price doesn't contain a 3 or 4 in the last three digits. Even harder if all three digits are 1 and/or 6. Both cases can only be avoided by rolling a 1, a 6, or the correct number.
    • In its first year or so in the rotation - it was even harder - 1-6 were not the only numbers that could show up as the price of the car. The rules were altered to avoid situations where 1-6 were the only numbers that could be used in the car's price.
  • Fortune Hunter was retired because of its low win rate, having gone winless in its final season of use.
  • Golden Road, which befitting the name usually has the highest-value prize in the show (usually an exotic sports or luxury car worth well north of $60,000 or even $100,000) is this by design.
  • Hi-Lo requires the contestant to be perfect in choosing the three highest priced items out of six. You can expect that even a knowledgeable contestant will slip up by picking an item slightly less expensive than one they didn't choose. During its couple years, there could be a small difference between the Hi and Lo rows!
  • Let 'em Roll initially inverted this aspect. Roger said the grocery portion was set up to be easy on purpose because the idea of the game was to have the contestant roll three times. Played straight since Season 37 where the rolls are not always guaranteed.
  • Lucky $even is this most of the time. You need to guess each digit and lose $1 for each number you're off by (guess 2, and if it's 6, you lose $4). You can only lose up to $6 through four digits. If the price of the car is something like $19,655, you'll probably win. If it's something like $22,891, have fun being on TV.
    • Perhaps one of the more extreme examples of the latter, April 24, 2018 featured a Subaru Impreza 2.0i worth $19,987. The contestant won with $1 left.
  • Pathfinder is a difficult game to win at due to having to work with 4 different numbers surrounding you; you have to pick one of the numbers and if it's wrong, then you have to guess the price of a small item in order to keep playing and there's only 3 items in the game; four mistakes total ends the game in a loss. The game gets slightly easier if the player stands in a corner or at the edge of the game board since there's less numbers to work with at that spot. Not helping matters is these days, all four choices for the second digit will always be consecutive. For example, if the first number is 1, count on having 6, 7, 8 and 9 as your the choices for the second digit.
  • Pay the Rent is basically designed to be this, mainly because there's only one correct solution and contestants usually try to put the lowest-priced item in the mailbox (which would require more than one correct solution to work).
    • Averted during Season 41, when the number of solutions began to increase. While it began around 2-4 correct solutions, for three playings in a row it was clear they wanted to get a winner. On March 27, April 8, and April 25 the most expensive item cost more than the total of the second and third most expensive items. As a result, the first two playings had eight solutions, while the third had ten. The latter also ended up being the first $100,000 win. The very next playing, on June 4, went right back to having just one solution.
  • Plinko has never been won and isn't statistically likely to be, either. Most people consider it a win if the contestant hits the big-money slot once, but
    Word of God says the full $50,000 must be won.
    • Plinko is also simultaneously an aversion as, statistically, someone with at least two Plinko chips is likely to walk away with some money.
  • Punch a Bunch, which has only been won once since its top prize was increased to $25,000 in Season 37. When the top prize was $10,000, two slips with that amount were on the board meaning the game was usually won at least once a season. One $25,000 slip is in play under the current format, even in prime time specials.
  • Stack the Deck is also noted for being difficult to win; many contestants who got all three number picks still lost.
  • Take Two isn't hard by design, but it can become more difficult the closer the target price is to the middle.
  • Temptation was notorious for going without a win for five years, mainly because it's much safer for contestants to bail out with the four prizes than risk all of them to get the car when even one wrong digit in the price of the car leaves them with nothing. Originally, contestants couldn't change the numbers in the price of the car, making it more difficult to decide whether they should go for the car or walk away.
  • Ten Chances is notoriously hard by design due to the contestant only having ten tries to correctly guess the prices of two small prizes and a car. The first small prize has priced with two digits and the contestant has three numbers to choose from. The next prize has three digits in its price and the contestant has four numbers to work with. The price of the car is always five digits and the contestant has to use all five digits. If the contestant keeps screwing up on the smaller prizes, they can potentially lose their shot at winning the car.note (To be fair, though, this really only applies to those players who have no clue what they're doing; Genre Savvy players usually find this game to be a walk in the park.)
  • Even without a sixth digit, Three Strikes can be next to impossible to win. If you pull the numbers out often enough, you will figure out the price of the car, but good luck placing all of the numbers without grabbing all three strikes. Appropriately, the car being played for tends to be a high-end model.
  • Another retired game example was Trader Bob. It was essentially similar to Give or Keep, but there was absolutely no room for error involved. The contestant was shown one small prize at a time, but they were not shown its price. Then they had to pick out between two other small prizes. If the contestant guessed wrong, then the game ends. It was retired after 1985 for apparently being too difficult to win.
  • During Big Money Week in October 2016, Hole in One was played for $100,000, so they added a windmill to it. The contestant could reduce the prize to $20,000 if they wanted it turned off. Of course, Drew manages to sink it perfectly on the demonstration.
  • The Australian version uses a very different Showcase format. First, the two contestants played the Showcase Playoff, essentially Double Bullseye on the price of the entire Showcase (with a range, of course). The winner had to then order each item in the Showcase by their price, lowest to highest (with the largest prize, usually a car, automatically placed on the bottom). Even better, the producers just knew how tricky it was: during its 2003-05 revival, the show offered a "Mega Showcase" that included a condominium on the Sunshine Coast as its top prize, taking its total value in excess of AU$600,000! A 2005 Mega Showcase win valued at AU$664,667 was the largest win on any version of Price in the world ever until Adam Rose's Million-Dollar Spectacular win in 2008.
• No Indoor Voice:
  • Paul Boland, who previously announced the 1998-99 Match Game, filled in for just five shows in 2002; he didn't do any more because the staff wanted him to tone it down and he refused.
  • Rich Fields in his later years tended towards this as well.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Several pricing games – those involving the pricing of groceries or small items – have this clause if the contestant is wrong with all questions or fails to meet any conditions on his/her given choices (usually three), and the contestant had to earn all picks. A few examples:
  • Bullseye: If the contestant is outside of the $2-$12 range on all three items, meaning they are unable to win even by finding the hidden bullseye (An item MUST hit the target in order for the contestant to be able to earn the hidden bullseye it it's behind it.)
