Clock Game
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Clock Game is a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Debuting on the show's sixth episode on September 11, 1972, it is played for two prizes, each worth between $400 and $999; and a $1,000 cash bonus.
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[edit] Game play
The contestant has 30 seconds to deduce the price of two prizes, one at a time. The contestant makes guesses at the price; after each guess, the host will tell the contestant to bid "higher" or "lower," until they guess the correct price, which is displayed on screen for the audience. Unlike most pricing games, the audience is not allowed to provide contestants with any help during Clock Game. On some occasions, audience members have blurted out answers despite being told not to. If this happens, generally, offending audience members are removed from the studio.
If the contestant successfully guesses the price of the first prize within the 30 second time limit, they use whatever time remains to bid on the second prize, as before. Successfully guessing both prices wins the contestant a $1,000 bonus; however, if time expires while bidding on the second item, the contestant still wins the first prize. If time expires before the contestant correctly guesses the price of the first prize, the game ends and they do not win either prize.
The contestant is allowed to take shortcuts in pronunciation (e.g.: "nine seventy-one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine" will test all prices in the $971-$979 range). One commonly used logical strategy for the game is binary search strategy, which makes the game fairly easy to win.
Should the host stumble on commands and cause the game to be lost in a photo finish, the prize being bid on will usually be awarded to the contestant (plus the $1,000 if applicable).
[edit] History
Two price holders are used in this game which were specially handmade in 1972 when the game debuted. They are irreplaceable since the person who made them has been dead for years, and no one else knows how to make them. They were also used in Bullseye and Double Bullseye.
Clock Game's clock was very problematic during its first rehearsals back in 1972, to the point where it very nearly never debuted. Two early Clock Game losers were awarded their prizes after their shows were taped because the clock had counted down from 30 to 0 in only 22 seconds.
The $1,000 cash bonus was added on December 14, 1998, as a way to compensate for the fact that Clock Game never offers prizes worth more than $999. During the prime-time specials that aired in 1986, a winning contestant chose a cash bonus from one of four envelopes. The available bonuses were $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, and $5,000. In all prime time specials since 2002, a $5,000 bonus has been awarded to winners. It is believed that during the early part of the 1970s syndicated edition, players won a $1,000 bonus for winning both prizes with at least 2 seconds to spare.
For a brief period in the early 1980s, Clock Game was played with four-digit prizes, including cars, but the large numbers proved to be too hard for contestants to handle in the fast-paced game. Spotting contestants the thousands digit and not requiring them to say it didn't help matters. Contestants, however, in more recent episodes have started their bids in the $1,000-$2,000 range anyway.
On 1994's syndicated The New Price Is Right, the game was played using the show's on-set video wall (with a digital clock). The game frequently used prizes with four-digit prices (the contestant was provided with a $1,000 range to guess the price in), and on some occasions, a third prize was awarded as a bonus for winning.
The chroma key screen on the Clock Game board was problematic in 2003 after the turntable was redesigned to a pink/purple/blue pattern, as the blue from the turntable was interfering with the chroma key. To combat this, the producers originally placed a large yellow circle behind the game, until finally repainting the board yellow several weeks later with the chroma key changing to green. In 2005, the board was repainted again to feature a blue border and base which is still used today.
On the April 4, 2008 episode of the $1,000,000 Spectacular, Clock Game was selected as the Million Dollar Game, and the contestant who played it had to guess the actual retail price of both prizes within less than 10 seconds. The contestant who did so won the $1,000,000 prize (in addition to the regular $5,000 bonus for winning both prizes in the normal time limit) helped in part because she had guessed the actual retail price of the first item on her first guess.
[edit] Foreign versions of Clock Game
Clock Game is played on versions of The Price Is Right in numerous countries besides the United States, sometimes with minor alterations; for instance, on the UK's Bruce's Price Is Right, contestants were told that all of the game's prices ended in 5 or 0. The 1980s UK version took a markedly different approach; after using Clock Game in its first series, the game was replaced with an original pricing game called "Time-Play". Time-Play gave a contestant 30 seconds to guess the prices of three prizes, and the clock would not stop after correct guesses.
On Mexico's Atínale al Precio, the contestant was given 45 seconds to guess the prices of three products, rather than the usual 30 seconds to guess two.
