Come On Down!

[Whirled One]

I was at the local Half Price Books yesterday and noticed that they had The Best of The Price is Right DVD set for $9.98. I figured, eh, the price was right (heh), so I picked it up. I gotta say, it was well worth it, though it does have its limitations. The set contains a total of 26 episodes of The Price is Right (on 4 DVDs), however the vast majority of them are from the years of 1972-1975. There are 4 (seemingly random) episodes from the 50's and 60's with Bill Cullen, and the remaing 5 episodes are from Bob Barker's final week on TPIR in 2007. There's nothing from the 80's or 90's.

I wish the set included more examples of the old Bill Cullen shows, but I gotta say the mid-70's Bob Barker shows really do have a lot of appeal, with *plenty* of 70's tackiness galore. Oh my yes. ...with such, er, *wonderful* prizes, as, say, a new Chevy Vega, or a bright-yellow floral-print couch, or any number of kitchen appliances in the ever-popular "avacado green" or "harvest gold" decorator colors. ...And-- more related to this discussion group-- each of the 70's episodes that I've seen so far does seem to include at least one color TV offered as a prize.

It's fun to try to "play along" with the games as you try to make guesstimates of what a new refrigerator-- or a can of soup-- cost in 1973. ...Not to mention that game-show staple: Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat. Also, these DVDs would really be *great* material to play through your 70's era TV sets. Nothing says "1970's American consumer culture" better than this. However, it's kinda sad when you realize that almost every prize offered on TPIR back then was something that was actually made in the USA.