Jersey Joe: Bob Barker, Come on Down!
Aug06

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Jersey Joe: Bob Barker, Come on Down!

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a blogumn by Jersey Joe

When I was a kid, I would love having a day off of school.  It always meant that I would get to watch the great daytime television I was always forced to miss.  I couldn’t wait for 11am, when I would tune in (yes, we had a roof top antenna, so I had to tune in) CBS for The Price is Right.  It was a treat to play along with the pricing games, despite being so young and having no idea what the cost of Rice-a-Roni was.  Bob Barker was an amazing host.  He would get kissed, hugged, and pretty much thrown around by the excited contestants.  Even though Bob retired from TV in 2006, he has signed a deal to co-host a test run talk show.  With this, I thought it was time to look back at this television legend’s life and, at times, troubled career.

Long before Bob took the reigns of The Price is Right, he grew up in the small town of Darrington, Washington.  He spent much time at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, in fact Bob is 1/8th Sioux Native American Indian.  After his father was killed, falling from an electrical tower while working as a linesman, the family moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he graduated from high school in 1941.

Bob would enroll in Drury College on a basketball scholarship, but his time was cut short by joining in the Navy as a fighter pilot during World War II.  He would not see any action during the war as the conflict ended before he was assigned to go overseas.  After his service, he went back to college and graduated with a degree in economics.  While back in school, he landed his first broadcasting job at KTTS-FM, a station in his town.

He would eventually head for the radio airwaves in Florida and finally California.  Once in the Los Angeles, he hosted an audience participation show on KNX-AM.  Veteran game show producer Ralph Edwards (who also created The People’s Court) heard Bob’s voice, liked his style, and signed him to replace Jack Bailey, ending a rotation of hosts on his classic television game Truth or Consequences.

Bob would host this show from December 31, 1956 until the end of its syndicated run 1975.

During his last few years hosting Consequences, Bob hosted a few rather unknown game shows including End of the Rainbow for NBC and The Family Game for ABC. Neither lasted long.


In 1971, he hosted an experimental pilot for a game show called Simon Says.  The show was basically Let’s Make a Deal, meets The Joker’s Wild, with the contestants battling a mega computer.  It was an extremely early version of interactive television!  This pilot was shot for NBC, but never made it to air.  A short clip exists on Youtube, unfortunately with terrible audio quality.

Finally in 1972, CBS decided it wanted to beef up its morning game show lineup and a new series called Price is Right was part of the plan.  The show had originally aired from 1956 – 1965 with Bill Cullen as host.  While parts of the original version (including the bidding rounds) were used, the show received a massive overhaul.

On September 4, 1972, the new and modern version of Price debuted along with Gambit and The Joker’s Wild, creating a morning game show powerhouse that lasted for years.  A nighttime version also debuted with Dennis James as host, but Barker would eventually take over this run as well.  He advised, but not participated in the short lived nighttime revivals in the mid 80’s and again in the mid 90’s.

Barker had a style all his own when it came to those thousands of contestants that got to “Come on down!” to bid for a chance to play a pricing game on stage.  Later in Bob’s years, he would often remark when a player did something that marked a “historic moment” for the show.  It seemed towards the end that there was at least one of these a week.

Barker began his signature phrase “Help control the pet population.  Have your pet spayed and neutered” starting in the 1980’s.  It was his then wife, who was a major animal rights activist, who persuaded Barker to follow suit.  He even banned fur coats as prizes, although they were often given away during the early years.

Barker would stay with the show for 35 years until retiring in 2007.  Drew Carey has since taken over and the show has been modernized with the addition of video monitors and flat panel displays.  During Barker’s tenure, the show maintained a very retro 70’s look, right down to prizes on simple photographs, light bulb scoreboards, and very little use of computer technology.

Barker married his high school sweetheart Dorothy Jo Gideon in 1945 and they stayed together until her death from lung cancer in 1981.  He never remarried, but he did engage in a relationship with one of Price’s models Dian Parkinson, which ended in a very public lawsuit.