  • 5 Price Tags: If the contestant is wrong on all four true-false pricing questions. At least one correct answer was needed to be able to pick from one of the price tags they thought was the correct price.
  • Master Key: If the contestant is wrong on both either-or pricing questions, meaning no pick of which one of the five keys. At least one correct answer was needed to try to pick the right key and (attempt to) win at least something.
  • One Away: If the contestant gets every number wrong on the first guess, meaning they don't get a second guess due to the fact that changing all five numbers at this point would result in the correct price; this rule is in place to prevent an alternate Instant-Win Condition.
  • Rat Race: If the contestant is wrong on all three pricing questions, meaning no selection of the rats and no running of the colorful rodents. At least one was needed to participate in the race.
  • Secret X: If the contestant is wrong on both pricing questions, failing to earn additional X's. Although the contestant is given a free X, two are required for a chance to win the game.
  • Shell Game / Bonus Game: If the contestant is wrong on all four higher-lower pricing questions; they had to have at least one correct to be able to win (by placing a chip by the shell with the ball, or by getting control of the BONUS window).
  • This also applies to some retired games:
    • Joker: If the contestant is wrong on all four pricing questions, meaning they cannot discard any cards to remove the Joker.
    • SuperBall!!: If the contestant is wrong on all three pricing questions and the SuperBall bonus, thus not being able to win prizes or money.
• Obvious Rule Patch:
  • In the Cullen era, if all four players went over, nobody won the prize. Once in a while, Bill would silently look at the price, tell the contestants they were all over, have the bids erased, and allow them to make one bid with all required to be lower than the lowest original frozen bid. In the earliest episodes, those who overbid could not bid on the next item.
  • The October 14, 1959 show had a game where the contestants were asked to write down what bonus prize they wanted. The returning champ wrote down a new home and won it by coming closest without going over the price of a Polaroid camera. He was the night's top winner, but as the bonus was subject to estimated value, the second place contestant was allowed to return on the next show along with the champ.
  • When the show returned in 1972, if both contestants bid more than their Showcase price, they were told this and allowed to make new bids until at least one of them was not over. Seemingly out of the blue, beginning on the sixth taped episode (#0022D) the show started to allow for the possibility that neither Showcase would be awarded. We know of this rule as the Double Overbid.
  • When Race Game debuted in 1974, it used magnets to connect the pricetags to the stands...which didn't always work (at least one playing had the tags keep falling off). The more familiar holes and hooks were introduced sometime between March 1975 and March '76.
  • A contestant on November 3, 1975 spun 60¢ in the Showcase Showdown, then tried to spin the Big Wheel only a few pegs in an attempt to hit the 40¢. By the end of the month, a rule was added where the wheel has to make at least one full revolution in order to count.
    • Sometimes Bob/Drew helps the contestant spin if they are is physically unable to spin it a full rotation, usually if the contestant's handicapped or very old - although several have admirably tried to do it themselves, and a few succeeded.
  • Clock Game has tried four-digit prizes several times. After finding out that four digits ate up too much time against the clock, they tried offering a $1,000 range, but it didn't help. They tried four-digit prizes again in late 2008, but after a six-month span in which nobody won any of said prizes (barring a single technical win), the game was changed so that the contestant only bid on two three-digit prizes as before, and if they got both, they would win a four-digit prize as a bonus. Many times, the second three-digit prize could be considered part of the four-digit prize, such as a Blu-ray player for a large TV; the contestant only bid on the Blu-ray player.
  • Early on, Dice Game's car prices had 0's and numbers higher than 6. Because these often made the game too hard, the game was quickly altered to include only prices with 1-6. Roll a 1 or a 6, and you either get that digit right or know for sure which way to call it.
  • Range Game has always had the "Find the price in a $600 spread" rule, but when it premiered, the range finder only had a $50 spread, which made it Nintendo Hard to get the price, naturally. This range was doubled to $100 after a few playings, and then shortly was converted to the $150 spread, which is the standard and gives (technically) a 1 in 4 shot at winning.
  • Check-Out started off Nintendo Hard as well; the contestant's final total for the first decade could only be up to 50 cents away from the correct total. This was doubled to a single dollar, but it only marginally helped and the game remained Nintendo Hard. In the 2000's, the range was doubled a second time to $2 (which is where it is at now), although Drew still claims whenever it's played that Check-Out is a hard game.
  • It's "Hole in One...or Two!"
  • The price-reveal button of Flip Flop was eventually moved to the side of the board, where it's not nearly as easy for the contestant to hit, whether accidentally or otherwise.
  • On at least two occasions, the rules of Switcheroo were relaxed to accommodate a physically challenged contestant. A wheelchair-bound contestant was given 45 seconds instead of the usual 30, since he could not place the blocks himself and had to issue verbal instructions. When a 99-year-old man played, Barker made a big show out of saying the timer was "broken", and let him play an untimed game.
  • Card Game has had a lot of issues because of inflation. When it first started, there was no starting bid. Then it increased to $2,000/$8,000/$10,000/$15,000note first set in 1983, 1993, 2001 and 2008, respectively as the seasons went on to accommodate with inflation.
  • Averted with Cliff Hangers, which can easily be won by guessing $25/$35/$45 on the three items. As of January 2021 no patch has been introduced.
  • For Race Game, contestants who are wearing flip-flops, sandals or high heels are allowed to kick them off and go barefoot.
• Once a Season: Drew Carey's tenure has brought along a new slate of annual traditions to the show, sometimes as Sweeps stunts, including:
  • "Big Money Week": a week of shows where one pricing game per-day is played for an absurdly large amount of money (such as Million-Dollar Plinko with a $200,000 space). There are sometimes other cash bonuses and larger bonus prizes in the Showcase Showdown too.
  • "Dream Car Week": similar to Big Money Week, except with expensive sports or luxury cars.
  • A week with a daily Special Guest celebrity who gets to help out.
  • A Publishers Clearing House promotion week with a bonus cash prize for the first winner of the day.
  • "Pet Adoption Week": Normal episodes, but with a short segment showcasing an animal from a Los Angeles-area shelter.
  • Multiple episodes featuring couples, children, or veterans playing.
• Opening Narration: The 1977-2009 version is quoted at the top of this page. Also:
  • NBC Daytime: (later modified) "Today, these four bargain hunters match their shopping skills as (sponsor's products) present...The Price Is Right, the exciting game of bidding, buying, and bargaining."
