Showcase Showdown (The Price Is Right)

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For the punk rock band, see Showcase Showdown (band).

The Showcase Showdown is a segment on the American game show The Price Is Right. The segment is also commonly referred to as "The Big Wheel", after the main prop primarily used in the game. The game is an elimination round that ultimately chooses who will play the Showcase round at the end of the show.

Contents 1 History 2 Gameplay 3 Bonus spins 4 Strategies 5 Trivia 6 The Price WAS Right

[edit] History

The Big Wheel first appeared on the shows for September 8-12, 1975, when the show did a week of trial hour-long episodes. Aesthetically, the wheel bore little resemblance to the wheel shown today -- it was green and was spun across counter-clockwise, rather than down. The wheel had a green scoreboard display in the middle, and contestants waiting to spin stood in contestant's row.

When the show permanently expanded to an hour later that year on November 3, the Showcase Showdown returned, with the current Big Wheel.

[edit] Gameplay

On The Price is Right, six pricing games are played per episode. After three games, the Showcase Showdown is played with the three contestants who previously played a pricing game.

The wheel itself has 20 uniquely marked sections, each marked in multiples of 5¢. The lowest value is 5¢; the highest is $1.00.

The three contestants spin the wheel, attempting to earn a score closest to $1.00 without going over. Contestants who go over $1.00 "bust" and are eliminated from play; if the first two players go over $1.00, the third player automatically wins and is given a single spin to try to get $1.00. The contestant closest to $1.00 without going over wins the round and advances to the Showcase round. Achieving a score of $1.00 earns the player a cash bonus of $1,000.

If two (or very rarely all three) contestants are tied, the tying contestants are allowed to spin the wheel again in a "spin-off". The contestant with the highest score after one spin each is the winner. Contestants can still earn the $1,000 bonus in a spin-off.

Except on the earliest hour episodes, if a contestant spins and the wheel does not complete at least one full revolution, the spin does not count, and the contestant must spin again. This is done in order to keep a contestant from aiming at a particular spot on the wheel. Since about the fall of 1980, it has been traditional for the audience to boo contestants who fail to get the wheel all the way around.

When the "Big Wheel" originally premiered in the first few long-hour episodes in 1975, there was no rule to spin it "all the way around".

[edit] Bonus spins

Since December of 1978, contestants who achieve a score of $1.00 on the wheel (in either one or a combination of two spins) have won a bonus spin in addition to the $1,000 cash bonus. In the bonus spin, contestants who land on a green section of the wheel (5¢ or 15¢) win an extra $5,000 bonus, and contestants who land on $1.00 win $10,000. If the wheel does not go all the way around, the bonus spin is voided, and the contestant may not spin again; as such, bonus spins always start with the wheel on the 5¢ space so that a circumstance of not winning money despite landing on a bonus space cannot occur. Prior to the addition of the bonus spin, a contestant whose spins totalled $1.00 simply won $1,000; this bonus could be awarded multiple times if spin-offs came into play.

If two contestants are tied at $1.00, the "spin-off" spin doubles as a bonus spin. If the wheel does not go all the way around, the contestant gets another spin for the spin-off only. (One contestant that this happened to in 2002 was not given another spin; this is generally regarded as a mistake rather than as a rule change, although this cannot be confirmed, as the situation has not arisen again since.) If another tie occurs in the "bonus spin-off" and more dollars are spun in subsequent spin-offs, no additional money or bonus spins are awarded.

Some primetime specials have changed the bonus for hitting a dollar in a bonus spin; the Military Specials in Season 30 increased it to $100,000, and the subsequent Million Dollar Spectaculars increased it to $1,000,000.

[edit] Strategies

The question of strategy naturally arises: When should a contestant choose to spin again? Probability dictates that spinning again with a score below 50¢ gives odds in the contestant's favor of emerging with a dollar or less; spinning with 50¢, the odds are even; above 50¢, the odds are against the contestant. Historically, the show's consensus seems to be that 60¢– 65¢ is a score that a contestant should give serious thought to staying on with a single spin. Spinning on 70¢ or above when it is not necessary is likely to get a bad reaction from the audience. On one episode in 1997, an incident similar to this happened. A contestant spun 75¢ on his first spin, and without knowing that he had an option to quit, spun again, and went over. Bob eventually made the decision that he was indeed over, and could not spin again.

