“I had the opportunity to do this type of show and I discovered I enjoyed it. His career longevity, he said, was the result of being content. Like the mic itself, the mic cord served him well as a prop, insouciantly flicked and finessed.
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“Perhaps my feeling of respect for them comes across to viewers, and that may be one of the reasons why I’ve lasted.”Īs a TV personality, Barker retained a touch of the old school - for instance, no wireless microphone for him. “I want the contestants to feel as though they’re guests in my home,” he said in 1996. His own appeal was clear: Barker played it straight - warm, gracious and witty - refusing to mock the game show format or his contestants. Viewers at home become involved because they all have an opinion on the bids,” Barker once said. “Everyone can identify with prices, even the president of the United States. I will carry his memory in my heart forever,” Carey wrote in a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.īarker well understood the attraction of “The Price Is Right,” in which audience members - invited to “Come on down!” to the stage - competed for prizes by trying to guess their retail value. “There hasn’t been a day on set that I didn’t think of Bob Barker and thank him. He was there to promote the publication of his memoir, “Priceless Memories,” in which he summed up his joy from hosting the show as the opportunity “to watch people reveal themselves and to watch the excitement and humor unfold.” Better (to leave) a year too soon than a year too late.” Comedian Drew Carey was chosen to replace him.īarker was back with Carey for one show broadcast in April 2009. He said he was retiring because “I’m just reaching the age where the constant effort to be there and do the show physically is a lot for me. While harassment and infantilization of adult women is still widespread on reality TV, the increased stigma surrounding pedophilia and moral outrage about sex offenders makes me suspect that a male host forcing kisses on girls week after week today would meet with a significantly more negative response.In all, he taped more than 5,000 shows in his career. Presumably many people may have found the behavior disturbing at the time the show (and others with similar behavior) was on the air, but it was sufficiently acceptable for an adult man to try to force young girls to kiss him that he was allowed to do it repeatedly on air. Host Fergie Olver seemed to have a running gag of trying to get the young female contestants on the show to kiss him, even trying to sneak kisses after girls had very clearly said no (Note: A couple of readers suggested a warning that the video might be particularly uncomfortable or upsetting for some viewers because of the content):Īside from the harassment, it’s a great example of changing social norms. But reader Melissa sent in another example of harassment and general creepiness on game shows, this time from the 1980s Canadian show Just Like Mom. Sadly, that video has been yanked from YouTube. A while back, Lisa posted a video of clips of Bob Barker harassing women - sorry, “girls,” as he invariably referred to them - on The Price Is Right.
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