  • NBC Primetime: "Tonight, these four people meet to compete for the prizes of a lifetime on...The Price Is Right."
  • ABC Daytime: "Today, (celebrity name) bids for prizes with these contestants on The Price Is Right."
  • ABC Primetime: "Backstage are some of the most exciting prizes on television. On our panel tonight is (superlatives; celebrity name). Stand by for The Price Is Right!"
  • Seasons 1-3 (CBS): "A fortune in fabulous prizes may go to one of these people todaynote (On the 1972-1980 Syndicated show, the word "Today" was replaced with "Tonight".) if they know when the price is right!"
  • Syndicated (1985-86): "Here it is! All-new! (And this audience is/A show) sparkling with excitement because a fortune in fabulous prizes can be (theirs if they know when/won tonight if) the price is right!"
  • Syndicated (1994-95): "Get set, America! It's time to come on down!" (montage of clips from both this and the daytime Price is shown) "From Studio 33 in Hollywood, home of America's favorite games and the world's most fabulous prizes, it's The New Price Is Right!"
  • Seasons 38-: "Here it comes! From the Bob Barker Studio at CBS in Hollywood, it's The Price Is Right!" The narration was changed slightly in March 2019 to add "famous" before "Bob Barker Studio" and remove the mention of CBS, as Television City was sold to another company around that time.
• Overly-Long Gag: April 1, 2011. Drew turns the ticket plug into one with extremely-detailed instructions on how to get to the show's website. It carries over into an interstitial break two minutes later, where he finally finishes; the whole time, the crew is seen putting away the Big Wheel and rolling in Balance Game behind him.
• Overly-Long Name: The fifth contestant on January 24, 1983 was called down with the initial "K". When Bob asked about it, she gave him a tag with her full first name: Kamukealeianuvenuekipalileileilanimunuetaire.

  Bob: [reading the tag] Oh my God... is all of that your first name?
  K: My mother has a good sense of humor.
  Bob: Well, she must've! Her name is [spells out part of the name]... that's half of it. Is that a Hawaiian name?
  [K gives the proper pronunciation of her name.]
  Bob: Now wait a minute! She can't say that on television, can she?

• Percussive Maintenance:
  • Bob would sometimes kick or hit set pieces if they got stuck, the most frequent victim being Squeeze Play.
    • Squeeze Play usually got hits to the price reveal flap or button, but at least once
      (February 27, 1980) it took hits to the numbers themselves.
  • Before it went digital, Drew even had to do this to Temptation.
• Pie in the Face: One Drewcase skit involved everyone getting pied, including Rich. Drew was pied during his signoff, and the Showcase winner was pied shortly afterward.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: A majority of comments on the theme music to The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour will talk about winning a car. Since that series only ran for a few months, The Price Is Right used a few of the music cues from the show, including the theme being used in the 90's for the car plug, so more people remember the song from its' tenure on The Price Is Right than the actual show it came from.
• Potty Failure: Happened to a Plinko contestant
  in 2007, and was later recounted by Drew during an interview.
• Press X to Die: In The Phone Home Game, a home viewer playing via telephone had to give the contestant a price to match to a grocery product three times. If the viewer gave a product name, that turn was forfeited, which automatically means the viewer and contestant cannot win the maximum shared prize of $15,000, since it can only be accumulated from three matches. Some recollections claim one viewer made this mistake on all three turns, winning nothing.
• Pretty in Mink: Fur coats were often prizes until Bob Barker joined PETA. The last known appearance of one is in September, 1981. The 70's nighttime version was especially fond of these thanks to its larger prize budget, to the point where only less than five of the 301 episodes of that run don't feature any, a major factor in why that run fell into obscurity. There was two playings of a prototype version of 1 Right Price early in Season 1 where three fur coats were offered! note Unlike the version of 1 Right Price introduced in the daytime version in 1975, the contestant only won the prize they correctly associated the price to. Also, while it's not certain whether that early version was specifically intended with fur coats in mind, those were the only type of prize it ever offered.
• Previously on…: For Season 49, this style of intro was adopted (featuring a montage of winners) to replace the opening audience shot, given that there is no audience.
• Product Placement: Even moreso than other game shows. Not just with big prizes, but contestants often have to figure out the prices of several small prizes and groceries to get more chances to win the big one. And of course, every single one is described in detail for the contestant and viewers. Utterly justified, as knowing which brand something is can help contestants guess the price, which of course is the object of the game.
  • This is actually far less common now. The smaller products used in the pricing games are brand-name products, but these days about half of them are just given a generic description. And, on occasion, the show has stooped to using store-brand products (Target, Walgreens, etc.).
    • Rich Fields said that the prizes that get full descriptions were provided directly by the sponsor. Prizes with generic descriptions were purchased locally for use on the show (although, prior to Rich becoming the permanent announcer, all products at least had their brand names announced on-camera). Still, in some cases (usually with designer products), even if they're unsponsored the brands are named anyway in the descriptions.
  • The 2012 Australian revival on Seven Network had many problems—one of them was the fact that it constantly plugged the department store chain Big W (an Australian chain comparable to Walmart). Just about every prize was "provided" by Big W, every prop had their logo otherwise plastered on it, while games traditionally played for cash (i.e. Plinko) were essentially played for Big W store credit (a "Big W shopping spree") of up to $3,000. All other pricing game prizes were less than $2,000 in value, paling in comparison to its lead-out, Deal or No Deal, and the previous run that gave away $500,000 condos.
  • Recent seasons have featured a week of episodes with a Publishers Clearing House promotion, where the first winner of the day wins a bonus $20,000 presented by the Prize Patrol hiding behind one of the doors.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Numerous pricing games over the years, with difficulty, tendency to malfunction, and time consumed to play the game the main reasons for retirement.
  • Many of the main Barker's Beauties including Dian Parkinson (1993), Holly Hallstrom (1995), Janice Pennington (2000) and Kathleen Bradley (also 2000).
  • The dreaded Drewcases mercifully after one very long, awkward season.
  • Rich Fields in 2010 when they wanted to bring in an announcer with more of a comedy background and better chemistry with Drew Carey.
  • A couple of years into Drew Carey's run, many of the games went missing without explanation or being confirmed as retired. All but Credit Card have trickled back into the rotation.
