The Price Is Right in popular culture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article discusses references to the television game show The Price Is Right that have appeared in popular culture.
Contents |
[edit] Television
- The animated series 2 Stupid Dogs had a spoof called "Let's Make a Right Price." The host was a caricature of Bob Barker called Bill Baker and was voiced by Casey Kasem.
- The show is often parodied on the Fox show Mad TV, with longtime castmembers Michael McDonald and Frank Caliendo playing Bob and Rod, respectively. In one sketch, they parodied the Yolanda incident, where a black woman (Debra Wilson)'s top falls down, exposing her breasts; the main character in the sketch, Lorraine Swanson (played by Mo Collins), calls them "perky." Bob signs off with the line, "Help control the pet population; have your pet's balls cut off."
- In another famous episode, an al-Jazeera version featured such items up for bid as clean drinking water. A terrified American tourist won it with an empty tin of Altoids (the only thing to her name). After winning her way on stage, announcer Arod il-Roddy announced she could win "A new car...t!"
- Another such sketch, presumably an airing of a "lost 80's episode", shows Bob in a pastel t-shirt and jacket with a "Flock Of Seagulls"-style hairdo. The "contestants" called down to Contestants' Row are Tonya Harding, Jeffrey Dahmer, Wayne Brady and Martha Stewart.
- A fourth such sketch, a "classic" episode from 70,000 B.C. called "Price Right" had a prehistoric Bob Barker and Rod Roddy giving away prizes like fire.
- The Flintstones had an episode that spoofed the original Price Is Right, with Barney Rubble appearing as a contestant on "The Prize Is Priced." The host was a caricature of Bill Cullen.
- While watching TV on one episode of Family Guy, Brian, the family's dog, replied to Barker's "Have your pet spayed or neutered" spiel with, "Oh, just die already." In another episode, Peter recalled his experience on Survivor, where he accidentally knocked over a wall to reveal Barker and a contestant spinning the Big Wheel. In the 2005 episode "The Fat Guy Strangler", Lois watches a contestant in Contestants' Row bid one dollar more the previous one (a common practice on The Price Is Right), prompting the latter to shout out and swear (which was censored out). Bob Barker played himself in the Survivor and Strangler scenes.
- In the episode "HOMЯ" of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson, as an animated dog, tells the audience "Don't spay or neuter your pets," as a parody of Bob Barker's "Help control the pet population" line. In another episode, "The Fat and the Furriest", Patty and Selma Bouvier suggest that the Simpson family buy Marge a "Kitchen Carnival" appliance similar to the one they claim they won on The Price Is Right; however, they also claim that CBS refused to air the episode on which they appeared because they weren't "TV pretty."
- In the Futurama episode "Lesser of Two Evils", Bob Barker guest stars as himself. The episode centers around a priceless atom to be placed on the tiara for the Miss Universe pageant. During the pageant, Bob Barker is informed that the tiara (with the atom) had been stolen. He replies "Do you have any idea what that thing is worth?" Fry, Leela, and Bender respond in a very The Price Is Right-esque manner. He tells Bender, "You're closest without going over."
- The "Sabra Price Is Right" skit from a 1992 episode of Saturday Night Live featured actor Tom Hanks as a shady Middle-Eastern electronics salesman who tries to hawk cheap merchandise to contestants who unwillingly buy what they win.
- In the Drawn Together episode "Captain Girl", the character Toot Braunstein adopts a baby from Nicaragua, but the experience goes poorly and the baby ends up being taken away by Child Services. At the end of the episode, the Child Services representative stands in front of a duplicate of The Price Is Right set (the Big Wheel can be seen clearly in the background) and encourages viewers to help control the Nicaraguan baby population by having their babies from Nicaragua spayed or neutered, parodying the speech Bob Barker makes at the end of every episode of The Price Is Right regarding the pet population.
- In 2002, Al Roker hosted a weeklong salute to game shows on NBC's Today show. The Price Is Right was the first program featured, and Bob Barker appeared outside of Today's studio to let one of the onlookers play Cliff Hangers.
- In the Cartoon Network series Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, a reference to the game Cliff Hangers was made during the episode "Evolutionary War".
