If there’s one thing surprising about America’s reaction to the death of game-show host Bob Barker this week at age 99, it’s that “The Price is Right” was on the air for a long time before and now a long time after Barker.
In fact, after nine years on the air and then a seven-year hiatus, Barker became the host of the “New Price in Right” 16 years after America first discovered that show. The transition from one show to the next was part of an overall change throughout the industry from quiz shows to game shows.
The original show was hosted by Bill Cullen and was originally in black and white although partway through its run it became the first game show to be shown in color. “Price” wasn’t really a quiz show — all you had to do was guess the prices of items — but it required intelligence and strategy.
Cullen only hosted 156 episodes in his nine years. When they brought the show back with Barker and made it a daily game show, the new host did 6,726 episodes and Drew Carey, who followed Barker in 2007, has already done nearly 2,600 episodes.
Barker and Carey are hardly the longevity champs. Pat Sajak is the only host “Wheel of Fortune:” has ever had, and he’s closing in on 7,800 episodes, and the late Alex Trebek did 8,210 episodes of “Jeopardy.”
Of course, even Trebek wasn’t the original host. Art Fleming did the show in its early years in New York and was immortalized forever in 1982 in the movie “Airplane 2: The Sequel.”
When Merv Griffin redid “Jeopardy,” he offered the job to Fleming before hiring Trebek. Fleming turned it down in part because he thought moving it from New York to California was dumbing it down. In fact, he was critical of California over the years as a native New Yorker and said in 1989:
“People are more intelligent in New York. New Yorkers are alive, with it. They know what’s going on in the world. In California there’s no mental stimulation. A typical conversation consists of ‘I’ve got a new diet. How’s your tennis game? Are those clothes from Gucci?’ And then you look at each other.”
“Jeopardy” may or may not have been dumbed down from the original, but it had — and has — one thing going for it.
It’s still a quiz show, not a game show.
Bill Cullen would have liked it.