Double Bullseye
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Double Bullseye was a pricing game on the American television game show, The Price Is Right. Lasting from September 19, 1972 to October 10, 1972, it was played for a car. The game is sometimes referred to as "2-Player Bullseye I" to indicate that its name refers to the original Bullseye and not the current one (and also because the game's name was not known to the public until October 2006).
[edit] Gameplay
Double Bullseye was the only pricing game in the history of The Price Is Right to have two contestants compete for the same prize.
After the first One-Bid winner won his prize and came on stage, a second player was called to Contestants' Row to participate in a second One-Bid round. The winner of the second One-Bid then joined the first winner on the Turntable.
After the contestants were shown the game's prize - which was a car - the two players are given a bidding range (e.g., $3,000 and $3,500). Both contestants then alternated giving bids on the car, with host Bob Barker telling a player "higher" or "lower" after the opponent's guess.
The first player to guess the exact price won the car. The game's structure meant this was the only pricing game to guarantee a winner and, consequently, a loser.
[edit] Trivia
- Double Bullseye was an ill-fated spinoff of the equally short-lived Bullseye '72 (where a player had seven guesses to arrive at the price of a car). The general concept of the two games -- requiring the use of binary search to narrow in on an item's correct price -- was also executed much more successfully by Clock Game.
- Double Bullseye was created to replace Bullseye '72 after the show's producers deemed the latter impossible to win. Ironically, at least two playings of Double Bullseye ended in less than seven guesses.
- The loser of Double Bullseye was still eligible to be in the Showcase. It is known that at least one pair of Double Bullseye contestants went on to face each other again in the Showcase.
- Double Bullseye is the only pricing game in The Price Is Right's history that has used the Showcase podiums. As seen in the photo at the top of the page, they were set in an "L" shape rather than in the standard side-by-side arrangement.
- Double Bullseye is one of only two pricing games to have a perfect win-loss record; the only other game to hold such a distinction is the similarly short-lived Professor Price.
[edit] Retirement
Double Bullseye premiered on September 19, 1972, by which time the original Bullseye had been retired. Like its predecessor, it was swiftly killed off on the daytime show, with the last of its four playings coming on October 10; however, the game probably lasted slightly longer on the Dennis James syndicated version, as it only did one show each week and taped on a different schedule.
[edit] Foreign versions of Double Bullseye
Although no international versions of The Price Is Right are known to have used Double Bullseye as a pricing game, the various incarnations of the Australian version from 1981 onward have used it as part of the Showcase; the day's two top winners on half-hour episodes, or the winners of the two Showcase Showdowns on hour episodes, would play the game with the price of the day's showcase to determine which one would move on to the actual Showcase round. The game is not believed to have been used on the 1970s version of the show, which appears to have followed the American format more closely than later incarnations, nor was it used during the last few months of the 2003-2005 incarnation when the program reverted to a half-hour format with only two pricing games.
During the 1980s, the UK version with Leslie Crowther had a similar format for its Partners game.
