The Price is Right - Drew Carey Era

Today was the long-anticipated premiere of the 36th season of "The Price is Right". The show has finally moved on to its second host ever, Drew Carey.

Before anything I must address that this was a rare PERFECT SHOW, where each contestant in all six pricing games wins the prize. Even more than that, someone hit a dollar on the wheel in BOTH showcase showdowns, making it what I have dubbed an "uber-perfect show". The way it was going I expected someone in the final showcase showdown to be within 250 dollars and win both showcases, which would have created the probably the first of its kind "mega-uber show". Alas, this did not occur.

But the main story remains - Drew Carey's first show. How did he seem to fit in?

I thought he was terrible.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not calling for Drew Carey's firing on this one. I'm going to have infinite patience - I'd rather people just be happy and have the show continue on then have some hosting controversy. But the show's brain trust could not have chosen someone more different than Bob Barker.

First it starts with the speech pattern. In addition to their voices being completely different, Barker had a long, slow delivery that he honed into a flare for the dramatic. Carey speaks super fast and has a shill voice and squirrely laugh. A lot of what Barker did best was fill space, he seemed to be always talking - but not really saying much. Like when someone would get called down to contestant's row, Barker was always narrating their run, something I never really thought of much until I watched today and heard nothing from Carey. I wanted to go out there with him and coach him how to speak like Barker.

Carey's sense of humor doesn't really work for the show either. He made a few sarcastic quibs here and there, but they don't really play well on the show. He is certainly aware of the overall ridiculousness of the show and had no problem mentioning it occasionally, but that's not what people want to hear from the host, even though in reality it is funny.

Carey also came off (at least to me) as extremely nervous. It seemed every time he said something or was with a guest on stage, he would talk and then awkwardly finger his jacket pocket like he wanted to put his hand in his pocket and then decided not to. He stumbled on his words a lot, had trouble explaining the games, and just in general looked like he was hosting his first show. His timing was also wayyyy off - on the "One Away" game for a chance to win a car, he did the last two numbers so quickly the camera wasn't even showing them when they were revealed that the contestant had won. I guess the crew is used to Barker, too.

Carey comes off as completely genuine - he's friendly with the contestants, the ladies, even disembodied voice Rich Fields. He smiles a lot and unfortunately laughs a lot too. But with the exception of being creepy with beautiful women, there is no comparison between the two. Now it would be impossible for anyone to be like Bob Barker (although I think Dan Patrick would have been great), but Carey needs to do a little something to emulate him. Although he did end the show with "help control the pet population, have your pets spayed or neutered".

The Price is..... I can't bring myself to make the easiest joke in the book

Watching the WBZ 4 News at 6 tonight, the guy who sits next to Sara Underwood reported that Drew Carey will announce on his Letterman appearance tonight that he has been offered and will accept the job as host of the Price is Right (before going on to suggest to Bob Lobel that he host the show - which would be 1,000 times more entertaining - then explaining that Lobel would be great hosting "plungo")*.

ANYWAY, I'm not thrilled about Carey filling in Bob Barker's shoes (although I recall past stories of Carey being a womanizer, which would fit in perfectly)**. I must say I was pulling for Dan Patrick - he has the perfect game show personality and has the dry wit and experience of dealing with people and TV... forget that. As I typed that sentence I realized that the absolute PERFECT choice in my mind would have been Kenny Mayne... but he probably wouldn't take the show seriously enough, which is why for the show itself Patrick would have been perfect. It kills me that he was actually offered the job and turned it down - I think he has too much professionalism left in him. I also wonder how many people were offered the job before Carey.

ANYWAY, the main point of this tangent filled post was Drew Carey, and I'm not quite sure what to think of him. But this probably would have been the case for whoever was named host, since NOBODY has hosted besides Barker. Carey definitely increases the comedy factor of the show, but still should be able to run a tight ship. His voice is significantly inferior to Barker's, and it's hard to imagine the type of people who would show up with a shirt professing their love for Drew Carey... I shudder to think what they would look like. I also can't imagine him holding the crazy 1 inch by 3 foot microphone, especially in comparison to a man of his girth. And now that he's rolling in the lap of luxury with the sweetest gig on TV, what if he balloons up to 300 lbs? Why don't we just get Louie Anderson to host in that case. I also can't imagine he'll continue Barker's war against the pet population, so I don't know how he'll sign off. I'm praying it won't be "Cleveland Rocks!". But here's what I CAN imagine Carey doing: Rod Roddy's old job of calling people down. He'd be perfect.

Nonetheless, I must still look forward to a new era of the Price is Right. I'm sick of watching reruns.


* the actual name of the game is, of course, "Plinko"
** I have no evidence to back up this accusation