"The Price is Right (Year 36, Show 1)", 10-15-2007

When I heard the news that Drew Carey would be taking over for Bob Barker on "The Price is Right" for the 2007-08 season, my first thought was relief. For whatever reason, I knew that Drew Carey would respect the source material. Drew Carey is a down-home, conservative kind of guy and I knew that the idea of "The Price is Right" would be safe in his hands. Furthermore, I figured he'd be pliable enough to allow at least some cosmetic changes to the Queen Mary of daytime television, the last of the great daytime game shows.

For example, imagine what the show would have been like if Rosie O'Donnell had been made host. Don't get me wrong -- I not only like, but respect Rosie O'Donnell. However, knowing what I know she would have wanted to ride whiphand, make a lot of cosmetic changes and try to give away a car to every contestant.

I had some concerns. Bob has been a practiced game show host, both with "Truth and Consequences" and "The Price is Right" for decades. He knows how to run a show, how to pace it, he has that perfect game-show-host enunciation, and he has the power to direct the wandering minds of the contestants back to the action.

Carey, on the other hand, has an annoying habit -- which I also have -- of starting a sentence and then rushingallthewordstogetherattheendtoendit. He's a comedian at heart, which doesn't require letter-perfect speech, and he tends to mumble his words a little bit.

As the show kicked off, the big question was "could he hold his own"? And the answer was, yes, he could. He definitely had some rough patches -- when the contestants came down to contestant's row came down to play their pricing games, instead of immediately asking for a bid, Drew would ask them "how are you"?

This seemed to throw some of them, as they were following the old Bob Barker script, which was all business. You could almost see the panic in their eyes -- he's asking me how I am! what do I say? -- and I suspect Drew noticed that, and adjusted.

He furthermore had some trouble corraling the contestants. In the first game, when the prize -- a jeep -- was announced -- a contestant walked right past Drew to walk over to inspect his prospective new prize. Drew would also let the contestants milk their moments on stage, sometimes to the point of discomfort.

However, he brought his essential skills to the game, which is probably why he was chosen. Drew was perfectly all right with physical contact from the contestants -- Barker would break off a hug after a few seconds, but contestants could cling to Drew as long as they wanted. It was a very sweet moment, a rarity for a game show, as game shows tend to deal in glibness instead of honest, human contact.

Drew seemed definitely interested in the contestants: "you come from Rancho Cucamanga? did you drive here?" And Drew, as a practiced comedian, could improvise and create his own moments. Taking a cue from one of the contestants, he referred to the mountain-climber figure from Cliffhangers as "Yodel Man". (Now he has a name!)

During "One Away", instead of having the contestant inquire "Ladies (in the sound effects booth), do I have X numbers right?", he instructed the young woman to ask, "Oh mighty sound effects person, do I have X number right?" And during the Barker's Bargain Bar segment, he ad-libbed that the game was named after Ezekiel Barker.

As for the show itself, the general seventies look and special "Price is Right" fonts have all been retained, but it looks like more modern colors are being used. The set has been really lightened up, and it could use it -- I suspect that some of those old sets are falling apart after about thirty years of use.

Do I think he can pull this off without losing interest? I think he can. He has the number one property that a game show host or a talk show host or an interviewer has -- a genuine (or at least, faked) interest in people. You can't look uncomfortable with the contestants. Drew has an advantage with his schlubby appearance -- he's not threatening enough sexually for either women or men to be fearful of him, and he's a generally likeable guy. The rules of the games, the running the show -- he can learn that as he goes along. All of the ingredients for success that you need to run a show, Drew's got.