The Price is Right (1994)


Aired
Syndicated, September 12, 1994 – January 27, 1995
Number of episodes
80
Run time
30 Minutes
Host
Doug Davidson
Announcers
Burton Richardson
Origination
Studio 33, CBS Television City, Los Angeles, California

This is chronicling the ill-fated short-lived 1994 version of The Price is Right (also called The New Price is Right, not to be confused with the current version's original title). This version was distributed by Paramount Television.

Game Format[]

Three contestants from the studio audience were called by Richardson to "Come on Down!" and directly played a pricing game for a prize.

Pricing Games[]

Some pricing games on The New Price Is Right were played with slight modifications to the rules as played on the daytime version. Games which usually featured grocery products were played with unwinnable small prizes instead (e.g., Golden Road, Grand Game and Hole in One (or Two)), and some games featured other experimental rule changes.

Barker's Markers: The name was changed to "Make Your Mark" the single time it was played on this version of the show, as Bob Barker was not the host of this version. This name was adopted on the daytime show in 2008 when Drew Carey became the host.
Clock Game: The game was digitized, with no prop on stage for it, and the contestant was provided with a $1000 range in which to guess the price of each prize. The game frequently used prizes with four-digit prices. On some occasions a third prize was awarded as a bonus for winning (a rule change which was adopted on the daytime version in 2009).
Hole in One (or Two): Small prizes were used instead of grocery items. When an item was chosen, its price was immediately revealed and then placed in line if it was higher than the previous prize chosen. On the daytime version, the price flags are arranged in line according to the contestant's choice before the prices are revealed.
Magic #: This used a Double Prices-like prop to hold the prices of the two prizes rather than the models hold them. The Magic Number set by the contestant playing was superimposed in between.
Plinko: While the top prize remained the same at $5000 per chip for a potential total of $25,000, two configurations of slots were utilized (one of which featured replaced the outer $100 slots with two $2500 slots). The method of earning chips was also changed from choosing the right number in the right position to a higher/lower pricing format with smaller prizes worth up to $400.
Punch-A-Bunch: During some playings, Davidson pulled the slip out of the hole as soon as it was punched. The player then decided to keep the money or punch another hole. On the daytime show, the slips are not revealed until the contestant has made all of his or her initial punches.
Safe Crackers: Instead of having the secondary prize (the one in which its price doubles as the safe's combination) inside the safe with the main prize, the secondary prize was outside the safe and talked about after the model locked the door.
Superball: Instead of waiting until guessing all three small prizes before rolling the balls, the player rolled after each correct guess.
3 Strikes: The first number was lit at the beginning of the game and the number could repeat elsewhere in the price. Four chips representing the remaining numbers in the price were then placed into the bag with three strike chips. These rules were adopted on the daytime show in 2008, but the game's original rules returned in 2009. Also, the super-imposed "NO" sign for misplaced numbers was replaced with a red box which appeared around the space where the contestant thought the number he/she pulled out belonged in; it melted down the on the screen if the contestant was wrong.

Running Gags[]

To add comedy to the show, some running gags (besides Doug Davidson's improv) were present:

Hole in One: If the contestant missed his/her first putt, Davidson would mindlessly wander around, feeling sorry for the contestant, until he'd "accidentally" press the button that flips the sign that says "ONE" to the other side that says "OR TWO".
Make Your Mark: Although only played once (and sadly a loss) the comedy bit that would have been the running gag consisted of Davidson giving the contestant $100 to start with, only to have the producer walk out and remind him the correct amount was $500.
Cliff Hangers: Davidson referred to the mountain climber as "Hans" , similar to how Dennis James referred to him as "Fritz" and Drew Carey referring to him as "Yodely Guy".
Magic #: Davidson referred to the Magic # props as the "geezmo" and the lever as the "leever".
3 Strikes: Some jokes, such as a rubber chicken or a severed hand would be placed in the bag for humor.

Showcase Showdown[]

The Price WAS Right - The three players stand in front of the stage, arranged either by least to most winnings or by the order they were called. A vintage commercial for a product was presented to the three contestants who were then asked to bid on what the product cost at the time the commercial first aired. The contestant with the closest bid without going over advanced to the Showcase. In the event that all three contestants overbid (which rarely happened), the bids were erased and began again, with Davidson instructing contestants to bid lower than the lowest bid in the previous round. No bonus was awarded for a "Perfect Bid."

