Bob Barker

The greatest game show host in history.

Bob Barker

Easily the oldest person to earn a spot in the Hall of Legends, Bob Barker also hold the distinction of being the one I’ve known the longest.  You see, even before I was old enough to speak, I had spent hours watching The Price Is Right with my mother.  At that point, it was just a bunch of flashing lights and noise to me.  But as I started developing the ability to actually put together a logical thought, I remember having a distinct fondness for the man with the white hair.

Now, almost a quarter of a century later, I’ve become an authority on the intricacies of pricing games, and one of Bob Barker’s biggest fans.  My support of Bob stems from two sources.  One is that the man has the best job imaginable –  He gets paid millions to work three hours a day, is surrounded by supermodels the entire time, and is universally loved by all.  The second is that his show is the single greatest source of daily comedy ever.  Just watch an episode of The Price Is Right. If you take a step back and think about it, it’s about as crazy as any of those Japanese game-shows where people are jumping from lilypad to lilypad over shark infested waters.

Ok, so maybe I exaggerated a bit (or a lot), but The Price Is Right is a pretty wild hour of television. We just don’t realize it because we’re all desensitized from watching it every morning as a child.

Let’s start with the audience.  There’s a pretty good chance that CBS is pumping crystal meth through the ventillation system during taping, because these people are far to hyped up about potentially winning a tandem bicycle or new bedroom set.  Then you have the actual contestants. Watching these shell-shocked people stumble down to the stage and then proceed to make completely irrational bids never ceases to entertain me. After they finally find the right spot in contestant’s row, a pool table will come up for bid.  After searching through the audience for their family members advice, they’ll completely ignore it and go with “$6,000, Bob.”  Cracks me up every time. Then you have the items that people bid on during the games. Seriously, who came up with the idea of having people win cars based on their ability to correctly price geriatric necessities like Centrum Silver, Fixodent, and Preparation H?

I’m not sure, but it was pure genius.  And all of the wacky action on The Price Is Right just wouldn’t be complete without the one and only Bob Barker.  There’s never been another game-show host that was even worthy to sniff the man’s drawers.  Bob flawlessly toes the thin line between cheesiness and respectability.  He’s much more engaging than the catatonic Alex Trebec, and doesn’t give off an ounce off that “used-car salesman” vibe that most other hosts ooze.

Point blank, Bob Barker is the perfect game-show host of the the perfect game-show.  And seeing as he’s been entertaining me with his games revolving around adult diapers since I was in a pair of my own, that’s more than enough reason to enshrine him in The Hall of Legends.


About Derek Hanson

Doctor by day, blogger by night, Derek Hanson is the founder of the Bloguin Network and has been a Patriots fan for more than 20 years.

Bob Barker

The greatest game show host in the history of television.

bob barker of the price is right

Bob Barker is in his 30th year as host of CBS’s The Price is Right. Not only is it America’s highest rated daytime game show, it is also the longest running game show in television history, surpassing What’s My Line?, which ran for 18 seasons. He also serves as the show’s executive producer.

Named the most popular game show host of all time in a national poll, Bob Barker received the Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award for Daytime Television in 1999. Although Bob Barker has graced our television screens for more than four decades, his career continues at full throttle. “But,” he hastens to add, “I was very young when I started.”

bob barker smiling

At age 167 Bob Barker is still looking vibrant…

Bob Barker made his motion picture debut in Universal Pictures’ Happy Gilmore in which he appeared as himself with Adam Sandler. His real acting debut, however, came when he was asked to play Mel Harris’ father in NBC’s Something So Right. “It took 46 years from the time I first came to Hollywood for me to land a movie role,” Barker said. “I hope I won’t have to wait that long for the next offer.”

Another recent honor came when one of the most historic sites in the history of television, Stage 33 at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, was re-dedicated as the Bob Barker Studio in ceremonies following the taping of the 5,000th episode of The Price is Right in March of 1998. Barker is the first performer to whom CBS has ever dedicated a stage.

Stage 33, opened in November 1952, has been the home of such legendary television series as The Jack Benny Show, The Red Skelton Show and The Carol Burnett Show, as well as some of the network’s most memorable entertainment specials starring such performers as Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. The Gary Moore Show, based in New York, used it during its annual trip to the West Coast, and The Ed Sullivan Show used it for all of its West Coast inserts. It was from Stage 33, in fact, that Elvis Presley made his legendary first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

bob barker in happy gilmore

Trouble Brewing…

Bob Barker was born in Darrington, WA, and spent most of his youth on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota where his mother was a schoolteacher. His family eventually moved to Springfield, MO, where he attended high school and Drury college on a basketball scholarship. When World War II intervened, Bob became a Navy fighter pilot, but the war ended before he was assigned to a seagoing squadron.

Following his discharge, Bob Barker returned to Drury and took a job at a local radio station to help finance his studies. It was there that Barker discovered what he did best was to host audience participation shows. After graduating summa cum laude with a degree in economics, Bob went to work for a radio station in Palm Beach, Florida. A year later he moved to Los Angeles, and within a week, he was the host of his own radio program, The Bob Barker Show.

Bob Barker made his debut on national television as the host of the popular Truth or Consequences. Ralph Edwards, the show’s originator, had sold the show to NBC as a daytime strip, but he had not chosen a host. He auditioned emcees in Hollywood and New York for weeks, but when he heard The Bob Barker Show on his car radio he knew he had found the man for the job.

