On the Spot (pricing game)
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On the Spot was a pricing game on the American television game show, The Price Is Right. Played from January 27, 2003 to November 5, 2004, it was played for a car, and used small prizes.
[edit] Gameplay
The contestant began in the center of a large circle (the "spot") on the stage. The circle had three paths leading from it to the outside of the spot; each path consisted of three steps marked with prices. These prices corresponded with six small prizes which were shown to the contestant. The contestant selected a path and moved to the first step. They had to select the prize whose price matched the step they were on. If they selected correctly, they won the small prize and repeated the process for the second and third steps.
If they guessed all three prizes correctly, they moved off the spot and won the car. However, if they made a mistake on any prize, they returned to the center of the spot and had to begin again with a different path. If the contestant made mistakes on all three paths, the game ended in a loss.
There were always some duplicate prices amongst the three paths; if a contestant had correctly guessed a price on a previous path, they were allowed to skip that price on subsequent paths.
[edit] History
The circles displaying the prices on the spot initially displayed the price twice in identical font facing both the contestant and the audience. After the second playing, during which host Bob Barker mistook an upside-down "68" for an "89", the circles were changed to display a large price, facing the audience, with a much smaller price behind the circle, facing the contestant.
Except for its last two playings, the paths used the following patterns for the prices: A-B-D, B-C-E, and C-A-F. The patterns were changed in an attempt to make the game easier; while successful, the effort still wasn't enough to save the game, and the revised patterns made some prizes impossible to win.
[edit] Retirement
After its last playing in November 2004, the game was removed from the pricing game rotation, presumably for re-tooling. On the Spot was officially retired in the spring of 2005 due to its confusing rules and low win percentage. Additionally, it was won only 11 out of the 26 times it was played. On The Spot is the only game introduced in the 2000s to be retired.
