http://youtube.com/v/4pa8qpc501U
Tickets
With an intention of seeing a taping of the Price is Right within the next year, my self-addressed stamped envelope is going in the mail tomorrow morning. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it on stage (I don’t have nearly enough energy to impress the people who choose the contestants out of the audience line), but just being there will be an experience of a lifetime.
I don’t think people will openly admit they love TPIR, but I can tell you most any kid who grew up in the 80s has imagined spinning the Big Wheel or playing Plinko on stage with Bob Barker.
I ran into some TPIR fanatics at Bay to Breakers last May who built the Plinko board above and had it on wheels, rolling it down the race route and stopping to invite people to play a few chips. I have to give them credit, they did a good job with the board and I enjoyed chatting with the ladies who were dressed up as Barker’s Beauties.
Finally, I always wondered as a kid how they had those flashing lights around the screen during the show open. This is long before the era of computer graphics too. Well, thanks to the miracle of the Web, I found the answer:
One camera is used to film the lightbox above, while another camera films those famous pans across the audience as people come on down. Then, someone in the control room overlays the image from the lightbox over the image from the studio audience. Right before Bob Barker comes out, they zoom in on the center of the lightbox to bring up the show title (below). I’m not sure who came up with this idea, but it must have been inventive for the time.
Oh, and if and when I get to travel to Thailand, I’m not coming back until I have a crazy suit just like Rod Roddy’s.