  • Barker's Bargain Bar finally returned from its bus trip (with the name "Bargain Game" and a redesigned set) on April 10, 2012, almost three and a half years after its last playing. Check Game came back on June 20, 2013 after four years with an updated prop (retrofitted with a new sign and LCD screen to replace the eggcrates) but much less actual checkwriting.
  • Card Game made its return on May 14, 2014 after a two-year hiatus, with a snazzy new LCD screen and the game is now played in front of Contestant's Row.
  • Time is Money, meanwhile, made its triumphant return after a staggering ten years, with its rules and set design completely overhauled. The core game is the same (two timed periods to sort six grocery items into price ranges), but now it's played for $20,000, and the second chance is now Trial-and-Error Gameplay with the $20,000 draining away.
• Read the Freaking Manual: Susan Bredding was called down on September 29, 1982. She made it to the stage where she won Poker Game but lost in the Showcase Showdown. She was deemed ineligible when the staff discovered that she was a contestant on Password Plus six months before its cancellation. This fell within the one-year probationary period for Susan to apply, and she was denied her prizes.
• Rearrange the Song:
  • The main theme has gotten quite a few remixes for prize cues. note (A "wood" remix for cuckoo clocks, a "dreamy" remix for beds, another remix for small prizes that was always used for Plinko's fourth prize until Drew became host, and a techno version used on electronics)
  • The prize cue that was used for Temptation's third prize, grocery plugs in the Barker years, and the "Come On Down" music are both part of a cue known as "Walking".
  • A now-retired new-car cue was rearranged to become the Theme Tune for Family Feud. The last bar of this theme soon returned as an introductory sting for the first playing of Plinko, then in 1980 as the opening sting for Grand Game. Then Trivia Trap (1984-85) used the same snippet as a fanfare. And then Feud retired that theme in 1994, but brought it back in the mid-2000s.
  • The show's main theme used a different orchestration for the Davidson version.
  • This cue
    was used from 1972-76 when contestants after the first four came on down. The same tune is also used as a Showcase cue
    , albeit with a synth arrangement.
  • On the episode commemorating Bob Barker's 90th birthday, nonetheless, the classic prize cue "The Big Banana" was revived in a remixed form.
• Recycled Soundtrack:
  • The Bob Cobert theme used from 1961-65 (titled either "A Gift For Giving" or "Window Shopping", depending on who you ask) would be used on two NBC games afterward — Snap Judgment (1967) and You're Putting Me On (1969). The Best Of TV Quiz And Game Show Themes CD is missing the first quarter of the theme.
  • "Lottery," the theme to The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour became a prize cue not long after that show ended, most notably as the intro cue for SuperBall!! It was also used as a new-car cue, but was retired sometime after 2011.
  • A remix of the Celebrity Charades theme was used as the Switcheroo "think cue" on Tom Kennedy's nighttime version.
  • It's believed that at least one Showcase used the Jack Narz Concentration theme.
  • Some prize cues from the original series were also used on an obscure Goodson-Todman game for ABC in 1961, Number Please. One prize cue was used on To Tell the Truth for their ticket plug after both shows had their themes and music rescored by Bob Cobert.
  • The British version used the Doug Davidson version's remix of the main theme.
  • The Family Feud theme, as mentioned above, has really gotten around.
  • An April Fool's Day episode played a think music cue from the 70s Match Game during Cover Up, and the Match Game theme music over the credits. Incidentally, a pilot for the 1990's version of Match Game with Bert Convy had actually reused the Cover Up music for the Head-to-Head Match.
  • The former music package of WCBS-2 in New York (CBS's flagship station), titled Grandeur and used from 2000-2001 (and also composed by Edd Kalehoff), has been reused in recent years, like during the "Strato-Intellicator" Showcase on April Fools' 2008.
  • The think song from Check Game actually debuted from Oddball, a short-lived 1986 game show by Mark Goodson Productions that didn't have its pilot picked up by NBC. It was introduced as Check Game's second think cue in either late Season 16 or its first playing in Season 17.
• Repeat After Me: Occurred during a playing of ½ Off on a 2008 MDS.

  Drew: Say "Alakazam!"; lift up the lid. Ready? One, two, three...
  Contestant: Alakazam, lift up the lid!

• Retired Game Show Element: Numerous pricing games have been retired over time; see that page for specifics.
• Retraux: A more retro version came with Season 44's opening "Decades Week", which was themed around each decade of Price's current run (70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's, and 2010's). Each day featured games premiering in that decade (and for the 2010 episode, games that have had their sets refurbished during that decade, as well as the brand new game Vend-O-Price), the audience dressing the part (stereotypically, though. As mentioned earlier, the real show was a more sterile affair in the beginning), themed Showcases, showing a door design from that decade on the screen in the back of the audience, and changing the color of the new turntable walls to match said era. The 70's and 80's days had the most nods to the era, including classic music, Drew dressing like Bob Barker and performing his opening speech from the first episode of The New Price is Right, playing Squeeze Play out on stage instead of on the turntable (a change used throughout the season), prize manufacturer logos on cards instead of graphics, and so on. George Gray even did era-accurate closing spiels on the 70's, 80's, and 90's days, correctly crediting them as "Mark Goodson-Bill Todman" and "Mark Goodson" productions (although still over a Fremantle Vanity Plate). On the 90's day, the Cover Up wrong numbers Running Gag used logos of retired games.
  • The 50th season in 2021 introduced an exclusive new game, "Back to '72" (a Cliff Hangers-like game where the player must guess the prices of items from that year), whose prop mirrors the show's original set design, and even has a The New Price is Right logo right on it. The Halloween 2021 episode also did a reprise of the 70's theme day in honor of the show's 50th season, going further by even having the Contestant's Row (with brown screens, eggcrate numbers, and a Goodson asterisk that indicates the winner) and Showcase displays emulate their initial design, reskinning the turntable area to suit the original orange and brown set, a recreation of the original Double Prices prop (which Drew insists the prop department worked all night on), and Christopher Knight making a guest appearance to present a Brady Bunch-themed Showcase.
• Running Gag:
  • "Does ANYBODY know
    how to play Check Game?
    "
  • "We can't start [Range Game] again for 37 hours."
  • Bob's false reveals.
  • For the Money Game, Bob would wonder if "El Cheapo" or "The Ol' Front & Back Trick" were used if a contestant lost the game.
