The Price Is Right is an American game show produced by Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions, wherein contestants placed successive bids on merchandise prizes with the goal of bidding closest to each prize's actual retail price without surpassing it. The show was a precursor to the current and best-known version of the program, which premiered in 1972 on CBS's daytime schedule. It makes The Price Is Right one of only a few game show franchises to have aired in some form across all three of the Big Three television networks.
The series, hosted by Bill Cullen, premiered on NBC's daytime schedule on November 26, 1956, and quickly spawned a primetime series that aired once a week. The Price Is Right became one of the few game shows to survive the rigging scandals of the late 1950s, gaining even more popularity after other game shows had been canceled when exposed for being rigged.
The show was sponsored primarily throughout its run by Unilever, then known as Lever Brothers Corporation, and the specific products that were often featured were Imperial margarine, Wisk laundry detergent, Handy Andy liquid cleaner, and Dove bath and beauty bar.
The four contestants of the week would usually receive a complimentary supply of Dove beauty bars.
An alternate sponsor was Speidel watchbands, notably their then-new Twist-O-Flex bands.
In 1963, The Price Is Right switched networks and both the daytime and primetime series moved to ABC. On September 3, 1965, the show aired its final episode after nearly nine years on the air.
Game play
On the original version of The Price Is Right, four contestants – one a returning champion, the other three chosen from the studio audience – bid on items or ensembles of items in an auction-style format.
A prize was presented for the contestants to bid on. A minimum bid was specified. After the opening bid, contestants bid on the item in turn with each successive bid a certain amount higher than the previous bid. A contestant could freeze their current bid instead of increasing it if they believed their bid was close enough to win. A later rule allowed contestants, on their opening bid only, to "underbid" the other bids, but it automatically froze their bid and prevented them from later increasing the original bid. Some rounds were designated as "one-bid" rounds, where only one round of bidding was held (the format used on the current version of The Price is Right); sometimes the minimum-bid and higher-bid threshold rules also were waived.
Other than in one-bid rounds, the bidding continued until a buzzer sounded, at which point each contestant who had not yet "frozen" was given one final bid. Bidding also ended when three of the contestants had frozen, at which point the fourth contestant was allowed one final bid unless they already had the high bid. Cullen then read the actual retail price of the prize. The contestant whose bid was closest without going over the actual price won the item. If everyone overbid, the prize was not won; however, Cullen sometimes had the overbids erased and instructed players to give lower bids prior to reading the actual price (similar to what is done on the current CBS version and its syndicated spinoffs).
After most one-bid rounds, a bonus game was played, in which the winner of the one-bid prize would play a random game (such as wordplay or tune-matching) for additional prizes.
After a set number of rounds (four on the nighttime version, six on the daytime), the contestant who accumulated the highest value in cash and prizes became the champion and returned on the next show.
Home Viewer Showcases
The Price Is Right frequently featured a home viewer "Showcase", a multi-prize package for which home viewers were invited to submit their bids via postcard. The viewer who was closest to the actual retail price without going over won everything in the Showcase, but one item was sometimes handmade so the viewer could not check the price of all the items. The term "showcase" was later replaced by "sweepstakes".
Very often, home viewers were stunningly accurate with their bids, including several viewers who guessed the price correct down to the penny. In such a case, the tied contestants originally were informed via telegram and asked to give the price of a specific item and continuing until one broke the tie. Re-ties and all-overbids were thrown out. By the time of the ABC run, the tiebreaker changed so that the person who was first to send in the correct bid won the prize.