The price was right

By Cory Anotado
Collegian Staff
November 8, 2006

My childhood is hereby ruined.

Yes, after 35 years, Bob Barker announced his retirement as the host of The Price is Right last week. He will cease hosting the illustrious game show at the end of this season, the show’s 35th. He started hosting The Price is Right in 1971, taking the reigns from previous host Bill Cullen. For the next three and a half decades, over 30,000 contestants have heeded the call of “Come on down,” and millions more have joined them in their journey through big bucks and luxurious prizes.

I, like most of America’s youth, have fond memories of watching The Price is Right. It started with me having afternoon kindergarten. I don’t know why my school decided to split up the kindergarten between morning and afternoon classes, but that decision introduced me to Studio 33 in Television City in Hollywood. No one’s quite sure what first attracts them to The Price is Right. Some say it’s the loud music, others attribute it to the cheering and clapping, while a distinct, yet adamant group (of which I’m glad to say I am a part of), stand by the claim that it’s all those blinking lights.

Not to sound like I’m ripping off Dane Cook here, but my fondest memories of The Price is Right came not in my pre-elementary days, but rather, all throughout lower and middle school, when a high fever and bouts of projectile vomiting kept me at home with Bob Barker and Rod Roddy watching me as I kept an ice pack over my forehead and a bottle of Vicks VapoRub on my bedside table. One particular bout of fever led to me helping my grandmother grocery shop by finding bargains and noting, “You know, Grandma, the condensed milk this week is lower at Super Fresh than the actual retail price!” Screams of “One dollar, Bob!” amidst me wheezing and coughing were some of the best memories of my childhood. Which, actually, says something about my childhood.

I am, however, far from unique in my nostalgia. There are many people who can share the same memories I had. That, I like to think, is one of the reasons that The Price is Right is so powerful in this country. Throughout national scandal or national triumph, baseball wins or football losses, middle school demerits and high school sweethearts, very few American establishments have held up as well as the Plinko board and the Showcase Showdown.

There is no doubt that we will all miss Bob when he leaves, but our childhood memories of him telling us to help control the pet population by having our pets spayed or neutered (and the ensuing chuckling) will always remain.

anotadoc1@lasalle.edu