  • During the Showcase Showdown, if a contestant spun the wheel hard or contestants kept tying: "I regret to inform you that "The Young and the Restless" will not be seen today."
  • For Ten Chances, if the contestant didn't know the zero rule, Bob would chide the audience to help the contestant out.
  • Bob claiming that the discarded blocks in Push Over fell to China, and saying hi to the Chinese people eating Chow Mein.
  • The audience booing contestants who don't get the wheel all the way around. Bob actively encouraged this during his tenure, but Drew didn't. This tradition ended when the show began taping without an audience during COVID-19.
  • In Trader Bob, Bob would make it a point that each product chosen should not have its price revealed right away. In some playings, he will scream at the models in a shrill voice, "DON'T SHOW THE PRICE! DON'T SHOW THE PRICE!", to the point where they would be hesitant to reveal the price of the unchosen product (which is revealed right away). This would prompt Bob to shout in the same voice, "SHOW THE PRICE! SHOW THE PRICE!".
  • The giant $25,000 bill prop used in the Punch-a-Bunch reveal has silly photos of Drew on it.
  • Bob's fear of Samoan contestants, being that they were very excitable and much larger than he was (prompting them to manhandle him when they win).
  • When every contestant in Contestant's Row overbid on an item two or three times Bob would jokingly call for four new contestants to come down.
  • Early in George Gray's tenure as announcer, he would mug for the camera if the contestants in Contestant's Row overbid.
  • Whenever Grocery Game is played, Drew usually claims the model operating the cash register had been discovered working as an actual grocery cashier. In recent episodes, the items have all had some type of theme.
  • Whenever Switch? is played, if the contestant chooses to switch the prices, Drew and the models jokingly act like carrying the pricetags across each other's paths is a challenging feat of navigation. Taken that one step further in the 2013 April Fools' Day episode, where inexperienced models Drew Carey and George Gray fell over each other.
  • Near the end of Season 41, Drew began developing a hatred for the "wrong" numbers on the bottom row in Cover Up, since he felt they were useless because they had no real bearing on how the game is played. The producers decided to then replace the numbers with different pictures of Drew without telling him, catching him off-guard...and then decided to do that kind of thing for every playing, including random symbols such as elements from the periodic table and the Greek alphabet (the latter spelling out "PRICE"), and bars of notes from the theme music.
  • Drew has sometimes joked that the "closest without going over" aspect is a new rule.
  • During the all-Plinko special (September 27, 2013), Drew constantly joked that he "[hoped] you're not a fan of (insert mundane quick game here)". Some fans were not amused, especially given the execution of said special.
  • When contestants have shirts that reference their favorite game and/or their desire to play it (most frequently Plinko), Drew will often point out the unlikelihood that they will actually play that game. That being said, when they do get to play it...
  • Drew is fond of calling Rat Race "the best pricing game ever." On one playing, he went as far as to say that its creator "must've been a genius."note Drew created the game.
  • When playing Temptation, Drew pretends that it's the contestant's birthday and that the prizes are birthday gifts.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud:
  • On two occasions, the beeper on the Big Wheel malfunctioned. Rather than stop down to repair it, the audience made the beeping sounds as the wheel spun.
  • Happened at least twice in Cliff Hangers:
    • Contestant "Yodeling Walter
      " does a spot-on impression of the game's sound effect.
    • As part of a promotion in which the mountain climber character would be depicted as either Drew or model Rachel Reynolds, Rachel provided the yodeling sounds
      .
• Scandalgate: The scandals involving Barker, Dian Parkinson, and other models fired after Dian became known as "Modelgate".
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: The reason Holly was booted out of the show...but thanks to contractual tricks, she didn't make that much money anyways.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Bob's reaction to the Flip Flop cheater is trying to leave the stage remarking "I'm going home!"
  • During the Las Vegas primetime special, Bob grew very frustrated at the long time it took for a contestant to place a bid during the Showcase round and left the stage. While viewers thought it was a joke, Roger Dobkowitz stated in a interview that Bob was indeed pissed off, due to all the production issues the episode faced and other stresses involved, likely why it was the one and only time the show did an episode on the road during the Barker era.
  • On the October 2, 2019 episode contestant Yvette reacts like this after being blocked-out twice by contestants, both of whom won their way on stage.
• Sesquipedalian Smith: On January 22, 1993, Rod called down a contestant named Ebunoloron Sims.
• She Who Must Not Be Seen: The "ladies" and "Almighty Sound Effects Lady" (from the Barker and Carey eras, respecitvely) whenever a contestant plays the One Away game. Said lady is never seen or heard. Technically, the show can drop the gimmick of the contestant trying to appease the sound effects lady and nothing would change, but the gimmick is used just for dramatic effect. And then the lady, Hope, left the show in 2013.
• Shoulders-Up Nudity: For about five or six years in the late 1980s through circa late 1992, one of Barker's recurring gags implied that a Barker's Beauty was stark naked inside a sauna, hot tub or — sometimes, a car or boat. The model was, of course, wearing a strapless bikini top or, in the very least, a Modesty Towel, but was posing in a way that only the bare shoulders could be seen above the edge of the hot tub, sauna window, top of the car door edge, etc., and Barker played it up to titillate the audience. Eventually, there were a few complaints, but the gag's fate came after his affair with Barker's Beauty Dian Parkinson blew up in the press and, after leaving the show, filed a sexual harassment claim against him.
• Shout-Out: Tons, including a Match Game Showcase.
  • Bob's "37 hours" joke in Range Game was changed to "48 hours
    " on primetime specials. If you don't know why that's here, you probably don't watch CBS on Saturdays at 10:00 PM.
  • The Phone Home Game got its name from the line "E.T. phone home" from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
  • Many Showcases saluted famous and current movies, such as Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!)
    (taped May 7, 1980).
  • On a couple of 1986 Showcases regarding Martians, a knockoff version of the iconic Doctor Who theme was used during the prize descriptions.
  • Frequently from its 1996 debut until Bob's retirement, references would be made (particularly during play of "Hole in One" to Bob's brief golf career (and famed fistfight with Adam Sandler) in a celebrity tournament in the film Happy Gilmore.
  • April Fool's Day 2009, where the Match Game think music was played instead of the normal music, and the Match Game main theme played over the end credits.
