Super Ball!!
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- This article is about the retired "The Price Is Right" pricing game. For a toy, see Super Ball.
Super Ball!! was a pricing game on the American television game show, The Price Is Right. Lasting from February 3, 1981 to January 12, 1998, it was played for three prizes, each worth more than $1,000, and a cash prize of up to $3,000. This game also used small prizes.
[edit] Gameplay
Based on the arcade game Skeeball, the object of Super Ball!! was to win three prizes by throwing balls into a center circle marked "WIN."
In the first part of this two-stage game, the contestant is shown three small prizes, one at a time; each small prize has a ball associated with one specific larger prize. With the small prizes, the contestant is shown two prices, and he/she had to determine which one was correct. The outcomes were as follows:
- A correct answer won the small prize, plus earned the player a ball and a chance to win the larger prize associated with it.
- A wrong guess meant the ball was lost and meant the player could not win the larger prize at this point in the game.
After all three pricing questions were played, the contestant was taken to the Skee-ball chute, which looked just like the ones seen in arcades. The end of the ramp had three rings - two outer rings worth $50 and $100, and a center ring marked with the word "WIN."
The following rewards were offered for each roll:
- Landing in the "WIN" ring: The larger prize associated with that ball.
- Landing in one of the outer rings: Either $50 or $100, depending on which ring it landed.
After all earned balls were rolled, the contestant could attempt to win anything he/she did not win previously with the Superball. The Superball was earned by correctly guessing one more small prize "either-or" question.
Rolling the Superball into the center "WIN" circle won any larger prize not already won; this could possibly be all three prizes, or just one or two. However, one of two other outcomes was possible:
- If the contestant had already won all three prizes (with the first three balls) and then threw the Superball into the "WIN" circle, the player won a $3,000 bonus.
- If the Superball landed in the $50 or $100 rings, he/she won a three times that ring's value as a consolation bonus (either $150 or $300).
If the player failed to win any of the four balls (i.e., guessed all four pricing questions incorrectly), the game was over and nothing was won.
[edit] Trivia
- Prior to the contestant rolling his/her earned balls, host Bob Barker had the contestant use a ball for practice.
- The $3,000 bonus came into play only twice, and only once did someone win the bonus. The first time the bonus came into play, host Bob Barker misstated the bonus amount as $1,000 before he corrected himself. The bonus had always been part of the game, but Bob's near-misstatement led viewers to believe it was created on-the-fly.
- Each of the prizes were contained behind one of the three Big Doors. The prize packages themselves often contained either a room of furniture, a trip (usually the second door), or both. On some occasions, a car could be won.
- Super Ball!! was the only game in which the Big Doors were called by their number (Door #1, #2, etc.) on the air.
- In later years, the theme from the Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour was used as Super Ball!!'s prize cue. Prior to the mid-1980s, "Starcrossed" was often used.
- Super Ball!!'s set was not destroyed when it was retired; in fact, the skeeball prop now resides in Bob Boden's garage.
[edit] Memorable Moments
The episode that aired on November 14, 1991, featured one of the worst -- yet arguably most hilarious -- Super Ball!! playings ever. Mohini, a young Canadian woman originally from Fiji, simply could not grasp the concept of skeeball; rather than rolling the balls, she threw them. Several of them bounced off the rings and rolled back down the ramp; this caused her to become the first contestant in the game's history to earn a ball and still not win anything with it. After she earned the superball, Bob made another practice toss to show her what was supposed to happen, also promising her another practice throw of her own; however, rather than helping matters, Bob's toss only caused them to run out of balls, leading him to hurt his leg on the game while he was retrieving one from inside of it for Mohini to practice with. By this point, even the normally rowdy audience had given up on the balls being tossed correctly, their chants of, "bowl it!" having tapered off to near-silence.
In the end, Mohini ended up with $250 in cash, but no prizes. The game took over nine minutes to play, making it one of the longest pricing game playings in the show's history.
[edit] Retirement
While many viewers enjoyed Super Ball!!, it was one of the games that took the longest amount of time to play. Bob Barker determined, from the in-studio audience reaction, that the time it took to play Super Ball!! could be put to better use, and the game was retired. The game is one of the longest-lived retired pricing games, surpassed only by Give or Keep and Hit Me.
