3 Strikes (pricing game)
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3 Strikes is a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Debuting February 12, 1976, the game was originally played for average price cars, but now offers luxury/sports cars priced in the $30,000 - $60,000 range.
[edit] Game play
The contestant is shown six discs, five of which have a unique digit which is in the price of the car, and one which has an X, called a strike. The discs are placed into a bag and shuffled.
The contestant blindly draws a disc from the bag. If they pick a number, they must decide in which position (spot) that digit belongs (e.g.: the first digit). If they are correct, the disc is discarded into a slot in the game board and the digit is lit up in the price display. If they are incorrect, the disc is returned to the bag and the contestant needs to draw again. If the contestant draws a strike, a strike marker is lit on the board and the strike is returned to the bag.
The contestant may continue to draw as many times as possible until they either correctly position each digit in the price and win the car, or draw the strike three times and lose the game.
[edit] History
From the game's premiere in 1976 through February 1998, there were three "X" discs placed in the bag. When a strike was drawn it was not returned to the bag, but discarded into the slot in the game board, which prompted the next strike indicator to light up above it. The current format took effect at the end of the 1997-1998 season after the producers reasoned the use of five-digit cars was resulting in a decreased win rate.
Over time the props used in this game have had additional references to baseball added to them. The baseballs on the game prop were added in the early '80s and the bag from which chips are drawn was made to look like a baseball in the late '80s. The baseball "NO" graphic (used when the contestant guesses a position incorrectly) was only used from 1998 through 2002, replacing a prior graphic consisting of "NO" inside a black circle that was used from the late 1980s until 1998. The Davidson version used a different graphic for this situation, which showed a red outline of the selected number window melting off the board and falling to the floor. The current graphic is simply the word "NO" in large red letters.
Through the early 1990s, the game was played using both four- and five-digit cars. Except for the first few times it was done, when five-digit cars were offered, the game was known as "3 Strikes +". Even though four-digit cars were no longer used in the game after June 17, 1993, it retained the "3 Strikes +" name until February 10, 1994 (although the + sign was absent on January 27, 1994).
On 1994's syndicated The New Price Is Right, the first digit of the car's price was given for free.
On February 28, 1992, 3 Strikes seemingly fell victim to a cheater. The contestant had two discs remaining in the bag, a strike and the last number. She partially drew a disc out of the bag, then quickly put it back in before anyone else could see what it was. A few seconds later, she drew the number and won. Although the show's staff has never publicly accused the contestant of cheating, the game used new strike discs whose color scheme more closely resembled that of the number discs for several months after her episode, and 3 Strikes + was not played again for the remainder of the season.
A contestant also cheated in the game in 1988; she began to pull the third strike out of the bag, then put it back, thinking no one would notice. Bob Barker did notice, and he chided her for it. She ended up pulling the third strike all the way out on a later draw.
