Professor Price
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Professor Price was a short-lived pricing game on the American television game show, The Price Is Right. Lasting from November 14, 1977 to November 21, 1977, it was played for a car.
[edit] Gameplay
The retired pricing game Professor Price is best remembered for its centerpiece – an animatronic puppet that was dressed as a college professor. His role was to keep score in this general-knowledge quiz, whose grand prize was a car.
The contestant is spotted the last two digits in the price of the car. The game involved up to five questions, as thus:
- Questions 1, 3 and 5: General knowledge questions with numerical answers (of 0–9). Example: How many outs are there in a full inning of baseball?" Answer: 6.
- Questions 2 and 4: Asking whether the answers to questions 1 and 3 were either of the first two digits of the car.
- If the answer to an even-numbered question was "yes," the appropriate digit in the price would be revealed; since only one playing of Professor Price has been screened in the last decade (and on that episode, the answer to both questions was "yes"), it is unclear what happened if the answer was no.
If the contestant answered a question correctly, he earned a point (which was registered on Professor Price's right hand, with the fingers pointing up); an incorrect answer caused the miss to be registered on Professor Price's left hand, fingers pointed down.
The contestant won the car if he answered three of the five questions correctly; the game ended at any point if three correct (or incorrect) answers were registered. Due to the game's structure, it was possible for the car's price to be fully revealed before the game's resolution.
[edit] Trivia
- After the game was retired, the "Professor Price" puppet made a few appearances throughout the remainder of the 1977–1978 season in prize displays. The prop later found its way into the hands of a collector, who sold it on eBay a few years ago billed under the name of "Mr. Wiggles."
- When contestants won Professor Price, the game's entire set went haywire – the hands on the clock began spinning around, an owl perched atop the set began wildly flapping its wings, etc. This was done intentionally.
- Each of the professor's hands had only four fingers, so as to avoid an accidental obscene gesture.[citation needed]
- With the exceptions of On the Nose and Pocket ¢hange, Professor Price was the only game in which the car's price could be completely revealed before the game was over (aside from games in which said price is irrelevant to gameplay).
- The professor is believed to have been designed to look like Johnny Olson.
- At the beginning of the game, Pomp and Circumstance played as Barker introduced the professor.
- Professor Price is the only game that could be lost for reasons not related to luck even if the contestant knew the price of the car.
- Professor Price is one of only two pricing games with a perfect win-loss record; the only other such game is the similarly short-lived Double Bullseye, whose rules guaranteed that its prize would be given away.
[edit] Retirement
Professor Price was retired after only two playings, making it the shortest-lived pricing game in history. The game was retired because it had little to do with The Price Is Right's core concept of pricing items; it was more of a trivia contest, and a contestant's chances of winning or losing rested on general knowledge.
