Long Live Bob Barker

The invention of the VCR changed all our lives, as a culture, but no one I knew as a kid (before I realized that TV would become my life's obsession/purpose/vocation) appreciated its arrival more than my Grandpa Ariano, because it allowed him to keep a normal, grandpa-type day job and still watch The Price Is Right every day.

Was any game show ever more perfectly suited for grandpas than The Price Is Right? You might think Jeopardy!, because grandpas like to behave as though they know everything, but Jeopardy! features too many categories about events of the past fifteen years for grandpas to be competitive playing along with those. But if there's one thing grandpas know about — nay, that they're consumed with — it's what things cost. The Price Is Right doesn't just challenge contestants to prove they know the actual retail prices of various items: it throws in goods from sponsors like Poligrip or Turtle Wax — products practically guaranteed to trip up the cocky young people who have the temerity to show up on The Price Is Right wearing snarky t-shirts or [shudder] what your grandpa would call "shower shoes." And, in its heyday, presiding over it all — standing in for grandpas across this great continent — was Bob Barker, America's grandpa.

Barker started his career as a TV broadcaster before most people who will ever get anywhere NEAR this post were even alive (right between the births of this commentator's parents, in fact). The Price Is Right premiered in 1972, in what might fairly be called the golden age of game shows of the sort we've all watched and enjoyed on GSN. But unlike Match Game or Password or any permutation of Pyramid, The Price Is Right is a democratic and therefore chaotic situation: whereas those other kinds of shows featured just two players who had to pass tests and go through a casting process, TPIR contestants literally just come in off the street and can get pretty far in the game just by making reasonable guesses. The barrier for entry is low, and the players' probably natural propensity for rowdiness is only amped up by the atmosphere in the studio.

What I'm saying is that Barker had a uniquely challenging job: maintain his cool, keep the show going smoothly, and contain the contestants'...exuberance. And even though the games are extremely silly and the players are hysterical wackos, Barker's unflappable broadcasting style gave the proceedings some elegance and dignity. Well — mostly unflappable, anyway.

Of course, we found out during his tenure that Barker was not so elegant or dignified offstage, what with the sexual harassment suits he seemed always to be defending himself against. But he was, and is, also a tireless advocate for animals, so if he prevented the births of unwanted puppies by endorsing pet neutering on the show every day, doesn't that balance out his inappropriate behaviour with Barker's Beauties? Okay, I guess it doesn't. But maybe some of those ladies should have spent more time learning to type and less learning to tap the sides of Right Guard sticks so they'd have other career options. (BUT I KID BARKER'S BEAUTIES. Sexual harassment is serious. Not great, Bob.)

Barker retired from TPIR back in 2007, whereupon he handed off the skinny microphone to Drew Carey, and if you, like me, haven't watched the show in the past half-decade or so, that's probably why. Carey's not a broadcaster, he's a comic; it feels like he condescends to all the show's contestants; and worst of all, he doesn't take the game seriously: everything about his manner screams "too cool for school." But this week, Barker returns, as the show celebrates his ninetieth birthday. Show Drew how it's done, Bob. And please, contestants, I know you're excited about winning a car, but please don't knock Bob down and break his hips.