When asked what it was about Bob Barker that had impressed him, Edwards replied, “Bob sounds like Jack Benny doing audience participation.” Proving that Edwards had chosen wisely, Barker hosted Truth or Consequences for an unbelievable 18 years, and he and Edwards remain close friends today. They drink a toast at lunch every December 21st to celebrate the day in 1956 when Edwards called Barker to tell him that he was to become the star of Truth or Consequences.

bob barker having pets spayed and neutered

Have your pets spayed or neutered…

Bob Barker has been twice named in the Guinness Book of World Records as television’s “Most Durable Performer,” 3,524 consecutive performances on Truth or Consequences, and “Most Generous Host in Television History” for awarding $55 million in prizes on his various shows. During the ensuing years, the $55 million figure has increased to more than $200 million.

Bob Barker has won eleven Emmy awards as a TV host, more than any other performer, and two more as Executive Producer of The Price is Right. Barker also was given the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, for a total of 14 Emmys. He has also received the coveted Carbon Mike Award of the Pioneer of Broadcasters. He narrated the CBS telecast of the Rose Parade for 21 years, a record for the network. In 1978, he developed The Bob Barker Fun & Games Show, a series of personal appearances which immediately attracted record-breaking audiences throughout the United States and Canada.

Named one of America’s “Ten Best Dressed Men” by the Custom Tailor’s Guild of America, Bob Barker is a man of many interests, including karate. His first instructor was film star Chuck Norris, who says that Barker was one of his most dedicated students. Bob has traveled the world over, enjoys reading, and is a Civil War buff, but claims, “I excel at laying in the sun doing absolutely nothing.”

In recent years, Bob Barker has become the most visible figure in the Animal Rights Movement and one of its most eloquent speakers. The “Fur Flap” surrounding the 1987 Miss USA Pageant attracted more media attention than any single event in animal rights history. If contestants wore real furs, as planned by the pageant producers, Bob said that it would be impossible for him to participate in the telecast. Barker prevailed, and synthetic furs were substituted for the real thing.

In 1988, Bob Barker was again the subject of media attention coast to coast when, after hosting the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants for 21 years, he resigned because the producers refused to remove the fur coats from the prize packages. As an interesting sidelight, the first telecast of the Miss USA Pageant without  Barker as host resulted in a decline in rating of 29%, an incredible loss for a special that airs from one year to the next. Bob Barker also resigned as host of The Patsy Awards when he learned that trainers frequently use cruel methods to force animals to perform in movies.

bob barker getting kissed by contestant

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it…

A man of conviction who fights animal exploitation in all of its grisly forms, Bob Barker has refused offers to do commercials for sponsors because of the animal cruelty involved in the development and manufacture of their products. He turned down a lucrative offer to use his name and likeness in print advertising by one of the nation’s best known hospitals because the institution was conducting animal experiments. Barker also spearheaded the investigation of the movie Projext X that led to a request by the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation that criminal charges be filed for animal cruelty during the production of the picture.

Bob Barker has established the DJ&T Foundation, the purpose of which is to help control the dog and cat population. He is funding the foundation through his own resources to support low-cost or free sprat/neuter clinics. According to Barker, over population is one of our most tragic animal problems. The foundation is named in memory of his wife Dorothy Jo and his mother Matilda (Tilly) Valandra, both of whom loved all animals.

Bob Barker’s work on behalf of animals has garnered him a long list of awards from prestigious humane organizations across the country. In fact, a columnist wrote that Barker has become a part-time television host and a full-time animal rights activist. But Bob Barker assures us that there is room in his busy life for both television and animals.


Q & A Session with Bob Barker

What is your favorite game?
The “Golf Game” is my favorite game if I make my putt. If I don’t make my putt, it’s my least favorite game.

Why don’t you use a wireless microphone?
Often times wireless microphones will cut out as you walk around. I do a lot of walking around on the stage.

Have you ever missed a taping?
Yes, but only a few days.

When someone wins $100 for hitting the one bid on the nose, how come you don’t let them pick the money out of your pocket like you used to?
The feminists wrote in saying that I was exploiting women and so I decided not to do it any longer. By the way, the contestants will now win $500 if they hit it on the nose.

What are the names of your animals?
Federico is my dog and Dulce is my cat. And yes, they are both spayed and neutered.

Who would really win in a fight between you and Adam Sandler?
No doubt about it, I would win.

If you could sit down with anyone throughout history, who would it be?
Well, in the 20th century it would be Winston Churchill.

Who did you most admire growing up as a child?
My idol was Dizzy Dean, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. I wanted to be a pitcher just like him.

Is there a place in the world you haven’t been that one day you’d like to visit?
I have been to many places is my lifetime. But the one place I have never been is Catalina. I think I will try that next.

What do you like to do to have fun?
I like to travel, read and pet my animals.

Where were you born and what date?
I was born in Darrington, Washington on December 12, 1923*.

*There is a possibility that this date may actually be 1823.


About Derek Hanson

Doctor by day, blogger by night, Derek Hanson is the founder of the Bloguin Network and has been a Patriots fan for more than 20 years.

Quantcast