Clock Game
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clock Game is a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Debuting on the show's sixth episode on September 11, 1972, it is played for two prizes, each worth between $400 and $999; and a $1,000 cash bonus.
[edit] Gameplay
The contestant has 30 seconds to deduce the price of two prizes, one at a time.
The contestant makes a guess. If they are wrong, host Bob Barker will tell the contestant "higher" or "lower," and the process repeats. The idea is to quickly narrow in on the exact price of the prize and win it.
If the contestant successfully guesses the price of the first prize within the 30 second time limit, they use whatever time remains to bid on the second prize, as before.
Successfully guessing both prices wins the contestant a $1,000 bonus; however, if time expires while bidding on the second item, the contestant still wins the first prize.
The contestant is allowed to take shortcuts in pronunciation; for example, saying "nine seventy-one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine" will test all prices in the $971-$979 range. Any contestant who knows binary search will win easily; as such, this is the only game on the show in which skill guarantees a win (although such a claim could have been applied to Hit Me).
The audience, which sees the prices just as the viewer does, must remain silent during the bidding process; they cannot help the contestant in any way while the clock is running, making Clock Game the only active pricing game where the audience cannot assist the player in any way.
[edit] Trivia
- Clock Game was the second of TPIR's attempts to create a game requiring a contestant to narrow in on the actual retail price of a prize through successive guesses. Two other attempts, the original Bullseye and the subsequent Double Bullseye, were dismal failures and were both quickly retired.
- The $1,000 cash bonus was added in December 1998, as a way to compensate for the fact that Clock Game never offers prizes worth more than $999. During the prime-time specials that aired in 1986, a winning contestant chose a cash bonus from one of four envelopes. The available bonuses were $1000, $2000, $3000, and $5000. In all primetime specials since 2002, a $5,000 bonus has been awarded to winners.
- It is believed that during the early part of the 1970s syndicated edition, players won a $1,000 bonus for winning both prizes with at least 2 seconds to spare.
- For a brief period in the early 1980s, Clock Game was played with four-digit prizes, including cars, but the large numbers proved to be too hard for contestants to handle in the fast-paced game. Spotting contestants the thousands digit and not requiring them to say it didn't help matters.
- Although Clock Game never uses prizes worth more than $999, contestants will frequently give bids of over $1,000 anyway.
- The current record for winning the game is 6 seconds (24 seconds remaining).
- When the current Turntable wall colors debuted, the bluescreen corner of the Clock Game board was the same shade of blue as the walls, which created undesirable effects. The producers initially placed a large, yellow circle behind the prop to circumvent this problem, but it was removed after two playings in favor of completely repainting the board. The game's border and base were painted light blue late in 2005.
- On 1994's syndicated The New Price Is Right, the game was played using the show's on-set video wall instead (with a digital clock). The game frequently used prizes with four-digit prices (the contestant was provided with a $1,000 range to guess the price in), and on some occasions, a third prize was awarded as a bonus for winning.
- On some occasions, audience members have blurted out answers despite being told not to. If this happens, generally, offending members are removed from the studio and the act is reshot. At least one occurrence of this has aired; Bob asked, in a rather serious tone, for the audience member to be removed.
- Clock Game is the first game to have its own unique sound effect (the clock ticking).
- Clock Game was the first game to have a "blooper win". On its premiere, the contestant was somehow shorted 8 seconds, which caused her to lose the game. The producers discovered the mistake and awarded her the prizes.
[edit] Foreign versions of Clock Game
Clock Game is played on versions of The Price Is Right in numerous countries besides the United States, sometimes with minor alterations; for instance, on the UK's Bruce's Price Is Right, contestants were told that all of the game's prices ended in 5 or 0. The 1980s UK version took a markedly different approach; after using Clock Game in its first series, the game was replaced with an original pricing game called "Time-Play". Time-Play gave a contestant 30 seconds to guess the prices of three prizes, and the clock would not stop after correct guesses.
