As much as I want to continue to like the new episodes of The Price is Right, more things inherently annoy me about it. As I keep watching and rewatching all the 1970s episodes in my tape archive, I long more and more for the pacing and dynamics of a show in it’s heydays. Bear with me if you will as I point out what I think are the 5 things that are most wrong with television’s most exciting hour of fantastic prizes.
1) Camera Angles. No offense to former director Paul Alter or current director Bart Eskander, but I think that more traditional camera angles should be reintroduced, the current ones are too stoic and just too basic to serve their purposes. This is nitpicky, but little things like this affect the overall appearance of your show (at least in my honest opinion).
2) Contestants. Why oh why must we get these contestants on stage that ALWAYS turn to the audience for help? Who in their right mind lets 300 screaming mad fools decide what to put where and affect how YOU play the game? That’s just totally unacceptable to me.
3) Copycatting of Pricing Games. Bonkers is like Clock Game on heroin to me, but it’s addicting after a while. But seriously, when was the last time an ORIGINAL pricing game idea was introuced. What happened to good games like Give or Keep and Walk of Fame? (I know why they went, don’t make comments to me on that).
4) Host stepping on Announcers Lines. If you’ll pay close attention, Bob 3 times out of 5 during the hour will step on Rod Roddy’s lines while he’s calling a conestant to “come on down”. This is not only rude, but impatient on Mr. Barker’s part. If one person speaks, DON’T INTERRUPT HIM!
5) Split Screen Credits and Closed Captioning plugs. I know it’s been over 3 years since this switch was made, but I think the inherent cheapness on the part of CBS to take away time from TPIR to do these stupid plugs is a sign of money-grubbing. Hope you’re happy CBS.
In closing, I think that TPIR could be the show it once was again, without resorting to these million-dollar primetime specials they’re planning on doing. TPIR became a success as a daytime show, and the emphasis on the overall look of the daytime show in all facets needs some serious examination. These are the musings of one of the most rabid fans of TPIR, I feel for the production staff, most of which have been there since the beginning in 1972. They do a great job, and if given proper control, can make the show what it once was.
Until the next time, see ya later.