Welcome to “Game Show Round Table” Tonight: The Price Is Right, which is the best game, the toughest game, the most entertaining game…and what, if any, are the religious and philosophical implications of Plinko.
:: jarbaby sucks on a pipe, reclines in leather chair::
I’ll start us off by saying the Matterhorn Yodelling game is clearly THE MOST FUN and the MOST ENTERTAINING to the audience, although clearly it is a subliminally charged game expressing to the audience the sheer material gain that comes with being a man of Nordic dissent. And as a symbol of the dangers of excess, we see the man plummet to his death when we ask too much of him.
Interesting…and thought provoking. And now, let’s open it up to the panel.
Could one be left to a more random game of chance? Bob Barker and his bevy of assorted Beauties throw contestants into the swirling winds of chaos with each attempt to abscond with the big money.
Plinko. Loosely based on pachinko? I think so.
The randomness eliminates any chance for the contestant to win based upon skill, or even supermarket savvy. I detest plinko, as well as the Matterhorn game, although I kind of like the Yodeling. I wish I had an MP3 of it. If they were to play the yodel during Plinko, would the contestants be lulled into a false sense of safety?
So in a way, Plinko is a fatalistic view of life itself. We don’t know what chute we’ll end up coming out of, and whether we’ll win a car or just the number 4
There is some skill element in Plinko, notably the number of disks the contestant gets, determined by his/her success at some kind of true/false, higher/lower pricing game.
I notice that some games have been made obsolete by inflation. Ten Chances, for instance, required the price of the car be four digits. A five-digit price doesn’t fit as well.
I also object to the welfare-state proletarian influence in denigrating the skill and majesty of our institutions and watering down the natural selection process that should allow the truly evolved individual to rise above the gray masses. Hole in One or Two indeed! Hmph!
Your post raises an interesting thought. The Price is Right is biasedly favored towards the capitalist pigs of our society, holding down those of us who perhaps put more value on things WITHOUT a price tag.
What of the game “Ten Chances”? Ten chances are many more than one may receive in one’s life, but often far too few to win a toaster, a dinette set, and a car.
Behold the contestant, as he/she is given a choice of digits. From these digits, a number must be constructed, a number which coincides with the pretended value of the prize. With trepidation, the contestant writes his/her chosen number on the blue paper. Bob Barker, Ganesh-like in his ability to create or destroy hopes, presses the button, in the same way that the executioner flips the fateful switch. What will it be? The cheery bell-ringing that accompanies a successful match and the giving of gifts (akin to a wedding in so many aspects), or the dread buzzer, the sound that reeks of loss, despair, and rejection?
All the while, Barker’s Beauties, those vestal virgins of mid-morning television, grin manaically and pose woodenly. Do they weep inwardly at contestants’ losses, or do they secretly mock those who made the wrong choices?
Let those who follow Plinko rejoice and condemn the vagaries of fate. I will choose Free Will. I will make my own Ten Chances.
Each Plinko contestant is issued one free chance, as I recall. The odds of that one chip hitting hte jackpot is equivalent to the odds of any other chip hitting the jackpot. Therefore, although the more supermarket savvy person has more chances to win, the odds per event are the same. This unfairly rewards the contestant who may be inferior in all facets, but has a pact with the nefarious underworld master affecting gravitational cooperation.
Thank you, j, for bring this up. My grandfather, who was deaf as a stone toward the end of his life, loved nothing more than to watch TPIR. Given his deafness, he had to watch it at a volume that could crack granite. This made being in the same house with him when TPIR a particular form of hell.
$2600…NO…$2575…HIGHER…HIGHER…LOWER…WHAT’S YOUR BID, CRYSTAL…$2000…NO…$2…CRYSTAL, WHAT’S YOUR BID…
Plus, Rod Roddy? What the hell kind of name is that for anyone but a porn star?
If I recall, the game has changed somewhat since my youth. They used to put all 3 strike chips into the bag at the start of the game. Now, it is just one chip, and they put it back in when it’s picked. I still have not seen anyone defeat the Baseball Bag of Doom.
It must be very disheartening to see the $40,000 car you could win, and then see that you have to play 3 Strikes.
They must put some sort of coating on the chips that makes people select them more often. I wonder if a study has been done.
I would also add that the “go over wiht your bid and you lose rule” sucks eggs big time. This is especially true in the Showcase Showdown (note capital letters indicating a very important title). Your bid is over by $10 on some collection of stuff whose “suggested retail price” is culled from some alternate reality that I’m not familiar with while some drooling cretin underbids by $15,000 and wins??? I ask you, who has made the better bid? The rank injustice of it all is enough to make one weep.
I also concur that Holly was a babe.
The Price is Right can be seen as an interpretation of the Final Judgement-with some additions, though. St. Peter (a.k.a. Rod Roddy) picks people from the world (audience) at random, asking them to “come on down.” You must test your might (game) to see if you will go to Heaven (win the prize/money) or Hell (lose).
Of course, this is open to interpretation. What is the pricing that determines which of the four leaves Contestant’s Row™ represent? Is Bob Barker God, Satan, or both? Though he mostly gives you only one chance most of the time, he is very kind-people kiss him, and it’s not just Hole in One-it’s Hole in One or Two. And where the hell do the Showcase Showdown and Showcase fit in? Once you die, you must see if you can advance to a more wonderful death? Maybe the pricing game is step one- the Big Wheel being the River Styx, and the the Showcase itself choosing whether you go to Heaven or Hell.
Maybe this theory is not as rock solid as I thought.
And oh, how cruel is that wheel they spin? Trying to lull them into thinking they have some control, when in the end they are spinning away their very life to the cruel mistress that is fate.
I for one have always wanted to see a theme show where all the contestants come from the buying department in the Pentagon.
The Higher/Lower Game
Here we have a hammer!
contestant $912
Bob Lower
Contestant $910
Bob Much Lower!
Then the big showcase
What’s your bid on a military incursion in the Carribean! Included in this prize package are round trip transportation for one Airborne division! Plus! Two amphbious landings! and Air support from a Carrier group!