  • In an April 2010 episode, as Money Game was being played for a van, Drew kept making references to the original Hollywood Squares panel as he uncovered the cards.
  • In July 2011, Drew did radio commercials for an appearance of his hometown orchestra appearing at New York's Met. He wrapped it up by saying "And at $35 dollars apiece...the price is right."
  • Drew referred to a small prize shaped like a British phone booth as being shaped like a TARDIS in a Spring 2011 episode.
  • During Jack Black's Celebrity Week appearance in 2017, one of the games played was Danger Price — whose board happens to be covered in glorious octagons with eight stunning angles. It was either a subtle nod, or completely coincidental.
  • The pricing game "To the Penny" reuses the sound effects from the retired game "Penny Ante".
• The Show Must Go On:
  • (Unproven) On a syndicated nighttime episode in 1976, Dennis shouted "There Goes Fritz!" after the contestant lost the game and the mountain climber fall over the cliff. Which in turn causing Janice to run offstage crying and not coming out the rest of the episode. Only Dian and another model did the rest of the show while Janice remained in her dressing room crying.
  • On a show from February 1988, a huge storm in Los Angeles meant that nearly 2/3 of the audience was empty. They carried on with everyone seated in the middle section, and did their best not to film the other two sections of the audience.
  • A few months later; a wayward camera ended up knocking model Janice Pennington into Contestant's Row
    and leaving her momentarily unconscious. Taping stopped for her to be sent to a nearby hospital and did not resume until 45 minutes later (after it was determined she would survive)note The ensuing surgeries Pennington underwent left her with one shoulder an inch shorter than the other, and this - combined with noticeable scars from the injury - meant she would no longer model swimsuits on the show.
  • Even if the contestant doesn't get to pick a single rat in Rat Race, the race is carried out anyway.
  • On a January 2014 episode, a contestant injured her ankle during the Showcase Showdown and spent the rest of the episode in a chair. Drew assured viewers that she would be taken to the hospital as soon as taping was over.
  • The February 16, 1998 episode had one contestant, Scott, accidentally trip while walking onstage. But after losing his pricing game, he jumped in disappointment only to sprain his knee and couldn't stand up. During the Showcase Showdown, Scott sat in a swivel chair while Bob Barker spun the big wheel for him (Scott would win the Showdown), and during the Showcase, Scott sat in a taller chair.
  • On the May 7, 2019 episode, contestant Debbie had to leave the studio after her pricing game due to an unspecified emergency. note According to an eyewitness account
    , she cut her hand on a lightbulb. Her husband Paul filled in for her at the wheel and in the Showcase round.
• Show the Folks at Home: The prices of the items used in Clock Game (as well as Double Bullseye which was basically the same game only played with two contestants and for a car.)
• Shown Their Work: After years of incorrect episode counts (to be fair, a lot of reschedulings and
  Out of Order airings occurred over time), the count was finally corrected both for Fingers' final episode (where it was mentioned that she was present for 6,618 episodes) and the 7,500th milestone episode.
• Signature Sound Effect: The Losing Horns are arguably the best-known, along with the beeping of the Big Wheel, and several sound effects specific to individual pricing games.
• Signing-Off Catchphrase:
  • From 1972 to 1987, Bob Barker would sign off with "Bob Barker saying goodbye, everybody!" Starting in 1987, Bob would remind viewers to "Help control the animal population. Have your pets spayed or neutered." On the November 11, 1994, episode, he accidentally began signing off with his Truth or Consequences catchphrase, ending up with "Bob Barker saying goodbye, and hoping all your... prices are right!" Drew Carey still uses Barker's "spay or neuter" sign off as an homage to him.
  • At the beginning of The New '20s, Drew took to signing off with "Take care of yourselves so we can see you next time on The Price Is Right. I love you, bye."
  • Dennis James' sign off was "Don't miss the show next week, 'cause if you do, then we're gonna miss you!"
• Skeleton Key: Master Key's eponymous key, which unlocks all three prizes. The host typically has the contestant unlock the first prize, then the car; nowadays, while the contestant celebrates, Drew frequently unlocks the middle prize.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Done between Bob and an audience member during the One Away playing where a contestant got no numbers in the price of a Lincoln Mark VII.

  Audience Member: Give it to her!
  Bob: "Give it to her." I’m about as apt to give it to her as I am to give her my house!
  Audience Member: Give her your house!

• Sound Defect: On occasion, the Big Wheel would fail to beep during the Showcase Showdown and the host would instruct the audience to beep along.
• Space Clothes: Worn by the models as they opened the "Time Capsule" Showcases.
• Spin-Off:
  • There have been two major spin-offs of the current CBS version; first there was The New Price is Right, a retool hosted by Doug Davidson which used a half-hour format with just three contestants per episode (who went straight to their pricing game), had a somewhat more modern and glitzy set (complete with a video wall), the Showcase Showdown being replaced by a One Bid-styled game called "The Price was Right", which involved guessing the price of a product from an old commercial (although some episodes used the Big Wheel due to not having enough old clips), and a single-player Showcase which was essentially Range Game on a fancier, angled board: the player chose the required range at random. While it only ran for one season, aspects of its format (namely its Showcase) were adopted by many international versions.
  • Then, there were the $1,000,000 Spectaculars, which built upon the primetime Armed Forces tribute specials that Bob Barker organized following the September 11 attacks with the influence of a recent fascination with big money game shows on primetime TV. These episodes frequently gave away larger prizes, and added a chance to win $1,000,000 by getting a dollar on a bonus spin.
  • The Cullen version also had a spin-off in a way in the form of Say When!!, an Art James-hosted show produced by Goodson-Todman which essentially played like a multiplayer version of the modern Grocery Game. Of course, it's better known for a blooper where a commercial for Peter Pan peanut butter goes horribly wrong.
• Stealth Pun:
  • The first prize offered in Clock Game was a clock.
  • The IUFB right before the debut of Range Game was a range.
  • In one episode, Rod announced the next IUFB was a man's chest. Bob interrupted, asking if he should take his shirt off so the contestants could get a better look at what they were bidding on.
  • An accidental example: the contestant who ran to the bathroom when she was called came on down afterwards and proceeded to bid...on a waterbed.
  • A Dutch version changed the signature catch phrase from "Come on down!" to "You're in the game!" What was the name of the channel it was broadcast on? Yorin.
