When is a $30,000 Plinko win on The Price is Right not really a win? When a little oversight ends up turning the game into a costly blunder for the show’s producers.

The show, which is now taping episodes for its upcoming 37th year, recently returned from a two-week hiatus, and one of the first games played was Plinko, easily the show’s most popular game. Contestants win disks through smart pricing, then walk up the steps of a giant pachinko machine, drop the disks through a network of pegs, and the chips land in slots marked in dollar amounts from $0 up to $10,000. A contestant can win up to five chips, so a $50,000 top prize is possible.

Something very exciting happened during this first taping: the contestant had already won her chips, and began playing. Her first chip went into the $10,000 slot. The second chip went into $10,000. The third chip followed suit and went into the same slot. Three top-prize drops in a row.

But backstage, someone quickly realized something had gone awry, because of a promo shoot during their off-time.

Yeah, yeah: blame the promo people. The story of my life.

It turns out, the Plinko board was used in a promo for an upcoming video game based on the show, and since time is money, they needed to make sure that when the cameras started rolling and the disks started dropping, they’d land in the big money slot. So they hid a wire inside the game so that the discs would always be guided into the big slot. That way, they wouldn’t have to film 100 disks being dropped to wind up with maybe ten or twenty actually hitting $10,000.

And, as you no doubt guessed, someone forgot to remove the wire when they were done.

Pesky promo people.

Then, as Carey tells it to ET, a staffer came running over and stopped the game in mid-play so that the board could be set right again.

I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall of that studio, because they had lots of ‘splainin’ to do! But to give them credit, they came up with a solution that didn’t penalize the contestant and made what you’ll see when this memorable episode airs be truly authentic.

Not bad for a day’s work as a contestant on a game show, right?

So they had to reshoot the pricing game and let the contestant drop all-legitimate chips. But because of the error, they still payed her the $30,000 she “won” to begin with.

Between getting the Vegas wheel to Los Angeles and shelling out thirty grand over a production error, things have suddenly got a lot more expensive. And somehow, I doubt this is what they had in mind when

On Friday night’s edition of The Price is Right Million Dollar Spectacular, something happened that has never happened before: someone actually won a million bucks.

The show featured two opportunities for a contestant to win: during one of the six pricing games, perfect pricing would have earned a contestant the seven-digit top prize, but that one wasn’t won.

The second opportunity came in the Showcases. Traditionally, if a contestant bid the closest to his showcase’s actual retail price and was within $250 of the actual price, he’d win both showcases. For this special, if the winning contestant was within $1,000 of the showcase’s retail price, he won both showcases plus a million-dollar bonus.

Here’s the video of the big win, including the brief credits before CBS cut to those annoying split-screen credits courtesy CBS, which apparently had other people’s postings taken down in favor of its own “creditless” version:

I’m sure that if I were a contestant, I wouldn’t complain about a million dollar bonus. But as a fan of the show, tacking on a million bucks just seems a bit unnecessary to me…as if ‘Price’ is just tossing that out there because a million-dollar top prize seems to be the latest fad. At least now, a well-done game show is offering that prize for a change.

For the non-diehard ‘Price’ fans, I point out that the endgame of the show is the Showcase round. The “Showcase Showdown” is the part with the famous Big Wheel, during which it is decided which two contestants will move on to that final round. For a show that has been on the air for 35 years (and featuring the one-hour format with the Showcase Showdowns for the last 32 years), it’s amazing how many newspaper articles that discuss the show get the Showcase and Showcase Showdown confused.

If you ever have a chance to attend a taping of The Price is Right, I highly recommend it. Not because you have a chance to win cash and prizes, but because it’s just an incredible experience.

One of the things that makes it so amazing is the spirit in that studio, when 320 people start cheering like there’s no tomorrow. To call it a party atmosphere is an understatement of epic proportions. And new host Drew Carey is issuing an interesting challenge to people who visit to keep that “magic” alive even when the red lights go off:

This little inspirational message was delivered during a commercial break before the final showcase round.  Do you dare give it a try in your own life?

It’s time for another YouTube clip.

If you’ve ever watched The Price is Right, you’re surely familiar with “Race Game.” If you’re not, here’s how it works: a contestant is shown four prices and four prizes. They must race to place the four price tags in front of the correct prizes before the clock runs out, and they can keep making changes until they’re either out of time.

Simple, right?

One more detail: they have 45 seconds to get the prices on the right prizes. Except in this particular playing from the early to mid 1980s:

Barker’s ad lib about the contestant not having enough time was priceless.

Depending on where you live, you’ll be getting a healthy helping of The Price is Right on television today.  CBS is running up to three episodes in place of their normal soap lineup, until the NFL game comes on later this evening.

If you’re in the Eastern time zone, the three shows (reruns from earlier this season) play back to back starting at 12:30pm.  In the Central and Mountain time zones, you’ll get one episode, followed by your midday news, then the two remaining shows.

Unfortunately for game show fans in the Pacific time zone, ‘Price’ doesn’t play at all today because of the timing of the kickoff of the game.  I’d recommend an extra slice of pumpkin pie to ease your suffering.

This may be the first real look many people across the country have gotten at Carey’s hosting style since taking over the role from Bob Barker on October 15th.

Pay close attention to the pocket flaps on his suit coats.  For some reason, Carey seems obsessed with rubbing them (as shown in the photo).  It looks like a nervous habit, which is a nice argument for a corded microphone (so you can hold the cable in your other hand) like the one Barker used for the last 35 years.

That’s D for Drew, of course.

If you’re a game show fan like me, and particularly a fan of The Price is Right (like me), and you can’t wait until tomorrow’s 36th season premiere of the show, CBS has posted a clip on YouTube.

There’s something “spoilerish” to a degree, because the pricing game being played in the clip and the contestant’s success therein is given away, but partially. By the time the clip ends, you don’t know the full outcome, but you know that this contestant is definitely in a position to set a new record for winnings in that pricing game on the daytime version of the show.

So now that you have been warned, watch at your own risk (and/or enjoyment), here.

So there I was at work, minding my own business when my phone started ringing and the emails started coming in.

Those co-workers of mine who know how much I like The Price is Right had seen the wire story and wanted to make sure I had, too.

I hadn’t.

I’m sorry I did. Continue reading “Would You Win a Car from This Guy?”

The search for the man to replace Bob Barker on “The Price is Right” has narrowed to two candidates, according to the New York Post.

Actor George Hamilton, the oldest (and one of the oddest) candidate in the most recently-mentioned group of three names is apparently out of the running for the $3 million-a-year job, leaving Todd Netwon and Mark Steines as the primary candidates. Continue reading “Down to Two?”

One of The Price is Right’s most common cash games is “Grand Game.” A contestant must select four grocery items that are valued below a specific target price.

This clip dates back to 1980 or early 1981, and features Pauline, the show’s first $10,000 winner. Her reaction to the big win — $10,000 was a lot more money back then — was priceless.