Check-Out

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Drew Carey and a contestant playing "Check-Out."
Drew Carey and a contestant playing "Check-Out."

Check-Out is a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Debuting on January 28, 1982, it is played for a four-digit prize, usually valued between $2,000 and $10,000, and uses grocery items.

[edit] Gameplay

One by one, the contestant is asked to give a price for five grocery items. After all five prices are guessed, the contestant's guesses are totaled.

The actual prices for the five grocery items are then announced, one at a time. If the contestant's total is within $2 of the actual total (above or below), the contestant wins the prize.

This is the only pricing game in which the contestant can go over the actual total and still win.

[edit] History

Former host Bob Barker and a contestant in front of the "Check-Out" board, with current colors as well as the now-removed calculator
Former host Bob Barker and a contestant in front of the "Check-Out" board, with current colors as well as the now-removed calculator

Check-Out was created by Kathy Greco and Barbara Hunter, both production assistants. [1]

The original winning range was 50 cents. This changed to $1 in April 1995, before being raised to its current spread in October 2003.

For many years, the game's set included a "calculator" that the models used to enter the contestant's guesses. The calculator was removed in 2001, largely because the buttons no longer actually had a functional purpose, a fact which had inadvertently been made obvious on-the-air during one of its last appearances.