  • To the Penny is played using a backdrop shaped like a giant penny. At the bottom is the slogan "E pluribus unum pretium" (Out of many, one price), a play on the "E pluribus unum" motto that appears on the Great Seal of the United States.
• Studio Audience: Where the contestants "come on down" from.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: After Drew voiced his opinion that the initial row of numbers to cover up in, well, Cover Up was utterly pointless, the production team took him up on his suggestion, swapping out the numbers for a series of thematically-similar images.
• Take That!:
  • On February 26, 1988, a collection of books was offered as an item up for bids, among them The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows. Bob notices he's not on the cover, snatches the book and throws it away in disgust.
  • Bob was fond of doing this to the 1994-95 New Price Is Right.
    • As it was airing in syndication, Bob mentioned several times on-air that confused fans had written in wondering if something had happened to the "old" series (see the Adaptation Displacement entry on the YMMV tab). In one such instance, Rod joined in reassuring viewers that "the real Price Is Right" was still very much alive and well on the air.
    • Right before the ticket plug in an early 1995 episode, Bob told the viewers "The Price Is Right will be on forever and ever and ever... regardless of what happens to that nighttime version!" Could count as a parting shot; by the time the episode aired the Davidson version had already gone off the air.
    • Doug Davidson wasn't immune to this; he would refer to the "Cliffhangers" mountain climber as Hans Gudegast, the birth name of The Young and the Restless costar Eric Braeden, who plays his character's rival Victor Newman. When the game was lost, he would refer to Hans being taken to Genoa City Memorial Hosptial.
  • On another note, in an interview Barker gave shortly before his final episode, he was quoted calling the original models "disgusting".
  • Drew seems to enjoy making fun of hard pricing games on the air, going as far as outright mentioning when they haven't been won in a while.
• Tempting Fate: On April 1, 2011, at the end of the second Showcase Showdown, Drew comments that nothing went wrong for once...after which a light fixture fell and the studio went dark. After an awkward pause, a test pattern popped up.
• Think Music: Played during several games that require the contestant to handle props.
• Timed Mission:
  • Bonkers, Clock Game, Hot Seat, Race Game, Split Decision, Switcheroo, and Time Is Money have time limits for making attempts to win, often overlapping with Trial-and-Error Gameplay.
  • Ten Chances originally had a 10-second timer for each guess, but this hasn't been enforced since around the mid-1980s.
  • Range Game could be considered one as well, since the rangefinder only goes in one direction and stops once it hits the top of the scale.
  • On Cullen's show, if it appeared that a contestant was stalling, a five-second time limit was imposed. The five-second time was always imposed on one-bid games. Some bonus games used specified timeframes for the contestant to complete.
• Title Drop:
  • "All this can be yours, if the price is right."
  • "THAT'S TOO MUCH!!!"
  • It's kind of hard to switch the prices in Switch without saying "Switch".
• Totally Radical: The Halloween 2011 show had the entire set, crew, music, and contestants decked out in 1970s outfits, including the slang. Even some of the prizes were made to emulate the 1970s look, and cues from the largely-discarded 1972, '74, and '76 music packages were used for the first time in quite a while. Fans quickly realized said cues were a cheap cop-out by Mike Richards — a Twitter question some weeks earlier asked if classic cues would be returning, to which he said yes. They were only used on this episode.
• Trailers Always Spoil: And how. These days, if there's a big win or a special coming up, expect the online promos to spoil them before the episode airs.
• Triumphant Reprise: The main theme of the show becomes this when a contestant wins a game.
• Two Decades Behind:
  • During Barker's run, Price maintained an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude in regards to its production: the only significant change to the set was a change to its more familiar color scheme (with the green door frames, reddish turntable walls, multi-colored Contestants' Row, etc.), and all other changes were just progressive tweaks and refurbishments to said set, such as the updated doors of the 90's, and the infamous Hollywood Mural turntable walls. The music remained the same as it ever was, including the Moog synthesizer-based theme song and various '70s music cues that were still being played. Even into the 1990's, pricing games still used manual props or legacy electronics (such as eggcrate, sportstype, and vane displays; some European versions used CRT monitors instead), and they never used computerized graphics until 1996 (when the credits finally switched to Chyron).
  • Price finally began to modernize its production upon the arrival of Drew Carey; an entirely new set was built (which still maintained a similar layout to the original, however), new and refurbished games (such as Any Number, Plinko, Temptation, Grand Game, Bonus Game, Card Game, and Clock Game) have incorporated LED lighting and flat-panel displays (and one game, Double Cross, is completely touchscreen based), along with the current Contestants' Row and Showcase podia. However, these moves have afflicted Price with a Schizo Tech vibe, given that these modern, computerized props are still being used alongside those which use the aforementioned trilons, legacy electronics (e.g. Magic #) and manual props (albeit with refreshed designs in some cases, such as Double Prices). Much like the Barker era, Drew's set has also gone through progressive upgrades to add an increasing amount of displays and lighting effects, still being used alongside older props that are likely 20-30 years old.
• Undesirable Prize:
  • Those damned popcorn carts. note (However, those in the know wouldn't consider them undesirable—not only do they actually make damn fine popcorn, but they can also be worth thousands of dollars.)
  • Showcases: For years, the "Nothing But Furniture" showcase often fit this trope for many contestants, especially if they were stuck with it as Showcase #2. Usually, these were (as the name implies) room-centric Showcases with another four-digit prize often thrown in after the furniture plugs had been read. Often, the other big-ticket item was something perceived to be equally as undesirable, such as a jukebox, piano, entertainment center, etc., although it could also be a boat, trailer, or motorcycle(s). The musical cue nicknamed "Splendido!" was often associated with furniture Showcases.
    • Sometimes averted when the final prize in "Nothing But Furniture" Showcases was a desirable trip or a car (especially a sports or luxury car).
    • January 20, 2010 had a showcase offering five hours on a private jet valued at exactly $25,000 (as indicated in an article on Marketplace). Golden-Road.net confirms that the contestant who won this showcase declined said prize.
    • On October 7, 2010's late show, the top winner passed his showcase to the runner-up ... only to be stuck with a Sex and the City-themed showcase. Subverted, however, by the fact that it ended with a luxury car. (but he overbid by just over $10,000).