The Mighty Price is Right Wheel - The object of the game is to come as close as you can to $1.00 without going over. Anything over $1.00 loses the game. The wheel is positioned on $1.00 prior to each spin. Each player will take up to two spins of the wheel, the wheel must go all the way around at least one time, or the contestant in control would get jeered and must do it again. After the first spin, the spinner can choose to either stay with what he/she landed on or spin again (unless his/her score is less than the leading one, in which case he/she must spin again), on the second spin, whatever the contestant hits will be added to the first score, and (as previously mentioned) if he/she went over $1.00, that contestant is eliminated from the game, otherwise, that player stands under the scoreboard and waits it out. When all three contestants have taken their spins, the contestant closest to $1.00 wins the game and goes into the Showcase round. If the first two contestants both go over, the third and final contestant automatically advances to the Showcase but only gets one spin to see if they can get $1.00. If the game ends in a tie, the tied contestants play a Spin-Off game where each player gets only one spin, and the highest number wins.

Should a contestant spin $1.00 in one or both spins, they win $1,000 and a bonus spin. Before starting a bonus spin, the wheel gets set to 5 cents so that it cannot land on a winning prize without making a complete revolution. In the Bonus Spin should the wheel land on a green bonus space (either 5¢ or 15¢), the contestant won an additional $5,000, but if he/she hit the red bonus space ($1.00) in the bonus spin, the winning contestant won an additional $10,000.

The Showcase[]

The Showcase Showdown winner faced a $60,000 rangefinder ($10,000 to $70,000). During the show's final commercial break, the winner of the Showcase Showdown chose a range at random between $3000 and $10,000 (in $1000 increments).

A single showcase was then presented. Once it was finished, the rangefinder was started up the scale. The contestant pulled a lever when they thought the showcase value was contained within the range. If correct, the contestant won the showcase, which was generally worth between $20,000-$60,000.

Although this Showcase format was unsuccessful in the United States, a modified version of this is used on versions of the show in other countries.

Models[]

Julie Lynn Cialini
Ferrari Farris
Lisa Stahl

Merchandise[]

Main Article: The Price is Right (1994)/Merchandise

Trivia[]

The show's set, some props and its theme song were reused and recycled later for the unsold 1994 lottery game show pilot called Cash Tornado, hosted by the late former Card Sharks star and the late announcer Jim Perry and Gene Wood respectively. In addition, veteran TPIR producer Roger Dobkowitz was a contestant playing Force Field, and Lisa Stahl modeled. Stahl later became the second hostess of the syndicated lottery game show Flamingo Fortune.

The theme was also used on the British version of TPIR called Bruce's Price is Right hosted by the late Bruce Forsyth it ran on ITV from 1995 until 2001. It was also used in some international versions of TPIR such as Israel and Spain for example.

Host Doug Davidson is best known for playing as Paul Williams on CBS's long-running daytime soap opera The Young & The Restless.

Davidson has appeared on Family Feud during Soap Opera Specials on both the Combs and Karn versions, competing against Barker and the CBS Price on the former.

Davidson has also hosted live stage versions of both The Price is Right and Family Feud.

This version was launched by Jonathan Goodson as an attempt to modernize the show an attract a younger demographic as the CBS Version at the time had a stigma of being "old" and having an aging audience with it. In addition, Goodson feared that the daytime version's host Bob Barker was getting old as he wouldn't continue to host much longer.

Besides both versions being Goodson shows and taping at the same studio, this version used a completely different cast and crew from its daytime counterpart.

The models were much younger than those from its daytime counterpart. Of the three, Lisa Stahl was the oldest at the age of 29. By comparison, all three regular daytime Price models at the time were at least 40-50 years old; Kathleen Bradley was 43, Holly Hallstrom was 42 while the longest-tenured Janice Pennington was 52.

In 2001, Richardson was a "temporary replacement" for the late Rod Roddy on the regular daytime version of Price who was diagnosed with colon cancer at the time. He would also appear as a substitute announcer in 2006 when Rich Fields had Laryngitis.

A music package by Edd Kalehoff was made for this version, along with some recycled cues from the daytime version thrown in for certain events. This package was recycled into the daytime, Million Dollar Spectaculars and Gameshow Marathon episodes after this version's cancellation.