The Price is Right - 5/24/12 Episode

What a day it was for The Price is Right contestants today: 5-for-6 in pricing games, and even the loss wasn't a total wipeout. On top of that, we had two exact bids on bidders' row and a $1 on the wheel.

Mary started us off with a "One Right Price" setup that was clearly meant to be won. Having to choose between a trip to San Francisco and Cancun, with $5,780 as the price, Mary went with Cancun. It seemed like a perfectly logical choice - no one would think a trip within the state of California would be over $5K.

Mary was right, but here's the thing: the price of the San Francisco trip was revealed to be over $6,300. Drew Carey did a double-take...

...and who could blame him? Had Mary been given the $6,300 price, she (and anyone else) surely would've gone with Cancun there, too. Given some of the evil setups there have been this season, I'm surprised they didn't go that route.

Matthew won a Hyundai Elantra in "Switcheroo" (here's a recap of how the game is played). After going 0-for-5 in the first round, he got three right numbers on his second try. Accidentally, he left one of the numbers the same (the '3' in the blender), so when it was revealed he had those three numbers right, it was almost automatic he had the car.

Matthew also wisely went with the '1' for the car. Most contestants eliminate the possibility of repeating a number in the price in these kinds of games, and the show likes to trick contestants accordingly. Matthew wasn't buying it, and was paid off.

The Price is Right - 5/4/12 Episode

I'm not quite as obsessed with Plinko as many other The Price is Right fans are, but it can sometimes make for riveting television. The exultation of a $10,000 chip, matched by the utter despair of the $0 chip. Fortunes hang in the balance and can change in a second.

Today, Kyong's playing of Plinko gave me goosebumps.

That's pretty damn good.

Kyong earned her three extra Plinko chips with some sound pricing strategy (including the generally accurate principle that if they give you a '0' for the second number as an option, take it. She did twice, and won a chip both times).

Kyong's highlight reel wasn't over. At the wheel, Mary has just gotten a dollar. Here's Kyong trying to match it:

Mary got an 85 in the spin-off, and Kyong was one peg away from matching it and creating the most epic spin-off in recent times. It didn't happen, but $22,000 in cash isn't a bad day on The Price is Right.

The Plinko and wheel moments saved an otherwise fairly mundane show. There were a few highlights and lowlights, though.

Bidders' row FAIL
Ladies and gentlemen, let's say you're convinced the item up for bid is $900. The three bids before you were $775, $800 and $1,200. What do you bid?

The Price is Right - 4/24/12 Episode (Part 2)

Read the first segment of my review of the April 24, 2012 episode of The Price is Right right here.

Sometimes, you have to learn the hard way.

Carol was the sixth and final contestant to make it on stage today on The Price is Right, doing so after earning $500 cash for an exact bid on a $670 cookware set. Her reward was a shot at a car, playing another of my favorite games (I don't have that many, I swear), "One Away."

Drew Carey always makes it pretty clear that, in order to win the game, you have to plead with the Mighty Sound Effects Lady. Carol, for whatever reason, ignored these directions with blunt obduracy...

Carol... Carol. CAROL!!! YOU DO NOT MESS WITH THE MIGHTY SOUND EFFECTS LADY!!!!

Carol's two changes were incorrect, and she lost. And that's what happens when you run afoul of the Mighty Sound Effects Lady.

The Mighty Sound Effects Lady's latest victim.

A Price is Right odyssey
Phyllis also had an interesting day at the office.

We'll start with her facepalm-inducing performance on the second round of bidding.

Phyllis (second from left), as the last contestant to bid, went almost halfway between the two highest bids. Instead of, you know, just bidding $576. Sure enough, the actual retail price was $875.

She got the hang of it, though:

Phyllis' bid, again the last one, didn't win here either. But the next one did.

And then this happened:

Phyllis then got one of the easiest setups of "The Balance Game" I've seen. Today's prize was a trip to Savannah, Georgia. I'm sure it's a wonderful place, but you know it's one of the cheapest trips The Price is Right will give away.

Here's what the game looks like:

The '771' next to Drew is the last three digits in the price of the trip. You then have to pick two of the three "bags of coins" with monetary values attached that will add up with the 771 to get to the price of the prize. Gwendolyn then puts her "treasure" on the scale, and if they "balance," you win.

It's a simple concept, but the values attached to the bags usually make for a difficult decision. I'd say I've seen this game lost more often than won since I've started re-watching the show.

Today, though, the bags were $1,000, $4,000 and $7,000. A $5,771 price for a trip to Savannah was pretty easy. Phyllis went for it, and won.

Phyllis then won the wheel - jumping right into Drew while he was going to commercial in the process - and faced off with Neil in the Showcase round. She won that, too, with a solid $25,500 bid on an iPod touch/Palm Springs/Mini-Cooper package (worth $28,979).

Not that Neil gave her much competition...

That is not Neil's bid - that is how far off he was with his bid. The package was four pairs of designer shoes, a six-night trip to England, and an RV. He bid $15,500. The actual retail value was $36,439. Just missed!