  • While not considered "undesirable," the show has admitted in interviews that trips are used as "budget savers," due to the fact the trip originates from Los Angeles, and since many of the contestants aren't from L.A. and aren't sure when they will come back, many of them forfeit the prize.
  • All prizes are subject to taxes. Contestants are known to forfeit certain prizes to avoid taxes, sell prizes to pay down the taxes on other prizes if they won multiple prizes on a show, or take a cash equavelant of their prize total, with the taxes taken out prior to the cash given to the contestants.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The March 25, 2016 "College Rivalries" edition (in honor of the NCAA basketball tournament) featured a twist to the standard format: each pair of players in Contestant's Row represented a college sports rivalry. When a contestant won a bid, the other contestant in the rivalry pair was eliminated and sent back to the audience, but could win a $1,000 consolation prize if their rival lost their pricing game. Thus, two new players were called down instead of one.
  • On October 28, 2016 (the last day of Big Money Week), every game was played for cash, including games not usually played for cash. Cliff Hangers was the grand finale with a minor change of its own: the top prize was $250,000, except that the money decreased by $10,000 for every step the climber took.
• The Un-Reveal: The April Fools' Day 2011 episode kept hyping up a "10,000th thing", which was...nothing.
• Vanity License Plate:
  • "PRICE IS RIGHT" plates were used on cars offered and another kind is given to car winners.
  • During the Rod Roddy years, a frequent Showcase theme (e.g., "I LUV NY" might mean a trip to New York; "OUT BACK" might mean a trip to Australia).
• Vocal Evolution:
  • To a slight extent, Johnny Olson had this in his later years. Although he didn't lose much enthusiasm, his voice became a little more slurred with old age, and he would more frequently lisp the show's title the older he got. Notably, he stayed with the show until shortly before his death at age 75.
  • In comparison, Rod Roddy became much less enthusiastic by the early 1990s, and his voice started cracking a great deal. This was most likely due the result of his many health issues over the years (most notably, obesity and multiple forms of cancer).
  • On his earliest episodes (when he was auditioning for the spot after Rod's death), Rich Fields had an appropriately enthusiastic mid-range voice. Once he became the official announcer, his delivery jumped all over the place: sometimes he'd sound like the early episodes; sometimes he'd use a lower and mellower voice like he did on the Florida lottery game show Flamingo Fortune in The '90s; sometimes, he'd be high and screechy and have No Indoor Voice, which ultimately became his default setting when Drew took over. However, when he did post-production work for a few Summer 2010 reruns, he reverted to the lower, mellower voice. He also used this lower delivery when he filled in on Wheel of Fortune in late 2010-early 2011, and kept it for Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: One of the most famous televised instances of the trope occurred during the September 14, 1977 episode when Johnny Olson called for contestant Yolanda Bowsley to come on down. Yolanda happened to be wearing a tube top, which immediately slipped and exposed her breasts. Bob would memorably recount the event in an interview thusly:

  Barker: She came on down and they came on out.

  • Debra Wilson later performed a Parody of the incident on Mad TV.
  • The incident was also referenced in an episode of Celebrity Deathmatch, where a woman's top came off
    when Mills Lane announced for Anne Robinson to come on down. (It was a match-up between Bob Barker and Robinson.)
• Whammy:
  • "Danger Price" has the one price you don't want to pick in order to win.
  • Choose the right price for the car in "Gas Money" and you lose.
  • The "Lose Everything" spaces in "Pass the Buck". If picked, well... you lose everything.
  • If one number in "Temptation" is wrong you lose the car and all the other prizes.
  • If one of the higher or lower guesses in "Hot Seat" is wrong you lose all the money that you've won up to that point.
  • If one of the items in "It's In The Bag" is wrong you lose all the money earned up to that point.
  • If the items on one floor of the house in "Pay The Rent" do not add up to more than the items on the floor below, the game is over with all earned money lost.
  • After winning $1,000 in "Grand Game", picking an item with a price above the target price makes you lose all winnings.
• Wild Samoan: Bob was infamously wary of any Samoan contestant, given their tendency to be jubilant if they won big. The most cited source of this comes from a 1980 episode where Pauline won $10,000 playing the Grand Game, and in her excitement proceeded to chase Barker – who, given his reaction, already sort of knew what he was in for – all over the stage.
  • Ironically, Pauline might not be Samoan after all.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing:
  • Switch? is the only game where a contestant can win by doing absolutely nothing (well, nothing but deciding not to do anything, that is). Since it's a 50/50 chance either way (keep the prices where they are, or switch them), doing nothing will win you the prize as often as switching.
  • If the first two contestants go over $1 in the Showcase Showdown, the third player automatically advances. As the contestant order is sorted by money won during their pricing games, this rewards the third player for their earlier success. Said contestant will take a spin anyway for the dollar and the chance to earn extra money.
  • An invoked example occurred on November 1, 2000 where a botched setup of Ten Chances resulted in a technical win. The stagehand that normally set up the game had been off the show that day and the other stagehands that set the game up did not make sure the game was ready to play. The result was that the correct solution for each prize was shown immediately when the prize was set up to play. Contestant Daniel who was playing the game also wound up winning the Showcase Showdown for the reason mentioned above.
  • Invoked again on April 2, 2015. Contestant Andrea wins a car on a technical win of Five Price Tags after she guesses the first price wrong and Manuela immediately pulls off the next price tag which reveals the "WIN!" before Andrea makes another guess.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: Eazy az 1 2 3.
• Younger and Hipper:
  • Since Drew took over, the show seems to be moving more and more toward this. Many elements that had barely changed for most of Bob's tenure — the set, the props, the variety of prizes — have been modernized greatly in one way or another.
  • Also evident on the 1994 syndicated version, which was one of the reasons why it flopped.
• Zonk:
  • The piggy bank in "Any Number". Yes, the $3.72 (or whatever) actually counts toward a contestant's total winnings should s/he be unfortunate enough to win it (although strangely, it doesn't appear on the "$35,000+" Showcase winnings graphic used since the late 1990s).

    Bob Barker: ...down there in the Piggy Bank.

    • Carey joked a few times that if the person won the money from the Piggy Bank, they could go out later and get a burger.
  • The large checks with "VOID" stamped on them after a losing round of Check Game.
  • Used literally when the show crosses over with Let's Make a Deal and uses some of Deal's games.

"Bob Barker reminding you, help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered. Goodbye, everybody!"

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