One Away
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One Away is a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Debuting on December 4, 1984, it is played for a car.
[edit] Game Play
The contestant is shown an incorrect price for the car, with each digit one higher or lower than the actual digit in the price (zero and nine are considered to be one away from each other in this game). The contestant is asked to change each of the digits to the correct digit.
After all five digits are changed, the contestant is requested to ask the backstage directors (who, specifically, has changed; see History) if they have one, then two, then three, four, and then five numbers right, in order, and is met with a car horn each time the answer is "yes". If every number is wrong, the contestant immediately loses (a very rare event, given that the first digit is very easy nowadays). Otherwise, the contestant is given one more opportunity to change however many digits they have wrong, without being told which digits are correct. The price is then revealed one digit at a time until the result is determined or inferred by the number of digits changed.
[edit] History
One Away was played for cars less than $10,000 during the 1980s with a dollar sign placed on the first trilon. In the early 1990s, it was frequently played for luxury cars.
During Bob Barker's tenure, contestants were instructed to use the phrasing, "ladies (or earlier, gentlemen), do I have at least one number right?" Drew Carey instructs the contestants to use the phrasing "Oh great/mighty sound effects lady/woman/person..." or otherwise grovel, plead, or pander to the sound effects operator. Usually, the contestant will be asked to kneel while asking if all five numbers are correct. If a contestant botches the phrase or does not use enough emotion, and does not have the next amount of correct numbers, Drew will humorously claim that they 'angered her'. On the short lived Doug Davidson version in 1994 the phrasing was "People in Control..." Whenever the game was played on Tom Kennedy's syndicated version, instead of the contestant asking how many numbers were right, Kennedy did it himself, without addressing the backstage staff as either "ladies" or "gentlemen".
In the Million Dollar Spectacular on February 22, 2008, a $1,000,000 bonus was offered if the contestant could guess the price correctly on the first attempt.
[edit] Foreign versions of One Away
One Away is played on versions of The Price Is Right in numerous countries besides the United States, using anywhere from four to six digits and generally holding true to its American rules. The only version known to be significantly different from the original was that found on the 1980s UK version of the show; on that programme, the game was played for prizes with 3-digit prices, and contestants were given only one chance to guess the price.
On most foreign versions of the show, contestants are simply given a series of bells after their first turn to indicate how many numbers they have right. However, Cash en Carlo in the Netherlands does have its contestants ask for bells one at a time, although the question is directed at the announcer instead of the sound effects operator.