- In Survivor: Vanuatu- Islands of Fire, Travis "Bubba" Sampson, a Wal-Mart loss prevention (security) officer from Blountville, TN wears an orange "Bob Barker" shirt.
- In an episode of That '70s Show, there is a flashback explaining how Jackie and Hyde started going out. They are in the Formans' basement watching The Price Is Right. When "another old lady" is called to Contestants' Row, they begin to make out. After the old woman bids one dollar, they make out again.
- In an episode of Roseanne, Jackie takes a remote and opens the curtains in a hotel at Disney World. Upon seeing it, Roseanne Conner shouts, "Oh, it's just like on The Price Is Right!"
- In the Gilmore Girls episode "Pulp Friction", Michel Gerard wins $100,000 of cash and prizes in the form of an RV on the game show (just so he didn't have to pay taxes), and it is delivered right before a scheduled outdoor photo shoot was scheduled to begin.
- Also in that same episode, Sookie tells of an experience one of her husband's relatives had to go through just to get on the show in reaction to Michel being asked to be a contestant after finishing a sip of tea.
[edit] Film
- In 1996, Bob Barker played himself in the Adam Sandler comedy Happy Gilmore. In one scene, Barker beats up Gilmore after an altercation arising from their teaming up in a Pro-Am Golf Tournament. Sandler uses the phrase, "The price is wrong, bitch!"
- In the movie Shrek 2, after Puss in Boots attacks Shrek, Donkey suggests that Shrek give Puss in Boots the "Bob Barker Treatment."
- In Date Movie a remix of the main theme is played during the parody of The Bachelor.
[edit] Music
- In 2001, Dance artist Crystal Waters scored a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart with "Come on Down". The track sampled the theme to The Price Is Right, marking the first time ever that a game show's theme song topped the music charts. It also marked the first time that lyrics were added to Price's theme song.
- In "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "I Lost On Jeopardy", the singer/narrator (Yankovic) does poorly on the TV show Jeopardy!. However, he pledges to try and do better "next weekend on The Price Is Right-ight-ight...". In the music video for the song, he is carried past a fake set of The Price Is Right during that line.
- The Keller Williams song "Bob Rules" is about a dream where he is chosen to compete on The Price Is Right.
- In The Barenaked Ladies' song "It's All Been Done", one of the lines is, "I see you on The Price Is Right / Will I laugh, will I smile, as you run down the aisle?"
[edit] Print media
- In the June 2004 issue of MAD Magazine, The Price Is Right was parodied as The Prize Is Slight with Bob Barfer. The magazine also satirized the original Cullen version during its run.
- In Gary Larson's The Far Side cartoon, one of the things on the list of things dogs will do when they take over the world is get "that neutering bastard, Bob Barker."
- In the 2005 novel The High-Impact Infidelity Diet by Lou Harry and Eric Pfeffinger, a character who is reluctantly exercising in a public workout room is driven into paroxysms of hateful rage by another person's watching of The Price Is Right on the gym TV.
[edit] Other
- The distinctive font of the logo for The Price Is Right was rumored to have inspired Ray Larabie's TrueType font Pricedown, which is used for the "Grand Theft Auto" text in the logo of the popular Grand Theft Auto video game franchise. The name is apparently a coincidence; the font is said to be named after Ray Price, a designer of the video game who has no relation to the show. Mad TV made a parody that may have been inspired by this font coincidence, where a game show "Grand Theft Auto" featured a The Price Is Right-like set with contestants killing each other with GTA-style weaponry.
- A sound effect resembling the Losing Horns appears in certain Homestar Runner cartoons. The Losing Horns have also been played on the Don and Mike Show and the Opie and Anthony Show.
- Stand-up comedian Dane Cook does a bit on The Price Is Right, or as he calls it, "the P.I.R." During this act, he remarks how whenever you are at home sick, no matter what time of day, when you turn on your TV, the P.I.R. is always on. He also suggests that the "wheel" is filled with blood, Bob Barker died in '87 and is puppeteered by strings, and numerous other references about the show.
- A poster advertising the showing of Indecent Proposal on Sky TV in the 1990s showed a woman dressed only in a pair of knickers with the slogan "The price is right, so they come on down."
[edit] Links
"Come on Down" by Crystal Waters A tribute to The Price Is Right