A few Usenet threads have discussed the optimal strategy for the Showcase Showdown. One of the earliest references is 1993, noting that an unnamed student, probably a U.C. Berkeley student, determined the optimal strategy. Others have since independently derived the same strategy. The optimal strategy is as follows:

The first contestant should spin again on 65¢ or less and stand on 70¢ or more.

The second contestant should spin again if behind (in which case he must spin), or ahead of the first contestant with 50¢ or less, or tied with the first contestant at 65¢ or less.

The third contestant should obviously spin again if behind and stand if ahead. The third contestant should spin again if tied with one other contestant at 45¢ or less, or tied with the two other contestants at 65¢ or less.

One subtle point in computing the optimal strategy for the Showcase Showdown is that a contestant might consider taking a second spin, when doing so slightly decreases the contestant's chance of winning, in order to have a chance at the bonus spin (see below). The closest decision is when the second contestant spins 55¢ and beats the first contestant. To spin again reduces the second contestant's probability of winning from 0.2875 to 0.2803, but gives the second contestant a one-in-twenty chance of spinning 45¢ and being awarded a bonus spin. If the second contestant thinks that winning will cause him or her to eventually bid on a showcase worth about $9,000 or less, the second contestant should spin again. But, since the average value of a showcase is more than that these days, the second contestant should stand after spinning 55¢ and beating the first contestant.

Note that the increased bonus spin prizes during a "Primetime Special" may change the contestants' optimal strategies, especially in the second Showcase Showdown after a contestant in the first Showcase Showdown was awarded a bonus spin. In this situation, spinning a second time is worth about $2,500 (the contestant has a 1/20 chance of hitting $1 total, after which the contestant has a 1/20 chance of winning $1 million). So, for example, the second contestant should spin again after spinning 55¢ and beating the first contestant.

[edit] Trivia

• The beeping sounds heard while the Big Wheel is spinning are triggered by sensors on the side of the wheel. Each space has a white section and a black section on its left side; every time one of the white sections moves in front of the sensor, the beep is activated. The beep itself is a 490Hz 50% duty cycle square wave.

• The cash bonuses for the bonus spins have never changed, despite the fact $10,000 in 1978 is worth a little more than $40,000 in today's dollars.

• From 1976 to 1995, a split-screen graphic was used; it consisted of a second arrow with a red outline superimposed on a black background that pointed to the same space as the arrow on the Wheel and showed the spinner's face. This graphic was revived in 2006, when The Price is Right was played on Gameshow Marathon, but the second arrow was outlined in green, with a clear background. From 1995 on, the show used a new shot in which only the Wheel is shown. However, many other foreign versions still use variations on the split-screen shot, sometimes not in an arrow shape.

• The Showcase Showdown uses its own unique music cue, titled "Dig We Must." This song is heard whenever a contestant has spun a total of $1.00 on the Wheel; whenever a Bonus Spin lands on either one of the two green sections or $1.00; and at the end of the second Showdown. In the first Gameshow Marathon episode, it was also used, in short form, as an introductory cue to a pricing game.

• Some foreign versions of the show have modified the Showdown rules so that a contestant wins a prize rather than a cash bonus for spinning a dollar (or 100 on most other versions). Most other overseas versions even have a rule that, in order to win the bonus, the player must get 100 in one spin only.

• The walls of the Big Wheel were originally gold when it debuted on the first hour-long show on November 3, 1975. The walls were changed to red by December 30, 1977. By late March, 1979, pink "Pricedown" dollar signs were added to the walls. On September 14, 1988 the current gold slanted dollar signs debuted on the walls.

[edit] The Price WAS Right

The Price WAS Right was a completely different Showcase Showdown format, used on many episodes of the short-lived 1994 version of The New Price Is Right. In it, the three contestants were placed at three podiums in a modified Contestants' Row. They were shown a vintage TV commercial, and after the ad was shown, the players would bid on what they thought the product being advertised had cost at the time the commercial had originally aired. The person who was closest without going over won and advanced to the Showcase.

"The Big Wheel" returned to several episodes of The New Price Is Right when the production crew ran out of vintage commercials for use during the game.