Parkinson sued Barker after dating him for several years and left the show.  A slew of other lawsuits were slapped on him by various staff members behind the scenes.  Cases were filed for models terminated for weight gain, testifying during other lawsuits against Barker, wrongful termination, and sexual harassment.  Most cases were settled out of court. Barker was never officially found guilty, but he ended up paying a hefty sum to most of the plaintiffs.  He was cleared of any wrongdoing when the parent company, Fremantlemedia, released numerous models and staff as a cost cutting move during the early 2000’s.

Barker has had numerous health scares over the years, many while still hosting Price.  He suffered a minor stoke while exercising in 1991, had surgery for a blocked artery while visiting Washington DC for a speaking engagement in 1999, another stroke while sunbathing in 2002, and prostate surgery just a few weeks later.

One of Bob’s most loved big screen appearances was a scene in Happy Gilmore with actor Adam Sandler.  In the scene, an angry Bob beats up Sandler during a golf tournament.  The scene ends with Barker saying “Now, you’ve had enough, Bitch!”

Since retiring, Bob has penned a book, Priceless Memories.  He toured the country after the book’s release and appeared on numerous talk shows.  He even made a guest appearance during the showcase round on Price in 2009.  The audience gave Barker a standing ovation so long, that the taping had to be stopped, and the show edited for time.

What recently caught my attention was a press release announcing Bob has signed a deal to be a rotating guest host, on former Arkansas governor Mike Hukabee’s test run of The Huckabee Show.  The show is airing in New York, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, Tampa, and Minneapolis for the next few weeks.

It still amazes me how this man stays active after all these years.  I watched an episode of Huckabee, while Bob was guest hosting.  We were treated to many of the same stories he’s told over and over during the years.  He even exclaimed to the audience how he wished he had a refrigerator to give away to everyone.  That clip was used to death in bumpers and promos for the episode.

It was refreshing to once again hear Bob talk about his favorite Price moment.  It was from an episode in the 1970’s, when a woman named Yolonda Bowsley, was called to “Come on down!”  While she ran down to the contestants row, her tube top slipped, and her breasts were out and about for all to enjoy.  The clip aired on CBS, although with a big OOPS banner overtop.  Bob has said over and over: “she came on down and they came on out!”

Barker, now 86, still continues to travel across the country pushing for animal rights and to promote his book with the occasional talk show appearance.  It’s great to see him still going at his age.  Bob was right to retire from Price when he did.  He would often start to yell and insult the contestants when he’d had enough.  At times that was very funny, but other times it was a bit uncomfortable and insulting.  Not all contestants are camera trained and they don’t always act as they should when they get up on stage.

Barker recently was engaged in a feud with actress Betty White.  They were both booked to appear at the 2009 Game Show Awards on GSN.  However, due to a disagreement over a plan to relocate an elephant to a sanctuary in San Andreas, Barker threatened not to show up at the ceremony if White was there.  As a result, White only appeared in a taped segment.

He also appeared in a December 2009 episode of WWE Raw as a guest host.

Barker’s definitely had his troubles backstage.  There’s no way that all of these lawsuits can be explained away.  Although he was never convicted, some of the settlements have clauses that prevent anyone but Barker from commenting, and he has little to say.  Also, many hosts that are nice, polite, and fun on camera, can be the exact opposite backstage.  I have no proof that Barker is this way and I’m not saying that he was, but it certainly seems that could have been a possibility during his run on Price and is something to think about.  He did have to maintain control as executive producer and we’re grateful he did.  If not, we may not have this great show on the air today.


THE 411

BOB BARKER

Age: 86

Occupation: Emmy award winning game show host

Most noted for: 35 year emcee of The Price is Right on CBS.

Hometown: Darrington, WA

JERSEY JOE RECCOMMENDS: If you live in one of the six test cities, check out Bob during one of his appearance on The Huckabee Show.  The show itself is terrible, but it’s great to see Bob on the air again.  It has not been announced when Barker will be back, so check your local listings.  Also, 26 Bob Price is Right episodes, including his first and last, the first appearance of the Big Wheel, and many episodes from the early 70’s are available on The Best of Price is Right DVD set.  It’s definitely worth checking out!  There are also rare black and white episodes of the Bill Cullen 1950’s version in the set as well.