After 22 Years, Bob Barker’s Still Right for ‘Price’

3 p.m. Some in the long line outside CBS Studio 33 off Fairfax have been there since 8 a.m., yellow labels stuck to their chests displaying their first names and an ID number. They study the visitor walking the line, watching him, alert, smiling. Ready!

Ready to turn on the right, bright, bubbly attitude. Just in case. Just in case the visitor is a producer and stops to talk, measuring them, their chances to be on . . . smile . . . “THE PRICE IS RIGHT!!!”

*

Bob Barker sheds his trousers and steps into a pair of jeans, carefully hanging his black, tailored suit on a hanger in his dressing room inside CBS Studio 33. Seven miniature Emmys are painted on the door. He swaps the starched dress shirt for a sports shirt and eases onto a chair.

Rest time. Nap time, usually, between the day’s two tapings of the hourlong game show, “The Price Is Right.” But there’s a visitor today.

This is taping week. Two shows every day. Five days a week. Two weeks of taping, then one week off. For Barker it’s all routine, he says. Been doing it longer than any person in the Western world--television’s longest runner. Still definitely trim at 69. Still sharp in exchanges with the audience, answering questions, talking golf, saving animals.

His life reads more like the Guinness Book of World Records than a standard bio.

The current daytime version of “The Price Is Right” is in its 22nd year, the most durable game show in all of history, consistently in the Top 10 for daytime ratings. And its host has had more consecutive weekday appearances on network television than anyone: more than 10,000.

He is arguably the most generous person on television, having given away more than $115 million worth of gifts through good times, recessions, inflation, deflation, stagflation.

He was also the first man on television to gain formal network approval to let his hair stay its natural gray-white, a precedent for future generations of TV hosts.

On Dec. 21 he’ll be celebrating his 37th year in television, having his annual lunch and drink with his first TV boss, Ralph Edwards, who hired him in 1956 (after 10 years in radio) as host of NBC’s “Truth or Consequences.”

But Barker is more than TV host. He carries the title of executive producer for the show.

What does an executive producer of history’s most enduring game show do?

“That’s a good question,” he says, turning to one of his two producers, Roger Dobkowitz. “Roger, what does my title mean?”

Roger: “Make sure all the little people are doing their jobs.”

*

4 p.m. Inside Studio 33, all of the little people are doing their jobs, prepping the three sets but mostly stirring the juices of the audience.

Announcer Rod Roddy, in striking blood-red shirt and sparkling purple jacket, is exhorting the 300 people who finally got in--their names and numbers still stuck to their chests, their attitudes still up, bouncing, smiling, swaying, knowing just where the camera is.

“I will shout out the prices,” Roddy yells. “I will shout out the prices,” the 300 voices roar in return.

“I will not go to the bathroom while the show is on the air . . . (Ditto!)

“I promise not to throw anything at Rod Roddy if he doesn’t call my name . . . (Ditto!)

“What an exciting moment in your life . . . . You feel warm and wonderful all over. Yes?” “Yes!!!”

The calculated warm-up is part theater and pep rally, political convention and tent meeting, all with a heavy touch of high-impact aerobics.

“Are you ready? Ladies and gentlemen, Bob Barker . . . . Everyone up, everyone up . . . . “

*

“It’s a cross-section of life here,” Barker says, leaning back into his chair. “It is fraught with everything. You have a chance to win literally thousands of dollars and in danger of losing everything. It’s drama. But we’re having fun. We never claim we are solving the problems of the world here. We are helping people forget their problems for an hour.

“Every show we tape, we break the record as the longest-running show. Because we deal with prices and everyone identifies with prices, the viewers become involved. Beyond that we have a fast-moving show that changes every day with six different games. There are 55 games total, and I know them all. Can you imagine what it would be for a new emcee to learn 55 games?

“The show is never scripted. This is the only thing written down.” He points to a yellow sheet of paper with the names and order of six games written on it for the next taping. “When I come in here I don’t even know what we are playing. Everything else is ad libbed.

“It’s the only show on air where people are selected out of the audience. Others are pre-selected. When I go out there, all I know is the first names of the first four contestants. Maria, Christopher, Katherine, Winton.”

While Barker has helped give away millions to Maria, Christopher, et al., over all those record-breaking years, there have been times for him when the price hasn’t always been right.

Five years ago, Barker, TV’s most visible animal-rights proponent, quit as long-time host of the Miss USA and Miss Universe beauty pageants over the use of animal furs, forfeiting more than $125,000 in annual fees. At one time, he estimated he had turned down a total of about $1 million in commercial and appearance fees, in most cases because the advertiser was selling meat products or had been involved in animal testing.

He balked for another reason when “The Price Is Right” executives planned on a 900 telephone-number version of the game. “I just don’t want to be associated with those 900 numbers,” he says. “I’ve been around so long that I feel that there are people who have watched me and hopefully they have confidence in me, and I don’t want someone to take advantage of them. It’s as simple as that. I won’t be involved in taking advantage of less-than-sophisticated viewers.” The idea was shelved.

*

4:30 p.m. The warm-up is in its final agonies. Prizes are in place. Sets are ready. Barker stands tall and relaxed in front of the audience, clearly a man at home, in control.

“We’re going to spread around the loot for the rest of the hour. You say you have something for me?” he asks an audience member. “Then come on down and give it to me before you change your mind.”

A Boston Celtics T-shirt is alternately cheered and booed.

“Anyone else bring me a gift?”

Two more T-shirts are rushed to the stage.

*

In the 22 years Barker has been hosting the daytime show, “The Price Is Right” has had several nighttime incarnations with different hosts. Currently Paramount Television is considering a nightly version for 1994.

“I was offered to be host of that show,” he says, “but that would be one hour five nights a week. It was the third time I was offered something like that and the third time I turned down such an offer. I don’t want to be on five nights a week and five days a week. I would like to do the nighttime once a week. So Paramount probably will try for another host and have different sets and a different look.

“Will it be confusing? We’ll just have to wait and see. It hasn’t in the past.”

5:30 p.m. The hour is winding down, but the audience is still up, stirring. Time for the final moment and Barker’s still unscripted close, though as familiar to him as the 55 games: “Help control pet population,” he says. “Have your pet spayed or neutered.”

Then it’s over for that day. The 300 audience members, still bouncing, are reminded to deposit the postcards they were given in special boxes as they leave. “Tell your friends and relatives when you’ll be on television,” they’re reminded. “Dec. 10, 1993.”

Another record breaker.