Bob Barker signed off his final episode of "The Price is Right" today, and I blubbered through the whole thing.
Though the show didn't break format -- with only a few more cars thrown in as potential prizes -- the studio audience maintained an exceptionally frantic mania throughout the entire hour.
Some of them had waited five days outside the studio for a chance to witness the big finale.
From the first contestants invited to "come on down" and the first giveaway of a red Corvette to the final signoff, Bob kept his preternatural cool. He endured an unusually persistent series of hug/kiss assaults and just smoothed his way through a show he's hosted over 6,600 times.
This show had everything. Spastic arm flapping, Plinko, that ridiculous skinny microphone, someone landing on the $1 space after spinning the big showcase showdown wheel, and someone cleverly (but unsuccesfully bidding $1, and a Canadian tripping onto his face as he ran to Contestant's Row.
I was overcome by emotion. I've been watching "The Price is Right" since I can remember. Any day I stayed home sick from school, I'd be sure to watch. Bob Barker felt like a kind babysitter -- a grandfather. Like the sudden passing of a loved-one, it's hard to imagine he won't be there anymore.
You will be missed, Bob. May that yodeler from the Cliff Hangers pricing game sing you back home.
2 comments:
Yo-del-dee-dee-doh-del-dee-dee-doh
Watch the show last night and loved it. The emotion from the family and friends of the people called up to bid was amazing. Some of them were going crazy as if they just won the lottery. What was great is that I didn't know if I was watching the show in 2007 or 1985 proving that the show is timeless. It was great to see some of the classic games and see two odd white trash people square off for the showcase challenge.
The only thing that sucks is that the winner won $104K in prizes not knowing that she's gonna have to pay taxes on that amount so a ton of the prizes she won, she won't even be able to afford to accept.
I'm just hoping and praying that Bob's successor WONT BE Rosie O'Donnell.
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