The Price is Right - 6/7/12 Episode

Today's going to be more of a "quick hit" post, but here's a few things that jumped out at me from today's episode:

I thought the first Showcase that David bid on was sneakily expensive. For trips to Palm Springs and Ireland, and a Volkswagen Beetle, David bid $27,000. Playing along at home, I went $27,100.

The actual price? $38,297. Drew Carey gave it the "What?" as he read it out, meaning even he thought it was incredibly expensive. Admittedly, I undervalued the Beetle (I based my guess on $17K for the car, $6K for Ireland and $4K for Palm Springs, which doesn't require airfare from L.A.). But, even high-balling the price of the Beetle at $25K, that leaves over $13,000 for the two trips. Apparently, I missed something in the details.

So did David, but it didn't matter after Selena went over on her sneakers/home gym/trip to Dominica package (a $22,300 bid on a $20,344 prize, pretty low by The Price is Right standards).

Don't be that guy...
Who rubs it in after he bids $1 over somebody...

...and then put on a sour face when someone else wins.

Scott's bid was a good one, but enough of America already thinks you're a big enough douche as it is when you bid $1 over somebody. Don't give them more ammo.

A rare opportunity
Today's playing of "Now or Then" was for a car, something I hadn't seen since I started re-watching the show.

The Price is Right - 5/31/12 Episode

I'm calling today a 6-for-6 day on The Price is Right.

Technically, it wasn't, as neither contestant who played for a car actually won a car. But they showed some common sense (a rare concept on this show) and took home pretty good prizes, so I'm giving them the 'W.'

In today's second pricing game, we had Morningstar (yes, really) playing for a truck in "Temptation." One by one, the models trot out four prizes (usually, one of them is cash)...

...and you have to guess which of those numbers is the next digit in the car. You're given the first digit in the car price (in today's case, a '2'), so here, Morningstar has to guess whether the next digit is a '3' or a '4.' And so on and so forth. In addition to the $3,434 in cash, today's other prizes were a portable satellite receiver for $776, a 32-inch HD television for $499, and a trio of watches for $595. So, each digit is a toss-up.

The game is called "Temptation" because you can just keep the prizes without doing a thing, or risk it all on the premise that you guess all right digits in the car. If you are right, you get the car and the prizes. If you go for it and lose, you lose everything.

To me, it's an easy decision: take the prizes. Today, they were worth over $5,000 total. Why risk that on the 16-to-1 odds that you have the right price of the car? And yet, most contestants go for it. They almost always lose.

Morningstar, however, took the prizes. And it's a good thing she did.

In today's fifth game, Dennis was playing "Gas Money" for a shot at a Chrysler 200 LX. In this game, you're given five possible prices for the car. One is correct, and the other four have money values of $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 and $4,000. To win the car, you have to pick the car price last, accumulating your "gas money" along the way. You can stop and just pocket the cash at any time, but if you keep going and pick the car price before you're supposed to, you lose everything. The game is difficult because the five prices are all within about $1,000 of the one above and/or below it.

The Price is Right - 5/9/12 Episode

Having hosted hundreds of episodes of The Price is Right, Drew Carey is entitled to get a little confused every now and then.

Today was one of those days, as in the first round on bidders' row, he had a tough time discerning who had won. Apparently, the contestants couldn't quite figure it out, either.

Observe Pamela's and Jermaine's Pavlovian response when Drew points to them, even though they had overbid.

So Jeffrey gets on stage with the opportunity to win a car in "Let 'Em Roll." The game looks like this:

You get one free roll of the dice, with the chance to win two more by guessing the prices of a few grocery items. Jeffrey went 1-for-2, so he had two rolls. Each of the five die have three car symbols and three cash values (one each of $1,500, $1,000 and $500). After your first roll, you can keep the cash that comes up (assuming you didn't roll five cars) or take the die that didn't come up car and try again. If you don't have five cars after your last roll, you get whatever cash you got on that last roll.

Here's the result of Jeffrey's first roll:

Again, here's why I'd be a boring game show contestant: I'd pocket the $3,500 and call it a day. Maybe if the odds of rolling three cars were a little better than the 8-to-1 that it is here, I'd consider taking the risk. But $3,500 is a pretty good cash haul from this game.

Jeffrey, naturally, went for the car. He didn't get it, and took home $2,000 instead.

Drama and intrigue
Today, we saw why "Any Number" is the best game on The Price is Right.

The Price is Right - 5/2/12 Episode (Part 1)

I'll let George Gray sum up my thoughts on today's episode of The Price is Right:

The first round on bidders' row pretty much set the tone for the day. Note the antics of both Joshuas (not that you would miss them, anyway):

We have Joshua #1 wearing a "Big Poppa" hat and a Dolly Parton t-shirt, bidding $1 right out of the chute. We have Joshua #2... well, I don't even know what to say there.

As you can probably imagine, both played a starring role throughout the show. Joshua #1's opening bid "strategy" didn't work out, but he went back to the $1 well in round two. As the last bidder, it worked.

And then this happened:

So, up to now we had a pretty entertaining show. Unlike most of the "characters" that appear on The Price is Right, Joshua #1 was actually humorous.

Sadly, he blew a really easy set-up of "Flip Flop." With a trip to Atlanta on the line, he flipped when he clearly should've flopped.

The Price is Right just doesn't do $3,500 trips when airfare is involved. Oh well.