I imagine it will hit Youtube later today, but for the first time in 36 years, someone got the exact bid on the final bid. It was odd, because his final bid was $23,476 or something like that, and Drew had commented on it.
When they came back from break, they read the other person’s price first and she was off by $494. She thought for sure she had it, but the first guy had it right on the nose and won both showcases.
Doesn’t the contestant win both showcases if their guess is within $1000?
You can bet that guy’s going to be investigated something fierce before they give him the prize. I didn’t see the show, but that smells fishy as anything.
They win both if it is within $250 (used to be $100). Drew seemed really laid back about the whole thing, kind of weird.
IIRC, he also got the exact price on the item up for bid when he was on contestant’s row. But he didn’t win his game.
You also have to be the winner. (And, as Tommy said, the limit is $250.)
Has there ever been a tie in the Showcase? A tie within the limit to win both showcases?
This reminds me of the episode of How I Met Your Mother where Barney was convinved that Bob Barker was his father and lived his life obsessively watching The Price is Right. He went on TPIR as a contestant and guessed most of the prices to the exact dollar figure.
It was bound to happen sometime. According to imdb, TPIR has been on since 1972. Say 200 episodes a year, you get 7200 showcases, and 14,400 contestants. Assume that all but the most braindead can get within $20,000 of the actual price, it’s not unlikely that a perfect guess would happen after 14,400 trials.
I saw one time when a person was within $100, but unfortunately went over.
I vaguely remember watching an episode when a woman was only $2 off, many years ago, and so she won both.
–Cliffy
Not super familiar with the show, but if there were some shenanigans going on, he wouldn’t use the exact number, would he?
Ahh, but that’s the genius of it you see…
I seem to recall some time ago a woman being off by $1. There’s got to be a list somewhere of the closest ever.
No he wouldn’t. He would round it down at least by a few dollars. Especially since getting within a $100 is a big deal.
Meh, they might look around for any obvious signs of info leakage but it wouldn’t be worth any massive full-scale investigation. Somebody wins a showcase on most shows anyway, and sometimes they give away both. Already factored in as a cost of doing business, and they still pull plenty of money. If anything their ratings could spike a little after this - anything that gets people talking about the show is good business for them.
As long as it doesn’t become habitual where people are guessing the exact showcase value on every show, they’re not going to be seriously accused of shenanigans.
Damn it, I missed it from oversleeping! I love TPIR and now I’m all miffed.
I remember both of these myself. If I’m not mistaken, they were within a week or two of each other. Early 80s would be my guess.
You still have shows like this on US TV?
Is that Drew Carey? How come he is presenting this shit?
Confused.
Well, the thing is, there’s an entire website (golden-road.net) filled with obsessed TPiR fans, who watch so often they can tell you with a lot of confidence the price on any number of a wide array of prizes frequently used on the show. They can listen to the car spiel and tell you how options not mentioned will affect the price. And so on. Some members have taken up the (mildly controversial) habit of sitting in the audience and helping out onstage contestants.
My guess is that, like a previous prime time million dollar winner, this contestant took advantage of that brain trust somehow.